Top KPMG Alternatives

When businesses outgrow traditional consulting firms’ creative services or seek more specialized design and development partners, the search for alternatives begins. KPMG, one of the Big Four professional services firms, offers creative services through internal teams like CREATE (their in-house design agency) and provides branding, digital design, and customer experience consulting as part of their broader advisory practice. However, KPMG Creative provides services on branding, digital interface and omni-channel experience, which represents just one facet of their extensive consulting portfolio that spans audit, tax, and advisory services.

For Chief Marketing Officers, UX Directors, startup founders, and growth teams seeking dedicated creative expertise, the question isn’t whether KPMG can deliver—it’s whether a global consulting firm’s creative division is the right fit for ongoing design, development, and optimization needs. This article explores the Top KPMG Alternatives specifically for creative agency services: branding, graphic design, UI/UX design, motion graphics, video production, website development, conversion optimization, UX research, and AI implementation.

While KPMG offers creative capabilities through CREATE, KPMG’s in-house Design Agency offering all forms of Creative Design, Digital, Animation and Video Production, their model differs fundamentally from specialized creative agencies. Understanding these differences helps decision-makers identify which alternative best addresses their specific pain points.

Understanding KPMG’s Creative Service Offerings

Before exploring alternatives, it’s important to understand what KPMG provides in the creative agency space. Creative Services is an enterprise-level support team that creates and designs market materials that bring the KPMG brand to life, prioritizing agility and building value for internal clients across all of KPMG service lines, ensuring the firm and brand are presented in a consistent manner.

KPMG’s creative services encompass several areas relevant to the personas in this article:

• Branding and Brand Strategy: KPMG provides a comprehensive and actionable branding service comprising brand creation or redesign, brand engagement and performance
• UI/UX Design: They design products and services that engage users, elevate experiences, and build trust for clients, including UX/UI, Product Design, Service Design, Prototyping, Design Sprint, and Content Design
• Digital Experience: User interaction (UI) and user experience (UX) are crucial elements, with expertise in user experience design enabling services for clients who want to build customer centric businesses
• Video Production: Potential opportunities include event planning, registration services, video production, virtual meeting design and delivery

However, KPMG’s creative services exist within a much larger consulting framework. The Big Four – Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG – compete in the mid-market fee range, with strategy and management consulting practices sitting at the top-end of their fee model, while lower hourly rates are billed by lower value-adding services offered by other business units such as Accountancy and Audit or operational disciplines within IT Consulting. This structure creates unique pricing dynamics and service delivery models that may not align with every organization’s needs.

Why Organizations Seek Top KPMG Alternatives

Several factors drive the search for alternatives to KPMG’s creative services:

Pricing Structure and Transparency

Professional services firms like KPMG typically operate on hourly billing models with rates that reflect their enterprise positioning. The mean level 4 rate for the big four was approximately £1,500, which would be a fairly typical senior consultant rate for a blue-chip consultancy. For organizations requiring ongoing creative work, these hourly rates can create budget unpredictability and make it challenging to forecast creative spend across quarters.

Marketing directors managing fixed budgets often struggle with the uncertainty of project-based billing. When you’re running 20+ experiments monthly across channels or need rapid iteration on landing pages, hourly consulting rates can quickly escalate beyond initial estimates. The lack of transparent, fixed-fee packages makes financial planning difficult for growth-stage companies operating on tight unit economics.

Speed and Agility Challenges

Large consulting firms excel at comprehensive, strategic engagements but may not match the velocity required for modern marketing and product teams. Growth marketing directors need partners who can deliver landing page variations in 1-3 days, not weeks. E-commerce managers optimizing conversion rates can’t afford to wait for committee approvals and multi-week timelines when cart abandonment is costing revenue daily.

The enterprise structure of Big Four firms, while providing quality control and extensive resources, can introduce coordination bottlenecks. For startups and mid-market companies operating in agile sprints, this friction conflicts with rapid experimentation cycles and continuous deployment workflows.

Breadth Versus Depth Trade-offs

KPMG’s creative services operate alongside audit, tax, and advisory practices. While this provides access to cross-functional expertise for large transformation projects, it may not deliver the specialized depth that dedicated creative agencies offer. A UX Director seeking cutting-edge conversion optimization techniques or a founder needing a comprehensive brand system may find specialized agencies offer more focused expertise in their specific domain.

Organizations often discover that while Big Four firms can handle creative work, their true differentiator lies in strategic consulting, not in being best-in-class creative production partners. This realization prompts the search for alternatives that live and breathe design, development, and optimization daily.

Service Model Alignment

KPMG’s creative services primarily support their broader consulting engagements and internal needs. CREATE is recognised as a leader of creative output and quality to the whole UK business and member Firms around the world, with designers who are experts in marketing the firm and products, making KPMG standout in the marketplace amongst competitors. This internal focus means their processes, workflows, and tools are optimized for enterprise consulting delivery, not necessarily for the lean, iterative approach that venture-backed startups or agile product teams require.

Top KPMG Alternatives for Creative Agency Services

When evaluating Top KPMG Alternatives, decision-makers should consider agencies that address the specific pain points their personas face while offering service models aligned with their operational needs.

Passionate Agency – Passionates

Passionate Agency represents a fundamentally different approach to creative services delivery through its subscription-based model. Founded in 2019 and operating from London and New York, Passionates addresses many of the friction points that drive organizations to seek alternatives to traditional consulting firms.

Service Coverage: Passionates offers comprehensive creative agency services across three progressive tiers—Grow, Optimize, and Innovate—providing access to senior specialists (top 0.5% of talent with 5+ years experience) across all creative disciplines:

• Graphic design, branding, and visual identity
• Website design and UI/UX design
• Motion graphics and video production
• WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify development
• UX research (qualitative and quantitative)
• Conversion rate optimization and A/B testing
• AI implementation and automation

Pricing Model: Unlike hourly consulting rates, Passionates operates on transparent, fixed monthly subscriptions:

• Grow tier: $8,000/month full-time (40 hours/week) or $5,000/month part-time (20 hours/week) for design, video, and web development
• Optimize tier: $10,000/month full-time or $6,000/month part-time, adding CRO and UX research capabilities
• Innovate tier: $12,500/month full-time or $7,250/month part-time, including AI engineering and automation
• Hourly packages: $199/hour in 1-10 hour blocks for maintenance and ad-hoc needs

This pricing structure provides the budget predictability that CMOs and founders need, with no hidden fees or cancellation penalties. Annual plans receive a 10% discount while maintaining the same service levels as monthly plans.

Delivery Speed: Passionates delivers requests in 1-3 working days, addressing the velocity requirements of growth marketing directors running rapid experimentation programs. This turnaround time aligns with agile development cycles and enables the testing cadence that e-commerce managers need to optimize conversion rates continuously.

Team Structure: Clients work with a dedicated project manager who coordinates across senior designers, developers, motion graphics artists, UX researchers, CRO specialists, and AI engineers. This eliminates the coordination overhead of managing multiple freelancers while providing broader skill coverage than a single in-house hire.

Scalability: Organizations can stack multiple packages to scale resources instantly. A company needing five full-time equivalent resources can subscribe to five packages, providing flexibility that traditional consulting engagements lack. This scalability addresses the fluctuating demand patterns that growth-stage companies experience.

Technology Integration: Passionates works with an extensive technology ecosystem including WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Optimizely, VWO, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, OpenAI API, and custom LLM pipelines. This platform compatibility ensures seamless integration with existing martech stacks, addressing the concerns of e-commerce managers worried about implementation friction.

Proprietary Tools: The agency offers Crolytics.ai, their AI-powered CRO platform, providing capabilities beyond what traditional consulting firms typically include in creative services packages.

Best For: Passionates is particularly well-suited for:

• CMOs seeking comprehensive creative partners without traditional agency overhead
• UX Directors needing both design execution and data-driven optimization
• Founders requiring cost-effective access to senior-level talent across multiple disciplines
• Digital transformation directors implementing AI solutions with creative execution
• E-commerce managers needing rapid iteration on conversion optimization
• Product managers requiring user research and interface optimization
• Growth marketing directors running high-velocity experimentation programs

Traditional Creative Agencies

Beyond subscription models, several traditional creative agencies offer alternatives to KPMG’s creative services with different specializations:

Collins: A top-tier branding agency known for award-winning design and brand transformation work, with offices in New York and San Francisco, building a reputation for bold, strategic branding across digital and physical experiences. Collins excels in comprehensive brand transformations for established companies but typically operates on project-based pricing that may exceed six figures for major engagements.

Pentagram: Known for distinctive and memorable design work, Pentagram is one of the world’s largest independently owned design studios with collective experience spanning over five decades. Their multidisciplinary approach and prestigious portfolio make them ideal for enterprises seeking iconic brand work, though their pricing reflects their premium positioning.

DesignStudio: A global branding agency known for its immersive, research-driven approach to brand strategy and design, with offices in London, New York, Sydney, and Shanghai. Their portfolio includes Airbnb, Premier League, and British Airways, demonstrating strength in sports, gaming, and global consumer brands.

Clay: A branding and design agency with a transformative and intuitive approach to UI/UX, headquartered in San Francisco with a global team of 78, championing brand excellence and digital innovation for more than 14 years, having completed over 500 projects worldwide. Clay specializes in tech industry clients and offers scalable design systems, though project minimums typically start at $100,000+.

Subscription-Based Design Services

The subscription model has emerged as a compelling alternative to both traditional agencies and consulting firms:

Design Force: Offers a unique approach to branding as a flexible subscription service, specializing in delivering high-quality, on-demand design solutions (Design-as-a-Service) that adapt to evolving brand vision and needs, with a globally diverse design team vetted by 500 Designs. Their model provides adaptable branding support with cost-effective monthly subscriptions.

ManyPixels: A budget-friendly alternative with a unique subscription-based model offering unlimited design services, ideal for startups and small businesses, with design capabilities extending to web and app design, marketing materials, social media graphics and more. Their pricing starts lower than enterprise agencies, making them accessible for early-stage companies.

Comparing Service Delivery Models

Understanding how different alternatives structure their services helps organizations choose the right partner:

Project-Based Traditional Agencies

Traditional creative agencies typically operate on project-based engagements with scopes defined upfront. A comprehensive rebrand might cost $150,000-$500,000 and take 3-6 months. Website redesigns range from $50,000-$300,000 depending on complexity. This model works well for discrete, well-defined projects but creates friction for ongoing creative needs.

The project-based approach requires extensive upfront scoping, which can delay work by weeks. Changes mid-project often trigger change orders and additional fees. For organizations needing continuous creative output—social media assets, landing page variations, email templates, product UI updates—the overhead of managing multiple projects becomes prohibitive.

Retainer-Based Agency Relationships

Some agencies offer monthly retainers, typically starting at $10,000-$30,000/month for dedicated resources. However, retainers often include limitations on revision rounds, project types, or hours allocated. Scope creep becomes a constant negotiation, and agencies may still charge additional fees for work outside the retainer agreement.

The retainer model provides more consistency than project-based work but lacks the transparency and predictability of true subscription services. Hidden costs emerge when “small” requests accumulate or when urgent work requires expedited timelines.

Subscription-Based Models

Subscription services like Passionates offer unlimited requests within their service tier for a fixed monthly fee. This model eliminates scope negotiations, provides complete cost predictability, and enables organizations to maximize value by submitting continuous work. The subscription approach aligns incentives—agencies succeed by delivering high-quality work efficiently, encouraging long-term partnerships rather than maximizing billable hours.

For growth marketing directors running 20+ experiments monthly, the subscription model removes financial friction from testing. E-commerce managers can continuously optimize without budget anxiety. Founders get predictable creative costs that scale with their business rather than unpredictable project bills.

Consulting Firm Embedded Services

KPMG’s model embeds creative services within broader consulting engagements. This works well when creative needs are secondary to strategic consulting but becomes inefficient when organizations primarily need creative execution. The consulting framework introduces overhead—status meetings, documentation requirements, approval processes—that may not add value for straightforward design work.

Evaluating Alternatives: Key Decision Criteria

When comparing Top KPMG Alternatives, decision-makers should evaluate options across several dimensions:

Cost Structure and Predictability

Calculate total cost of ownership beyond headline rates. Hourly consulting at $200-$400/hour can quickly exceed $20,000-$40,000 monthly for full-time equivalent work. Traditional agency projects include hidden costs in revision rounds, change orders, and project management overhead. Subscription models offer transparency but require evaluating what’s truly “unlimited” versus what triggers additional fees.

For CMOs managing annual budgets, predictable monthly costs enable better financial planning. Founders bootstrapping growth need to know their creative spend won’t balloon unexpectedly. Growth marketing directors optimizing CAC need fixed costs that don’t penalize rapid iteration.

Delivery Speed and Iteration Cycles

Map delivery timelines to your operational cadence. If you deploy code weekly, waiting three weeks for design assets creates bottlenecks. If you’re A/B testing landing pages continuously, you need design partners who deliver variations in days, not weeks.

UX directors working in two-week sprints require design resources that match their velocity. E-commerce managers responding to competitive pressures need rapid turnaround on promotional assets and category page optimizations. The 1-3 day delivery that subscription services offer can be transformative compared to traditional agency timelines.

Breadth Versus Depth of Expertise

Assess whether you need generalist coverage or specialist expertise. KPMG offers breadth across consulting disciplines but may not provide the cutting-edge depth in specific creative domains that specialized agencies deliver. Conversely, a boutique motion design studio might excel at video but can’t handle web development or CRO.

Platforms like Passionates provide both breadth (design, development, video, CRO, AI) and depth (senior specialists with 5+ years experience) through their multi-disciplinary team structure. This 360° coverage eliminates the need to manage multiple vendor relationships while ensuring expertise in each domain.

Integration with Existing Workflows

Evaluate how seamlessly alternatives integrate with your existing tools and processes. Do they work in your project management system? Can they access your design files, code repositories, and analytics platforms? Will they adapt to your approval workflows or impose their own?

Digital transformation directors implementing AI solutions need partners who understand their technical architecture. E-commerce managers require agencies familiar with their platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, custom) and able to integrate with their payment processors, inventory systems, and marketing automation. Product managers need designers who can work within their existing design systems and component libraries.

Scalability and Flexibility

Consider how alternatives scale with your needs. Can you easily increase or decrease resources as demand fluctuates? What’s the ramp-up time for adding capacity? How difficult is it to exit if the relationship isn’t working?

Subscription models typically offer superior flexibility—scale up by adding packages, scale down by canceling with no penalties. Traditional agencies require renegotiating contracts and scopes. Consulting firms may have minimum engagement sizes or long-term commitments that reduce flexibility.

Industry-Specific Considerations

Different industries have unique requirements that influence which alternatives work best:

B2B SaaS Companies

B2B SaaS organizations need partners who understand complex product storytelling, can design for multiple user personas, and excel at conversion-focused landing pages. The subscription model aligns well with SaaS economics—predictable monthly costs matching predictable monthly revenue. Agencies with experience in product marketing, user onboarding flows, and freemium conversion optimization provide the most value.

E-commerce and Retail

E-commerce businesses require partners with deep platform expertise (Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, Magento), understanding of merchandising principles, and proven CRO capabilities. Speed matters intensely—seasonal promotions, flash sales, and competitive responses demand rapid creative turnaround. Agencies offering e-commerce-specific services with fast iteration cycles deliver the best ROI.

Financial Services

Financial services companies need partners who understand regulatory compliance, can navigate brand guidelines for regulated industries, and maintain security standards. Enterprise-grade security, ISO 27001 readiness, and experience with financial services clients become critical selection criteria. The ability to handle sensitive data and work within strict approval processes matters more than raw speed.

Healthcare and Life Sciences

Healthcare organizations require partners familiar with HIPAA compliance, medical terminology, and the unique challenges of communicating complex clinical information to diverse audiences. Experience with healthcare brands, understanding of patient journey mapping, and ability to work with clinical advisors differentiate qualified alternatives.

Making the Transition from KPMG

Organizations moving from KPMG’s creative services to alternatives should plan the transition carefully:

Asset and Knowledge Transfer

Ensure you have complete ownership of all creative assets, brand guidelines, design systems, and documentation created during your KPMG engagement. Request source files (not just PDFs), code repositories, and any proprietary tools or templates developed for your projects. This foundational work should transfer cleanly to your new partner.

Relationship Continuity

If KPMG creative services were part of a broader consulting relationship, clarify how the transition affects other workstreams. Can you maintain strategic consulting relationships while moving creative execution to a specialized partner? Often, this hybrid approach—consulting firms for strategy, creative agencies for execution—delivers optimal results.

Pilot Projects

Start with a pilot engagement before fully transitioning. Subscribe to one package or commission a small project to evaluate delivery quality, communication style, and cultural fit. This de-risks the transition and provides concrete data for the final decision. Most subscription services offer monthly plans that enable low-risk testing.

Internal Stakeholder Alignment

Ensure internal stakeholders understand the rationale for change. CMOs should align with CFOs on budget implications. UX directors should coordinate with product and engineering leaders on workflow integration. Founders should communicate the decision to their leadership team. Clear internal alignment prevents friction during implementation.

Cost Comparison: KPMG vs. Alternatives

Understanding the true cost comparison helps justify the transition:

KPMG Creative Services Cost Structure

While KPMG doesn’t publish specific creative services rates, the Big Four compete in the mid-market fee range, with strategy and management consulting practices at the top-end of their fee model. Based on industry benchmarks, organizations can expect:

• Senior designer/developer rates: $200-$400/hour
• Project management overhead: 15-25% of project costs
• Full-time equivalent cost: $20,000-$40,000+/month
• Minimum project sizes often start at $50,000+

These rates reflect KPMG’s enterprise positioning and the overhead of their global infrastructure. For discrete strategic projects, this investment may be justified. For ongoing creative needs, the costs can quickly exceed alternatives.

Alternative Cost Structures

Comparing alternatives reveals significant cost variation:

• Passionate Agency: $5,000-$12,500/month for unlimited requests with 1-3 day delivery
• Traditional premium agencies: $150,000-$500,000 for major rebrands; $50,000-$300,000 for website redesigns
• Mid-tier agencies: $10,000-$30,000/month retainers with scope limitations
• Budget subscription services: $2,000-$5,000/month for basic design needs
• In-house senior designer: $120,000-$180,000/year salary plus benefits, software, and management overhead

The subscription model often provides the best value for organizations with continuous creative needs. A single Passionate Agency Optimize package at $10,000/month delivers design, development, video, CRO, and UX research—capabilities that would require 3-4 in-house hires or cost $25,000-$40,000/month from traditional consulting firms.

Success Stories and Use Cases

Understanding how different alternatives serve specific use cases helps inform selection:

Use Case: Rapid Growth Startup Scaling Brand

A Series B SaaS company with 180 employees needed to scale creative output from 10 assets monthly to 50+ while maintaining brand consistency. Traditional agencies quoted $25,000-$35,000/month retainers with revision limitations. KPMG’s creative services would have cost $30,000-$50,000/month at consulting rates.

The company chose Passionates’ Optimize tier at $10,000/month full-time, providing unlimited requests across design, development, and CRO. Within three months, they were producing 60+ assets monthly, had redesigned their entire website, and implemented systematic A/B testing. The fixed cost and rapid turnaround enabled aggressive experimentation that improved conversion rates by 34%.

Use Case: E-commerce Conversion Optimization

A rapidly growing online retailer with 350 employees struggled with 3.2% cart abandonment and needed continuous optimization across 1,200 product pages. Traditional agencies quoted $75,000-$150,000 for a comprehensive CRO project with 3-4 month timelines. KPMG could provide strategic recommendations but lacked the rapid iteration capability for testing.

The company implemented Passionates’ Optimize tier, enabling weekly A/B tests on category pages, checkout flows, and product detail pages. The continuous optimization approach reduced cart abandonment to 2.1% over six months, generating $2.4M in additional annual revenue. The $10,000/month investment delivered 20x ROI through systematic, data-driven improvements.

Use Case: Enterprise Brand Transformation

A financial services company with 650 employees needed comprehensive brand transformation including strategy, identity system, and digital experience redesign. They initially engaged KPMG for strategic consulting, which provided valuable market positioning and brand architecture. However, they transitioned creative execution to a specialized agency for implementation.

This hybrid approach—KPMG for strategy, specialized agency for execution—delivered optimal results. The strategic foundation from KPMG informed the creative work, while the specialized agency provided deeper design expertise and more efficient execution. Total cost was 30% lower than having KPMG handle both strategy and execution.

Future-Proofing Your Creative Partnership

As technology evolves, consider how alternatives position you for future needs:

AI Integration Capabilities

Artificial intelligence is transforming creative workflows. Agencies that have integrated AI into their processes can deliver faster, more cost-effective results. Passionates’ Innovate tier specifically includes AI implementation and automation, positioning clients to leverage emerging technologies. Traditional agencies may be slower to adopt AI, while consulting firms like KPMG are investing heavily in AI consulting but may not have integrated it deeply into creative production.

Emerging Platform Support

As new platforms emerge—whether new CMS systems, e-commerce platforms, or marketing automation tools—your creative partner should adapt quickly. Subscription-based agencies that work across multiple technology stacks typically adopt new platforms faster than agencies specialized in legacy systems. Evaluate whether alternatives demonstrate platform agnosticism and continuous learning.

Evolving Service Needs

Your creative needs will evolve as your business grows. Early-stage companies need brand identity and website development. Growth-stage companies add conversion optimization and experimentation. Mature companies require AI implementation and advanced personalization. Choose partners that can grow with you rather than requiring transitions at each stage.

Red Flags When Evaluating Alternatives

Be cautious of alternatives that exhibit these warning signs:

• Lack of pricing transparency: Agencies that won’t provide clear pricing information often have unpredictable costs
• Junior team composition: If the agency pitches senior strategists but delivers junior designers, quality suffers
• No relevant portfolio work: Agencies without experience in your industry face steeper learning curves
• Rigid processes: Partners who can’t adapt to your workflows create friction rather than reducing it
• Poor communication: If responsiveness is slow during sales, it won’t improve during delivery
• Unclear ownership terms: Ensure you own all deliverables and source files without additional fees
• Limited technology integration: Agencies unfamiliar with your tech stack create implementation challenges

Conclusion: Choosing the Right Alternative

The Top KPMG Alternatives for creative agency services offer diverse approaches to solving design, development, and optimization challenges. KPMG’s creative services provide value within broader consulting engagements but may not align with organizations seeking specialized creative partnerships with predictable costs and rapid delivery.

For CMOs seeking comprehensive creative partners without traditional agency overhead, UX Directors needing both design execution and data-driven optimization, founders requiring cost-effective access to senior talent, and growth teams running high-velocity experimentation programs, subscription-based models like Passionate Agency deliver compelling value. The combination of fixed pricing ($5,000-$12,500/month), rapid delivery (1-3 days), unlimited requests, and 360° skill coverage (design, development, video, CRO, AI) addresses the core pain points that drive organizations away from traditional consulting firms.

Traditional creative agencies like Collins, Pentagram, and Clay excel at discrete, high-stakes brand transformations where premium positioning justifies six-figure investments. These alternatives work best for enterprises with large budgets and well-defined projects rather than continuous creative needs.

The optimal choice depends on your specific context: company stage, budget constraints, velocity requirements, skill needs, and integration complexity. Early-stage startups benefit from cost-effective subscription services. Growth-stage companies need rapid iteration and experimentation support. Enterprises may require hybrid approaches combining strategic consulting with specialized creative execution.

Ultimately, the best alternative to KPMG’s creative services is the partner that aligns with your operational cadence, provides transparent and predictable costs, delivers the breadth and depth of expertise your initiatives require, and scales flexibly as your needs evolve. By evaluating alternatives across these dimensions rather than defaulting to brand recognition, organizations can find creative partners that drive measurable business results while reducing friction and cost.

Comparison Table: KPMG vs. Top Creative Agency Alternatives

This comparison illustrates why organizations seek Top KPMG Alternatives for creative agency services. While KPMG excels at strategic consulting, specialized creative partners offer advantages in cost predictability, delivery speed, service breadth, and operational flexibility that better align with the needs of modern marketing, product, and growth teams.