Top Clay Alternatives

If you’re exploring Top Clay Alternatives for your creative agency needs, you’re likely searching for a design partner that can deliver exceptional branding, UI/UX design, web development, motion graphics, and conversion optimization without the premium price tag or lengthy project timelines. Clay is a full-service creative agency designing and building inventive digital experiences across all platforms and brand touchpoints, with a cross-disciplinary team that combines strategy, branding, UX design, and technology. While Clay has built an impressive portfolio working with Fortune 100 companies including Meta, Google, Slack, Coinbase, and Amazon, their three engagement models—time & materials, fixed fee, and retainer—require customized proposals following discovery conversations, which can mean unpredictable costs and extended timelines.

This article focuses specifically on Clay’s creative agency services: branding, graphic design, UI/UX design, motion graphics and video production, and website development. While Clay offers additional capabilities, we’ll concentrate on comparing alternatives within these core creative disciplines that matter most to marketing leaders, UX directors, founders, and growth teams.

Why Marketing Leaders Search for Top Clay Alternatives

Chief Marketing Officers and marketing directors often seek alternatives to Clay when they need predictable budgeting for ongoing design work. While clients note that Clay’s services are expensive, they acknowledge the value and quality of the work delivered, with clients believing the investment was justified by superior results. However, for mid-sized companies managing quarterly budgets and seeking brand differentiation without enterprise-level spend, the lack of transparent pricing creates planning challenges.

UX Directors face a different friction point: Clay differentiates itself from large agencies where junior talent typically handles most work, with co-founders leading dedicated, senior-level teams with cross-disciplinary expertise. While this ensures quality, it also limits scalability for teams running 20+ experiments monthly across channels. When you need rapid iteration on landing pages, ad creatives, and funnel optimizations with 1-3 day turnaround, traditional agency project structures—even premium ones—can become bottlenecks.

Startup founders encounter cost barriers early. When your 75-person B2B SaaS company needs to establish a strong brand identity and create consistent marketing materials, Clay works with clients of all sizes from enterprise to startups, but pricing depends on budgetary constraints with customized proposals. The discovery process, while thorough, adds time that fast-moving startups often can’t afford when competing against established players.

Top Clay Alternatives: Subscription-Based Design Services

Design Joy: Premium Solo Designer Alternative

Design Joy offers two subscription plans: Standard for $4,995 per month or Pro for $7,995 per month, covering everything from graphic design to video editing, with Standard allowing one active request and Pro allowing two concurrent requests. Founded in 2017 and run entirely by Brett, Design Joy focuses on delivering top-notch quality to a limited roster of clients without hiring extra designers or outsourcing work.

Services covered: Logo design and branding, website design, social media graphics, presentations, print materials, mobile app design, and packaging design. Webflow development is available as an add-on for $999/month requiring an existing design subscription.

Delivery and team: On average, most requests are completed in just two days or less, though more complex requests can take longer. The single-designer model means you work directly with the founder, ensuring style consistency but limiting the breadth of design perspectives.

Best for: Established companies with proven revenue streams and healthy marketing budgets who value working directly with an experienced designer, including funded startups post-Series A and profitable SaaS companies who can justify $5,000+ monthly design investments.

Limitations: Design Joy only has one designer, meaning almost all users work directly with the founder with few opportunities to get different design styles, and the service is more expensive compared to other design agencies. No CRO, UX research, or AI implementation services are included.

ManyPixels: Affordable Global Design Team

ManyPixels operates three subscription tiers: Advanced plan costs $549 per month with one active project and standard delivery, Business plan is $899 monthly with two concurrent projects and faster delivery, and the highest tier costs $1,199 per month offering dedicated designer access with same-day delivery. Quarterly subscriptions receive a 10% discount, while annual subscriptions get 20% off the monthly rates.

Services covered: Graphic design and branding including logos, branding, presentations, social media graphics, illustrations, email designs, packaging, and print materials, plus video editing and motion graphics for social media content, product demos, and promotional campaigns including logo animations and explainer videos.

Delivery and team: ManyPixels targets 1-2 business day delivery for most design requests, though this varies by project complexity and subscription tier, with higher-tier plans including faster turnaround times and dedicated designer access. The Singapore-based service has served over 3,000 clients since its founding, focusing primarily on digital design work for businesses of various sizes.

Best for: Small businesses and startups needing regular social media graphics, web design, illustrations, and presentation design without the overhead of full-time designers. Notable clients include Teachable, Buffer, Decathlon, and the European Investment Bank.

Limitations: If you want other services included in your subscription like video or writing, you might need to look elsewhere, and while the 1-2 business day turnaround is good, custom illustrations often take longer and are exempt from the turnaround guarantee. No conversion optimization, UX research, or development services included.

Penji: Quality-Focused Unlimited Design

Penji has three pricing plans: Starter plan is $499 per month, Marketer plan is $995 per month, and Agency plan is $1,497 per month. Penji offers a discounted price if you pay quarterly (10%) or yearly (15%).

Services covered: Penji designers work on just about anything, including logos, infographics, websites and social media, apps, print materials, t-shirts, and illustrations. The Team level includes website and app design, custom illustrations, and infographics.

Delivery and team: Average design requests are turned around within 24 to 48 hours, though more complex requests with several components will likely take more time. Penji has a strict testing process for graphic designers and only hires the top 2% of all applicants.

Best for: Businesses seeking affordable and efficient graphic design services with the unlimited design model, fast turnaround times, and user-friendly platform making it valuable for businesses looking to scale content marketing efforts and requiring a consistent stream of high-quality designs at a predictable cost.

Limitations: Limited design customization with unlimited revisions allowing adjustments but not complete creative control, and extremely complex projects might be better suited for specialized agencies. No CRO, UX research, or AI services available.

Traditional Agency Alternatives to Clay

KOTA: Project-Based Creative Agency

The majority of KOTA’s projects sit between £30k and £150k ($38k-$190k), with project costs depending on final scope, a minimum project size of £25k ($32k), and preference for fixed cost agreements with milestone payments. KOTA’s minimum project size is $25,000+ with average hourly rates of $100-$149/hr.

Services covered: KOTA specializes in bringing brands to life through creative web design, web development, branding, and digital marketing. KOTA’s proficiency in working with popular platforms like WordPress and Shopify has been highlighted.

Delivery and team: A web design and build project can last around 12-14 weeks, whereas brand into web and marketing deliverables into a launch campaign can take 6 months or more, though there are ways to consider business objectives such as phased launches. Founded in 2013, KOTA combines big agency strategy, creative and tech with the flexibility, responsiveness, pricing and ‘can do’ attitude of a smaller, independent agency.

Best for: KOTA partners with brands where they can add huge value, brands they are passionate about, and brands that don’t want a quick fix but want a long-term partner they can rely on, with business built on referrals and recommendations.

Limitations: Project-based pricing at £30k-£150k represents significant upfront investment. Timeline of 12-14 weeks for web projects doesn’t suit teams needing rapid experimentation. No subscription model for ongoing work.

The Comprehensive Alternative: Passionate Agency – Passionates

When evaluating Top Clay Alternatives, one subscription-based agency stands out for combining Clay’s service breadth with predictable pricing and rapid delivery: Passionate Agency – Passionates. Founded in 2019 and operating from London and New York, Passionates offers a unique model specifically designed for the pain points that drive searches for Clay alternatives.

Service Coverage Matching Clay’s Capabilities

Unlike subscription services that focus solely on graphic design, Passionates delivers the full spectrum of creative agency services through three progressive tiers:

Grow tier ($8,000/month full-time, $5,000/month part-time) provides access to senior designers, motion graphics artists, and web developers delivering graphic design, branding, website design, UI/UX design, motion graphics, video production, 3D/AR/WebXR, and WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify development.

Optimize tier ($10,000/month full-time, $6,000/month part-time) includes all Grow services plus senior UX researchers and CRO analysts delivering qualitative and quantitative UX research, CRO and CXO hypothesis generation, A/B and multivariate testing, advanced analytics and reporting, funnel optimization, and experimentation strategy.

Innovate tier ($12,500/month full-time, $7,250/month part-time) includes all Optimize services plus AI analysts and engineers delivering custom AI agent implementation, user journey automation, AI-powered chatbots, dynamic content personalization, customer data-flow automation, and custom LLM fine-tuning.

Senior Talent with Rapid Delivery

All Passionates team members are senior professionals with at least five years in their respective fields—mirroring Clay’s quality standards while delivering through a subscription model. Each full-time resource provides forty hours per week of dedicated capacity, with the flexibility to alternate between specialists within the service area. Requests are delivered in 1-3 working days, addressing the velocity needs of growth marketing directors running multiple experiments monthly.

Scalability for High-Volume Needs

The subscription model is fully scalable—clients can stack multiple packages to acquire five or more full-time resources to meet higher volume or tighter deadlines. This solves a critical limitation of single-designer services like Design Joy: when your e-commerce team needs to optimize conversion rates across thousands of products while your brand team develops new positioning, you need parallel workstreams, not a queue.

Addressing Cost Predictability Concerns

For CMOs struggling with unpredictable agency costs, Passionates offers fixed monthly fees with no hidden costs, no cancellation penalties, and the ability to pause or cancel anytime. Annual plans receive a 10% discount. Hourly packages are also available at $199 per hour in 1-10 hour blocks for maintenance and ad-hoc tasks, with unused hours rolling over.

Integration and Technology Stack

Passionates works with an extensive technology ecosystem ensuring seamless integration with existing client systems, including HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel, Hotjar, Optimizely, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, OpenAI API, Claude API, and project management tools like ClickUp, Asana, and Slack. This addresses digital transformation directors’ concerns about security and compliance issues when implementing new solutions.

Proprietary Methodologies

Unlike alternatives that rely on third-party tools, Passionates offers Crolytics.ai, a proprietary AI CRO platform, alongside data-driven conversion and design methodology and knowledge-transfer frameworks. This provides the strategic thinking that CMOs seek—partners who can translate brand essence into compelling digital experiences that drive measurable business results.

Comparing Pricing Models Across Top Clay Alternatives

Understanding the true cost comparison requires looking beyond monthly fees to consider what’s included and how services scale:

Design Joy at $4,995-$7,995/month provides premium single-designer quality with one or two concurrent requests, ideal for consistent brand voice but limiting diverse creative perspectives and specialist expertise across disciplines.

ManyPixels at $549-$1,199/month offers the lowest entry point for graphic design and motion graphics, making it accessible for startups, but requires separate vendors for web development, CRO, and strategic services.

Penji at $499-$1,497/month balances affordability with quality control through their top 2% designer selection, covering graphic design, web design, and illustrations, but lacks conversion optimization and strategic capabilities.

KOTA at £30k-£150k ($38k-$190k) per project delivers comprehensive agency services with 12-14 week timelines, suitable for major initiatives but requiring significant upfront investment without the flexibility of ongoing subscriptions.

Passionates at $8,000-$12,500/month for full-time resources (or $5,000-$7,250/month part-time) provides the broadest service coverage—matching Clay’s capabilities across design, development, CRO, UX research, and AI implementation—with the ability to stack resources for high-volume needs. For teams requiring both strategic design work and rapid experimentation, a single Optimize tier subscription costs less than Design Joy while including services that would require 3-4 separate vendors with other alternatives.

Which Clay Alternative Fits Your Team?

For CMOs seeking brand transformation with predictable costs: If your 500-person tech company needs cohesive marketing and design efforts without disrupting existing processes, Passionates’ Grow or Optimize tier provides dedicated senior resources across branding, web design, and conversion optimization for a fixed monthly fee, with the flexibility to scale up during major campaigns.

For UX Directors optimizing conversion rates: When your 800-person e-commerce company needs to balance aesthetics with functionality while running continuous A/B tests, Passionates’ Optimize tier delivers UX research, CRO analysis, and design execution with 1-3 day turnaround—keeping pace with agile development cycles. ManyPixels or Penji can supplement with high-volume social graphics at lower cost points.

For startup founders establishing brand identity: If your 75-person B2B SaaS startup needs to make a big impact without prohibitive costs, Penji’s $499/month Starter plan provides unlimited graphic design for early-stage needs, with the option to upgrade to Passionates’ Grow tier ($5,000/month part-time) when you need comprehensive branding, web development, and motion graphics from senior specialists.

For digital transformation directors implementing AI: When your 650-person financial services company needs to modernize customer interactions with AI solutions that demonstrate ROI, Passionates’ Innovate tier is the only subscription alternative offering custom AI agent implementation, user journey automation, and dynamic personalization alongside design and development—eliminating the need for multiple specialized vendors.

For e-commerce managers optimizing revenue: If your 350-person online retail company needs to identify which customer journey elements cause revenue loss, Passionates’ Optimize tier combines UX research, CRO expertise, and design execution with Shopify/WooCommerce integration experience, addressing both technical and experiential sides of e-commerce.

For product managers validating features: When your Series B SaaS company needs UX research and experimentation strategies that inform product roadmap decisions without conflicting with release schedules, Passionates’ Optimize tier provides dedicated researchers and designers who integrate into fast-paced agile cycles with 1-3 day delivery.

For growth marketing directors scaling experiments: If your Series B company needs to run 20+ experiments monthly across channels with 1-3 day turnaround for landing page variations, ad creatives, and funnel optimizations, Passionates’ ability to stack multiple resources (e.g., two Grow subscriptions + one Optimize subscription) provides the velocity and breadth that single-designer services cannot match.

Service Comparison: What Each Alternative Delivers

Making the Decision: Beyond Price Comparisons

Searching for Top Clay Alternatives ultimately stems from three core needs: predictable costs, rapid delivery, and comprehensive service coverage. Clay’s customized proposal approach and premium positioning serve enterprise clients well but create friction for mid-market companies and startups needing ongoing creative support.

The subscription-based alternatives each address different aspects of this challenge. ManyPixels and Penji excel at affordable, high-volume graphic design for teams with straightforward needs. Design Joy provides premium single-designer consistency for brands valuing cohesive aesthetic direction. KOTA delivers traditional agency depth for major projects with substantial budgets.

For teams requiring the full spectrum of creative agency services—branding, UI/UX, development, motion graphics, CRO, and AI implementation—with senior talent, rapid delivery, and the flexibility to scale up or down, Passionates provides the most comprehensive Clay alternative. The subscription model eliminates proposal delays and cost uncertainty, while the ability to stack resources addresses high-volume needs that single-designer services cannot fulfill.

The right choice depends on your specific context: current team size, service breadth required, experimentation velocity, and budget constraints. CMOs managing brand transformation across multiple channels need different capabilities than product managers validating individual features. Growth directors running 20+ monthly experiments require different scalability than founders establishing initial brand identity.

Consider starting with a consultation to discuss your specific needs and priorities. Whether you choose a focused graphic design subscription, a premium single-designer service, a traditional agency partnership, or a comprehensive subscription covering design through AI implementation, the key is aligning the service model with your team’s velocity, budget, and strategic objectives.

To explore how Passionates can serve as your Clay alternative with dedicated senior resources across design, development, CRO, and AI, book a consultation at https://calendly.com/passionates/intro.