Design is a real differentiator in today’s increasingly competitive world. Having a great website, beautiful marketing materials and compelling product design can really make all the difference when it comes to attracting customers in a competitive market. We’re in the era where “taste” matters more and more.
But design has historically been an expensive skillset to access and something big companies have had the budget to afford while the little guys often haven’t (think Apple). However, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work for the first time startups and small and medium-sized businesses are starting to take advantage of the opportunity to hire affordable offshore designers from around the world for the first time.
Whether you are a startup or small business looking to make the most of your budget or an established company seeking scalability in your hiring process, tapping into global talent is a gamechanger for your business. Here are some key advantages of hiring offshore designers.
Top Advantages of Hiring Offshore Designers
- Cost Savings: Offshore designers are 50-70% cheaper than onshore equivalents in the US
- Hire Top Talent: Going offshore gives you a realistic shot at hiring top 1% design talent while in the US the competition and cost of the very best designers puts them beyond reach for the majority of companies
- Increase Your Output: With the cost savings that come with hiring offshore designers you can afford to hire 2-3 offshore designers for the same cost of an onshore equivalent. More hands on deck helps increase your output and makes sure no balls get dropped.
- Scale Your Design Team: Half the designers in the world are located outside the US. Going offshore lets you access a whole new pool of talent to scale your design team in an efficient and cost effective way.
- Fresh, Diverse Perspectives: Designers offshore have to navigate different languages, cultural practices, mobile technologies and more. They bring a different skillset to the table and have experience designing for diverse and difficult environments which are valuable skills to add to your team.
- Supercharged by AI: Offshore designers are adapting AI to help them get a leg up and compete with onshore designers on both cost and quality. In our experience AI is helping close the gap between offshore and onshore talent across most jobs.
Cost Savings: How Offshore Designers Can Dramatically Reduce Your Design Expenses
Offshore designers can dramatically reduce your design expenses. By expanding your reach to take advantage of global talent pools you can hire elite design talent at a fraction of the cost of hiring American talent.
The cost savings are super straightforward. The salaries for offshore designers are often 50-70% lower than their onshore counterparts, allowing you to stretch your design budget much further. You can hire 2-3 offshore designers for the price of one onshore designer or you can invest the savings into other critical areas of your business.

Beyond just the bottom line, working with offshore designers helps you access diverse perspectives and skillsets that can help create unique, differentiated design work. It’s a strategic advantage that can set your brand apart in a competitive market.
Accessing Top Talent: How You Can Find Top 1% Designers Offshore
Let’s face it, the very best onshore design talent are expensive and are highly sought after. The war for top onshore talent is intense and top onshore designers often simply run their own agencies because they can command higher rates.
On the other hand, the global talent pool for offshore designers is still rich with opportunities to find and hire elite design talent. The amount of content and education available for free on the internet has helped democratize design skill globally. As a small business or startup you realistically have a chance of hiring top 1% global design talent if you invest the time and effort in interviewing and vetting talent from around the world.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that great design talent exists all over the world. Europe has a long history of exceptional designers who have helped create the world’s leading luxury goods brands like LVMH, Mercedes and Patek Philippe. In Asia both Japanese and Korean products have taken the US by storm with brands like Uniqlo, Muji and Missha. Similarly, designers from Africa are being covered in Vogue. Design has always been a global phenomenon.

Going global and casting a wider net makes it a lot easier to find and hire top 1% global design talent with specialized expertise in graphic design, product design, UI/UX design and more. These designers will have also honed their craft in different cultural and professional environments, infusing your projects with unique experience and insights.
The future of design lies in a global, collaborative approach. By accessing top talent offshore, you can elevate your design capabilities, drive innovation, and gain a competitive edge in the market. Unlock the power of diverse perspectives and unlock your company’s full potential.
Increased Efficiency: How Offshore Designers Can Turnaround Projects Faster
When it comes to design projects, time is often of the essence. Clients demand quick turnarounds and expect high-quality results or internal company projects can often not proceed to the next stage without completing design work.
Offshore design talent can be a huge unlock for your productivity and efficiency. Because of the cost savings you can add an extra designer or two to your team to help make sure design work is completed faster and deadlines are met.
On top of that the time zone differences between your local team and the offshore designers can be a strategic advantage. While your in-house designers are resting, the offshore team can continue working, ensuring a continuous flow of progress. This 24/7 coverage allows for faster project completion, without compromising quality.
Another important benefit of offshore designers is enabling your design leaders to delegate more effectively. By delegating non-core but important design tasks (designing marketing graphics, UI/UX optimizations etc) that need to get done to your offshore design team, your onshore team can focus on the heavy lifting of design strategy and planning. This helps the work proceed faster and smoother. This delegation enhances efficiency and also allows you to specifically hire offshore designers with specialized design skills without overburdening your local team and increasing your costs too much.
Scalability: Seamlessly Scale Your Design Capacity with an Offshore Team
Scaling your design capacity has never been easier with an offshore team. As your business grows, the demand for high-quality design work can quickly become overwhelming for your in-house team. That’s where an offshore design team can step in and quickly augment your existing team.
There are about 500,000 graphic designers globally with about 265,000 of those based in the US. That means about half of global design talent is located offshore (outside the US) today. It might even be a lot higher than 50% if we trust Figma data (one of the biggest design tools out there) from 2021, which stated that over 83% of Figma users are based outside the US.
As a business if you only focus on the onshore market in the US to hire design talent you’re competing with every other onshore business for the same 50% pool of the world’s most expensive designers.
Global design talent is the missing ingredient in your arsenal as a small business to increase your design output as your business grows. It makes it much easier for you to hire specialized design talent as your business matures and needs people with deeper experience in specific areas. All of this without straining your budget. Seems like a good deal to me.
Gain a competitive edge and supercharge your design output by hiring an offshore designer today.
How AI Can Supercharge Your Offshore Designers
AI tools are all the rage these days (and rightly so). But AI tools are going to make a much bigger impact offshore than onshore. Offshore talent trained and augmented with AI tools are going to be 2-3x as productive as talent that doesn’t use AI tools. We believe AI will help close the gap between offshore and onshore talent across a lot of functions.
We’re keeping an eye on tools like Adobe Firefly, Dalle, Midjourney, Uizard and many more. New tools are coming on the market everyday and the key differentiator in this changing world of work is going to be talent that learns to use and integrate these tools into their day-to-day workflow as fast as possible. Design is no exception.

Conclusion: Stop Overpaying for Design and Hire an Offshore Designer Today
Hiring an offshore designer is the best way to get bang for your buck as a small business. Over 50% of the design talent pool is sitting outside the US and they are 50-70% cheaper than onshore talent. You have a realistic chance of finding and hiring top 1% design talent offshore, which is an uphill battle in the US.
Design is more important than ever as we AI lowers the barrier and increases output across sales, marketing and operations. Offshore designers can help you increase your design output and make sure all the details are designed to the highest quality. In today’s competitive world that matters more than ever.