Why we put ourselves next to Frontify and Bynder

Why we put ourselves next to Frontify and Bynder

A small platform putting itself next to the biggest names in brand management. Here's why we did it, and what it says about where the market is going.

The billboard that started a conversation

A few weeks ago we made a poster. It showed three logos: Bynder, Frontify and BrandDeck. Above them, a simple headline: The three platforms where brands actually live. Below it: Two of these require a sales call, a procurement process and a budget approval. One of them you can start for free today.

We put it in a bus shelter mockup and posted it on LinkedIn.

The response surprised us. Not because people disagreed. Because almost everyone immediately knew exactly which one you could start for free today.

That reaction told us something important.

Why Frontify and Bynder?

Frontify and Bynder are genuinely good products. They are used by large organisations that take their brand seriously, and they have earned that position. We are not here to say they are bad.

We put them on the poster because they represent something specific in the market: the idea that professional brand management is something you need a budget approval, a sales meeting and a procurement process to access. That brand management is an enterprise category, not something a freelance designer or a small agency can realistically use.

For a long time, that was mostly true. The tools that did the job properly were priced and built for large teams. Everyone else improvised. Zip files. WeTransfer links. PDFs that nobody opened.

That is the gap we built BrandDeck to close.

The Tommy Hilfiger logic

There is a famous story about Tommy Hilfiger placing a billboard in Times Square in 1985. He was almost unknown at the time. The billboard listed him alongside Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis as one of the four great American designers.

It was bold. Some people thought it was arrogant. But it worked, because it forced people to put him in a category he had not yet earned.

We are not claiming to be as established as Frontify or Bynder. We are not. But we are claiming to belong in the same conversation. Not because we do everything they do, but because we solve the same fundamental problem, for a different part of the market, at a price that makes sense for the people who need it most.

Professional brand management should not be reserved for organisations with enterprise budgets. Every freelancer, every small studio and every growing agency deserves a tool that makes their brand work last.

That is the claim. And we are prepared to stand behind it.

What the comparison actually reveals

Put the three platforms next to each other and the differences become interesting.

Bynder is a digital asset management platform first. It is built for large teams managing enormous volumes of assets across global campaigns. Powerful, complex and priced accordingly.

Frontify is a brand management platform with a strong focus on design systems and enterprise brand portals. Again, genuinely good at what it does, and again, built for organisations with the budget and team size to match.

BrandDeck is built for the people who do the brand work themselves. The freelance designer managing five client brands at once. The small studio that delivers a brand identity and wants to give it a professional home. The agency that wants to offer brand management as a recurring service without building their own infrastructure.

Different product. Different market. Same problem.

The real point

The poster was not really about Bynder and Frontify. It was about the assumption that professional brand management has a high barrier to entry.

That assumption is wrong. Or at least, it no longer has to be.

You can have a central home for every brand you manage, with proper guidelines, asset management and client access, without a sales call, without a budget approval, and without waiting for IT to set it up. You can start today, for free, and have something to share with a client before the end of the afternoon.

That is what the poster was saying. And it is what we are building every day.

BrandDeck is free to start. No sales call required.