Author: Ritika Tiwari

While Shootsta positions itself as a video production company, it actually only offers video editing services with no support for video shoots. So you have to keep filming in-house, and they will handle the post-production side. For brands that already have people who know how to operate a camera, that split can save money and keep brand control sitting with your team on the capture side.

Here’s where teams tend to feel the gap with Shootsta:

• Filming eats into your team’s bandwidth: Every shoot needs someone on your side to plan it, set up the kit, operate the camera, and manage the assets afterwards. That’s a real job, and most marketing teams underestimate how much of their week disappears into it.
• The model assumes capability you might not have: If you don’t have an internal video team, half of what Shootsta sells doesn’t apply to you. You end up paying for a post-production engine with no fuel to feed it.
• Pricing isn’t transparent: Plan costs aren’t published anywhere, so to compare Shootsta against any other option, you have to get on a call with their team first.

If any of those friction points apply to you, here are the Shootsta alternatives worth considering

1. SoCreative

SoCreative is a subscription-based video and design production service that takes the entire chain off your team, including the part that Shootsta hands back. You pick a quarterly plan, draw from a fixed pool of credits, and use those credits for shoots, editing, motion graphics, and design. Each credit equals a finished deliverable, so you know what a project costs before it even starts.

The entire workflow runs through one platform. Your briefs, feedback, revisions, and final delivery all sit in the same place, and a dedicated project manager runs point on every request so you’re never coordinating between separate vendors or chasing status updates yourself. Dedicated in-house editors handle the post-production, and a global network of vetted videographers covers shoots in whichever markets you operate in. Most edits come back to you within 24-48 hours. Learn more about how SoCreative works.

Why teams choose SoCreative over Shootsta

• No filming on your end: You book a shoot, get matched with a videographer from the global network, and receive the edit through the same platform. Your team doesn’t have to touch a camera unless you want it to.
• Consistency across markets: Vetted videographers work to the same brief and brand standards, so a shoot you run in Sydney doesn’t look like a different brand from one you run in Berlin.
• Pricing you can see before you talk to anyone: The Starter plan begins at $4,200/quarter with 6 credits, and it’s published openly rather than gated behind a sales call.
• Credits over capacity: You pay per finished deliverable, not per hour of work you can’t predict. The cost stays the same whether the shoot takes one day or three.
• One platform for the entire workflow: Briefs, shoot coordination, edits, revisions, and final delivery all happen in the same system, with one project manager owning the timeline.
• No annual contract: Plans run quarterly, so you can adjust your capacity as campaigns shift through the year.

2. Superside

Superside packages video, design, motion, and creative strategy into a single enterprise contract. Though the platform is built more for larger marketing organizations rather than for scaling teams that need flexibility.

Pros

• One contract covers video, design, motion, and creative strategy
• Large in-house creative team handles production at volume
• Suited to enterprise marketing organizations with steady demand

Cons

• Locks you into a 12-month commitment from day one
• Adds a $1,000/month platform fee on top of your production spend
• Plan costs require a sales call before you can compare anything

–> Take a look at the top Superside alternatives

3. Design Pickle

Design Pickle is primarily a graphic design subscription, with video editing offered as an add on in one of the top tiers. Even the editing volume on offer is heavily restricted.

Pros

• Solid for ongoing graphic design, illustrations, and presentations
• Unlimited revisions across all plans
• Dedicated team that learns your brand over time

Cons

• Video editing only on the $2,300/month plan, with one final video per month
• No shoot support, which leaves the same gap as Shootsta on the same side
• Pricing is hour-based, so heavier editing months still cap at the same output

-> Take a look at the top Design Pickle alternatives

4. Kimp

Kimp runs a flat-rate unlimited model across editing and design. If your bottleneck is the volume of edits and someone else is already filming for you, it’s a real option to consider. If you need original shoots as well, then it may not be the right fit.

Pros

• Flat monthly rate covers unlimited editing and design requests
• Combined graphics + video plan supports a wide range of content types
• Your whole team can submit requests under one subscription

Cons

• Editing only, with no shoot capability, so the filming gap stays open
• Complex projects can stretch out to 2-4 business days
• Not designed for multi-region production or campaign-scale output

Choose the right Shootsta alternative

The case for Shootsta rests on one assumption, which is that your team has the time, training, and consistency to film well on a regular basis. When that assumption holds up, the Shootsta can become a good partner for your brand. When it doesn’t, Shootsta becomes an expensive option.

SoCreative removes that with a  global videographer network. The same platform runs your briefs, edits, revisions, and final delivery. Credits roll over while your subscription stays active, plans adjust quarterly based on your needs, and most edits come back to you within 24-48 hours.

Design Pickle is a design subscription service that helps teams produce a steady flow of social graphics, presentations, and marketing assets. But its services and pricing are structured around design hours, not finished output. So when video became central, the plan didn’t bend with it. 

Here’s where teams tend to feel the gap with Design Pickle:

• Video editing is gated to one plan: While the basic plan starts at $1600 per month, video editing is only available on the $2300 per month tier which only offers 3 hours of video editing and one final video per month
• No support for shoots: You still need to source and manage videographers yourself, then send raw footage in for editing
• Capacity-based pricing: You pay for creative hours per day, so cost depends on how long a project takes–not what you actually get at the end
• Hours don’t roll over: Unused capacity resets each cycle. You can’t bank it for a heavier production month

In this blog, we take a look at the best Design Pickle alternatives so you can choose the best subscription service for your business. 

1. SoCreative

SoCreative is a subscription-based video and design production service built around a credit-based model. You pick a quarterly plan, get a fixed number of credits, and use them across video shoots, editing, motion graphics, and design. Every plan includes the same features and each credit represents a finished deliverable, not hours worked.

All of your briefs, feedback, revisions, and delivery happen on one platform which makes it easier to track everything. While dedicated in-house editors handle video work, shoots are fulfilled through a global network of vetted videographers. Everything is coordinated with you through your project manager who becomes your main point of contact for all the projects. Also, most edits land within 24-48 hours so you don’t have to worry about missing a deadline.

→ Learn more about how SoCreative works

Why teams choose SoCreative over Design Pickle

• Video included from the Starter plan: No need to upgrade to a higher tier to access editing. The Starter plan begins at $4,200/quarter with 6 credits
• Credits, not hours: You pay per finished deliverable, so the cost of each project is clear before you submit it
• Shoot support built in: Book a shoot, get matched with a videographer from the global network, and receive the edited video back through the same platform
• Credits roll over: Unused credits carry forward while your subscription stays active
• Flexible allocation across formats: Use credits for long-form videos, short-form cuts, motion graphics, or static design–whatever the campaign needs.
• Quarterly plans: Adjust capacity every quarter as priorities shift. No annual contract.

2. Kimp

Kimp offers unlimited video editing and design requests on a flat monthly subscription. The combined Graphics + Video plan bundles static design with editing and motion graphics into a single rate, which works well for teams pushing high volumes of edits each month.

Pros

• Unlimited editing and design requests on a flat monthly rate
• Combined plan covers 100+ content types
• Unlimited team members on all plans
  

Cons

• No support for video shoots–editing only
• Complex videos and designs can take 2–4 business days
• Not built for multi-region campaigns or original production

3. Shootsta

Shootsta runs a hybrid model where your team captures footage internally, and Shootsta’s platform and editing team handle post-production. It’s designed for organizations that want to scale video without fully outsourcing the filming step.

Pros

• Scripting tools, project management, and asset storage included
• Built to scale video across internal teams and regions
• Good fit for organizations with internal video capability

Cons

• Your team has to handle shooting and footage capture
• Pricing isn’t clearly published
• Not a full-service production option

4. Superside

Superside bundles video, design, motion, and creative strategy into a single enterprise-grade service. For large in-house teams with the budget and contract flexibility to match, it delivers. For smaller teams, the commercial structure can be a barrier.

Pros

• End-to-end coverage across video, design, motion, and strategy
• Built for enterprise-scale output

Cons

• 12-month minimum contract on every plan
• $1,000/month platform fee on top of production budget
• Pricing isn’t published transparently on the website

→ Take a look at the top Superside alternatives

Choose the right Design Pickle alternative

Design Pickle’s model works for brands when design is the main output and video is occasional. The structure starts to break when you want to produce videos at scale.

With SoCreativ, you pay for finished deliverables, not hours. Video editing is included from the Starter plan. Shoots are coordinated through the same platform that handles your edits and design work. Credits roll over while your subscription is active, and plans adjust quarterly based on what your team actually needs.

If video is a meaningful part of how your team produces content, SoCreative is built around that from the first plan up.

Superside is a design subscription platform that bundles video production, design, motion graphics, and creative strategy into a single service. For enterprise marketing teams with enterprise budgets, it works. But it may not be the right fit for every team, here’s why: 

• Pricing isn’t transparent: Superside doesn’t publicly share monthly plan costs or credit allocations on its website. You have to book a demo to find out whether it fits your budget.
• A one-year minimum commitment: Every Superside plan requires a 12-month contract. For scaling companies where priorities shift quarter to quarter, that can be a hard ask.
• Monthly service fee: On top of the production budget, Superside also charges a separate $1,000 platform fee each month. For enterprise spends it’s negligible; for smaller budgets, it’s a meaningful share of total cost.
• Built for enterprise: The service is optimized for large enterprise marketing teams and in-house agencies

If any of those are friction points, here are the top Superside alternatives should consider:


Key takeaways

• Superside is built for enterprise. It comes with12-month contracts and a $1,000 monthly platform fee 
• SoCreative is the closest full-service alternative, with public pricing, quarterly plans, and credits that cover shoots, editing, motion graphics, and design.
• Design Pickle and Kimp work well for graphic design at scale, but both have limited video capabilities and no shoot support.
• Shootsta fits teams that already film internally and need to scale post-production, not teams looking for end-to-end production.

1. SoCreative

SoCreative is a subscription-based video and design production service built around a transparent, credit-based model. So, instead of paying for total creative hours or bundled enterprise services, you pay for finished deliverables. With your monthly plan,  credits can be allocated across video shoots, editing, motion graphics, and design work.

Every plan includes a centralized platform for briefs, feedback, and delivery. Video editing is handled by dedicated in-house editors. Shoots are fulfilled through a global network of vetted videographers and photographers, coordinated through the same platform. Most edits are delivered in 24-48 hours.

There’s no annual lock-in and subscriptions are quarterly. If you have any credits left at the end of the month, they get rolled over to the next month (as long as your subscription stays active).

SoCreative is built for teams that need transparent pricing, flexible commitment terms, and a model that works from month one. (Take a look at our in-depth SoCreative vs Superside comparison)

Why teams choose SoCreative over Superside

• Transparent pricing: All plans, credit allocations, and per-credit costs are published publicly. There’s no demo required to find out what it costs.
• No annual commitment: Subscriptions run quarterly, not yearly. Adjust plans as your needs change.
• No separate service fee: The platform, briefing tools, and design service are all included in the subscription price.
• Credit-based model: Credits can be used flexibly across shoots, edits, motion graphics, and design.
• End-to-end video production: SoCreative also supports shoots through the global videographer network, not just editing.
• 24–48 hour turnaround: Most video edits get delivered in a day or two so you can always launch your campaigns on time.
• Fits any team size: SoCreative is built for startups, scaling companies, and global enterprises alike.

2. Design Pickle

Design Pickle is a subscription-based creative service focused on graphic design at scale, with limited video editing capabilities gated behind higher-tier plans. Pricing runs on a capacity model where you pay for creative hours per day rather than finished deliverables.

–> Take a look at our in-depth SoCreative vs Design Pickle comparison

Pros

• Unlimited revisions across all plans
• 1-2 business day turnaround on design work
• Broad coverage on graphic design, illustrations, presentations
• Dedicated team matched to your brand

Cons

• Pricing tied to hours, not output which makes scaling video production unpredictable
• Video editing only available on the $2,300/month plan. And even then, only one final edited video per month on the video-enabled plan
• No support for video shoots

3. Kimp

Kimp offers unlimited design and video editing requests on a flat monthly subscription. Their combined Graphics + Video plan bundles static design with video editing and motion graphics into a single rate.

Pros

• Unlimited video editing and design requests on a flat monthly rate
• Combined Graphics + Video plan covers 100+ content types
• Unlimited team members on all plans

Cons

• No support for video shoots; editing only
• Complex designs and videos can take 2-4 business days
• Not built for large-scale production or multi-region campaigns
  

4. Shootsta

Shootsta runs a hybrid model where your team captures footage internally while Shootsta’s platform and editing team handle post-production. It’s designed for organizations that want to scale video production without fully outsourcing the filming step.

Pros

• Scripting tools, project management, and asset storage included
• Built for scaling video across internal teams and regions
• Good fit for organizations with internal video capability

Cons

• Your team has to handle shooting and footage capture

• Pricing isn’t clearly published
• Not a full-service production option

Choose the right Superside alternative

Superside is built for enterprise teams with enterprise budgets, and for those teams, it delivers. But if you’re working with a leaner budget, need to see pricing before committing to a sales call, or can’t sign a 12-month contract when your priorities shift every quarter, the model can feel like it wasn’t designed with you in mind.

SoCreative was built for teams in that position. All pricing is published upfront, subscriptions run quarterly, and credits can be allocated across shoots, editing, motion graphics, and design, so your production budget flexes with your actual needs rather than a contract you agreed to months ago.

Onboarding a design agency used to be the default answer for video and graphic design production and it didn’t matter whether you were a growing startup or an enterprise. If you needed quality work, you paid for a retainer, accepted the timelines, and hoped your requirements didn’t shift mid-flight.

But every time a new requirement came up, the project had to be re-scoped with new quotes, new timelines, and new approvals. And while all of that was happening, your team was losing critical time that should have been spent executing and scaling production.

That model is starting to show its limits. SoCreative, a design subscription service offers a different approach, one that’s built for continuous output instead of project-by-project scoping. You get a fixed number of credits per quarter and use them across video shoots, editing, motion graphics, and graphic design. 

In this blog, we compare SoCreative and design agencies on the basis of cost, speed, flexibility, and fit.

What is SoCreative?

SoCreative is a subscription-based video and design production service where you submit briefs through a centralized platform, get matched with videographers from a global network or the in-house editors, and receive final videos and design assets within 24 to 48 hours.

For a fixed quarterly fee, you get a fixed number of credits that can be used for any kind of design work, including video shoots, video editing and post-production, motion graphics and animation, and graphic design for video and marketing assets. You decide how to allocate credits each week based on what your campaigns actually need.

Every plan includes a dedicated project manager, unlimited users and asset storage, global timezone coverage, and stock music and AI licensing. Credits roll over while your subscription is active, and plans can be paused for up to 90 days without losing them.

–> Learn more about how SoCreative works

How do design agencies work?

Design agencies operate on a project-based model. You brief the agency, they scope the work, provide a quote, and deliver within an agreed timeline. For every new requirement or change in direction, the project gets re-scoped.

Some agencies offer monthly retainers instead of per-project pricing. The retainer gives you access to a set amount of the agency’s time each month. But the amount stays fixed regardless of whether your needs spike or drop. Quiet months burn the budget on output you didn’t need. Busy months push past the retainer and trigger overage fees.

What agencies do well and where they hit their structural limits

When you have a tentpole campaign that needs deep concepting, original creative direction, and multiple rounds of stakeholder alignment, a good agency earns its fee. They bring strategic thinking, production craft, and a team that can pull off the kind of work that moves a brand.

The problem is what happens when video stops being a campaign and starts being a pipeline–which is what brands need today to stay relevant online.

Here are some of the many places where agencies hit their structural limits: 

Every project gets re-scoped: Agencies price by project, which means every new deliverable triggers a new quotation and negotiations

Timelines are measured in weeks: Agency turnarounds are built around the rhythm of their teams, not yours. Getting an urgent video edited can be incredibly difficult.

Pricing isn’t always transparent: Agency pricing depends on who’s assigned, what’s included, what counts as a revision, and what gets billed separately. Two brands running identical campaigns can pay very different amounts. That’s fine when you’re budgeting one project at a time but it becomes a problem when you are trying to plan video production across a year.

SoCreative is built for continuous production

SoCreative’s production infrastructure is built around the way marketing teams actually ship video now.

When you submit a brief, you get matched with a videographer from a global network. Raw footage comes back, goes through editing, and lands in your queue–typically within 24-48 hours.

Here are some of the many advantages of partnering with SoCreative for your design requirements.

Scope doesn’t reset: Your second project isn’t a new negotiation. Credits get allocated based on complexity, and you decide where they go each week/month.

Pricing is predictable: You know exactly what you are spending each quarter. Unused credits don’t create surprise invoices, and scaling up doesn’t trigger an overuse negotiation.

Turnaround is measured in days: Most edits are delivered within 24-48 hours so you can continuously push out new campaigns with zero bottlenecks or delays. 

Global production runs without vendor sourcing: SoCreative’s network of vetted videographers covers multiple regions. Multi-market shoots don’t require building a new vendor network for each location.

SoCreative vs agencies: How the two approaches compare

Start producing video without the agency bottleneck

If you’re running a marketing team that ships constantly, the agency model probably isn’t slowing you down because your agency is bad. It’s slowing you down because the model was built for a different kind of work.

SoCreative gives you a way to produce video at the pace your channels actually demand with predictable costs, fast turnaround, and no re-scoping every time your plans shift.

Book a demo to see how it works. We’ll walk through how the platform fits into your current setup, based on your volume, your turnaround needs, and the kind of production your team actually ships.

Scaling video production and graphic design with just your in-house team sounds simple until you actually try to do it.

You have to schedule shoots, source and brief videographers, get the videos edited, go through all the revisions, and make sure the final output is approved by all the stakeholders. And your marketing team has to do it while still managing their existing responsibilities. 

In the end, your marketing team members can barely keep up, budgets shoot up drastically and you still struggle to scale production. 

SoCreative is a design subscription service that helps brands scale their video and graphic design needs without impacting their budgets or timelines.

The real question isn’t in-house or SoCreative–its where each one fits in your marketing production function. 

What in-house teams do well and where they hit their structural limits

In-house teams have the real advantage of knowing the brand inside out. They understand the tone, the internal language, and the stakeholder dynamics in the company. You don’t need to go through the whole onboarding process or worry about their availability when a new campaign kicks off.

For brands producing consistent, predictable volumes of work, a well-resourced in-house team is hard to beat.

But the question isn’t whether your marketing team is capable of producing high-quality assets. It’s whether they can keep up when demand surges. And for most internal teams, that’s where the structural limits start showing up.

Capacity is tied to headcount

A product launch requires five times the usual video output for six weeks. Then the campaign ends and demand drops just as fast.

But you can’t add three full-time video editors for a sprint and remove them when the campaign is over. Hiring takes months and it carries a fixed cost which can include salary, benefits, tools, onboarding.

That makes in-house teams expensive during quiet periods and undersized during busy ones. There’s no flexibility in the model.

Video production is a different capability set

Most in-house teams are design-first and skilled at static assets, decks, and brand materials. Full video production services, from shoot coordination to editing to motion graphics, require specialist skills. Even if you have video editors on the team, you would still have to look for freelance videographers for shoots. 

Building that capability in-house means hiring for roles that are expensive, hard to find, and underutilized outside of campaign peaks.

Multi-region shoots add coordination overhead

When a campaign needs shoots across multiple markets, your in-house team has to source, vet, and manage local videographers independently. That process can take longer than the production itself. It’s a workflow your team wasn’t built to run.

What SoCreative adds to an in-house setup

SoCreative is a design subscription service built for ongoing video and graphic design production. You submit briefs through a centralized platform, get matched with videographers from a global network or the in-house video editors, and receive edited videos and design assets delivered within 24 to 48 hours.

It is not a replacement for your in-house team. It’s the production layer that picks up what your team can’t absorb, including the overflow edits, the campaign spikes, and the multi-region shoots. And SoCreative does all that without adding headcount, extending timelines, or locking you into commitments that are hard to reverse.

The model is credit-based. You get a fixed number of credits per quarter and allocate them across whatever you need, whether it’s shoots, edits, motion graphics, or variations for paid campaigns. When demand spikes, you use more of your credits. When it drops, you’re not carrying a headcount you don’t need. Your credits can also get rolled onto the next quarter.

Here are some of the many advantages of using SoCreative

Your team stays focused on strategy: Your in-house team keeps doing what they do best: brand direction, creative strategy, stakeholder alignment. SoCreative handles the production volume that would otherwise stretch them past their bandwidth.

Execution scales without hiring: You can easily add more requests as campaigns grow, without renegotiating scope, onboarding new vendors, or waiting months for a new hire to ramp up production.

Global shoots run without vendor sourcing: SoCreative’s global network of vetted videographers and in-house video editors can handle the whole process, end-to-end. Your team doesn’t have to build separate vendor relationships in each market and then follow up with each one. 

Everything lives in one place: Briefs, assets, feedback, revisions, and delivery all happen on a centralized platform which means super easy coordination and zero communication gaps.

SoCreative vs in-house teams: How the two approaches compare

When SoCreative works best with your in-house team 

The in-house-plus-SoCreative model is particularly useful if your team matches any of these profiles:

• SaaS and tech brands with ongoing product updates, feature launches, and demos that need continuous video output
• Performance marketing teams running paid social campaigns that need frequent creative variations and quick turnarounds
• Multi-region brands executing shoots across markets without building separate vendor networks in each location
• Growth-stage marketing teams scaling output without scaling headcount or adding management overhead

Start producing video without the usual bottlenecks

SoCreative gives you a way to scale video and graphic design production without stretching your team, adding headcount, or managing another set of vendors. Your team focuses on the work only they can do. SoCreative handles the rest.

Book a demo to see how it works. We’ll walk through how the platform fits into your current setup