Air digital asset management alternatives: Which DAM is best for your brand?

If you’re looking for a digital asset management (DAM) system to help streamline your creative workflow, you’ve probably come across Air, (as they’re spending tonnes of VC-backed investment on questionable brand campaigns). 💅

It’s a popular choice for teams managing content production, offering project management features and a sleek interface.

But here’s the thing—Air is built for creative operations, not for getting your content out into the world. That’s where it falls short for ecommerce brands. If you need to share product images with retailers, deploy marketing assets across multiple channels, or collaborate with external partners, you may find yourself hitting frustrating limitations (unless you upgrade to a pricey plan). 😬

So, what are your options? In this article, we’ll break down Air’s pros and cons, explore alternative DAMs, and compare Air with Dash (that’s us!).  If you’re an ecommerce brand that needs a DAM that goes beyond creative workflows—helping you organise, distribute, and deploy your creative assets—we’ll show you how Dash stacks up.

Let’s dive in. 🚀

What is Air digital asset management? 

Launched in 2017, Air is a digital asset management (DAM) tool designed primarily for creative teams managing content production. It offers a visual, board-based system that helps you organise, review, and collaborate on assets throughout the creative process. While it’s good for helping you manage creative operations, Air lacks the key features of a full DAM system—such as advanced asset distribution and scalable external sharing options. This makes it a better fit for teams focused purely on content creation and approval processes, rather than ecommerce brands needing to deploy assets efficiently across multiple channels and partners.

Air's pros and cons 

To help you weigh up whether Air is the best digital asset management solution for your team, let’s look at some pros and cons. We’ve gathered this intel from online reviews and talking to our own customers who were considering Air alongside Dash as their DAM tool. 

Air's pros 

Here are some of the pros to picking Air for your content operations. 

• Organise assets in multiple views: Air is designed for creative teams managing content production, which is why its organisational structure is built around visual workflows. Instead of a traditional folder-based system, Air lets you organise assets—like images, videos, and audio files—using boards and sub-boards. 
  
  You can switch between Gallery, Table, or Kanban formats, depending on how you like to work. The Kanban view, in particular, is great for managing creative approvals—simply drag and drop assets between boards to track progress at a glance. This project-management-style approach makes sense for creative operations, where teams need to iterate quickly, review content in context, and move assets seamlessly through production stages.
  
  

• Smart search: Like any good DAM, you can search for assets using keywords and search terms. That’s because advanced search functionality automatically adds AI-generated keywords to your digital assets so they’re easier to find. You can use additional custom tags for increased asset visibility. 
  
  💡Dash also offers smart searching. Auto tags make it easy to search for the content of your images. Plus, our customer, RevAir, says it’s like “going shopping in Dash.” 🤩
  
  

• Easy-to-use interface: With Air, you get a visual-asset-first user interface. This translates into clear image previews and a mood board-like grid display. Dash also has a gorgeous user interface. In fact, most of our customers’ DAMs look like beautiful Pinterest feeds 😍 (just take a look at Gozney's home page).

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Air's cons

While Air offers useful features for creative teams, its focus on content production means it lacks some key digital asset management capabilities—especially for ecommerce brands that need to distribute content efficiently. If your team needs a DAM that not only helps organise assets but also makes it easy to share product images with retailers, deploy visuals across marketing channels, and streamline approvals, Air’s workflow may feel limiting. Let’s take a look at where it falls short.‍

• Limited integrations (especially for ecommerce deployment): Air connects with a handful of popular creative tools, but its integrations are still more geared towards creative operations than ecommerce deployment. So if your goal is to get assets live across your channels, including; updating product pages, launching ads, scheduling social, or feeding email marketing campaigns, you may still end up doing a lot of manual downloading from Air and re-uploading elsewhere.
  
  Air’s deeper automation and extensibility options—like Zapier and API access—sit at the Enterprise level, which can make it harder for smaller brands to plug Air neatly into their existing stack without upgrading.
  
  Dash, on the other hand, is built for both creating and deploying creative assets. Integrations are included on every plan (including Shopify), so your team can move faster from 'approved' to 'live' without extra steps.

• ‍Confusing AI roadmap: We know that many brands are adopting AI to help them manage their ecommerce stores, and this is a hot topic in the DAM world. Air has indicated that AI-powered features are in development, but beyond AI tagging, it’s unclear how customers can access these tools. According to their website, AI features—under the name ‘Paige’—are available through a design program, suggesting that only select users (likely on higher-tier plans) can access them.
  
  

• Credit-based pricing that can be hard to predict: Air has moved to a credit-based pricing model, where credits are used across storage, AI image editing, and video creation. The good news? Every plan now includes unlimited users — so you're not paying per seat. But the trade-off is that your available storage and AI usage is determined by how many credits you consume each month, which can make it harder to predict costs as your library grows. Credits also don't roll over, so any unused allowance is lost at the end of the billing cycle. For ecommerce brands with fluctuating content needs, this model can feel unpredictable

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Air digital asset management software alternatives 

Now you've got the scoop on Air's pros and cons, let's look at some of the most popular Air alternatives on the market (or skip this step and download our digital asset management comparison worksheet). ⏬

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1. Dash: The best DAM for ecommerce businesses 

Unlike Air, Dash is built to support both the creation and deployment of your visual content—making it the ideal choice for ecommerce and marketing teams that need to organise, find, and distribute assets quickly.

With AI-powered tagging, smart filters, and high-quality image previews, Dash makes it easy to store and retrieve your content. Whether you’re searching for last season’s campaign shots or the latest product images for your Shopify store, everything is intuitively organised and accessible in seconds.

But Dash doesn’t just help you store content—it helps you get it out into the world, fast. Features like a direct Shopify integration, image cropping, download presets, and public portals mean you can quickly format assets for social media, update product pages, or send visuals to retailers—without extra manual work.

And the best part? Dash offers straightforward, transparent pricing. Plans start at £79/$99 per month, giving you access to all features for unlimited users—so you’re never forced to upgrade just to unlock essential tools. You only pay for extra storage or downloads if you need them, making Dash a cost-effective DAM that scales with your business.

We’ll break down exactly how Dash compares to Air later in this article, but if you want to see it in action, take a look at our public portal and explore how Dash works for yourself.

👉 Take a deeper dive of Air vs Dash.

2. Brandfolder: For enterprise businesses

Brandfolder is a digital asset management (DAM) system designed with enterprise businesses in mind. It offers extensive features that help large teams manage assets, maintain brand consistency, and track usage. For example, you can monitor downloads, see which assets are accessed most frequently, and manage user permissions across multiple teams.

While these features may be useful for large-scale organisations with complex workflows, Brandfolder comes with a steep learning curve and a high price tag. For smaller and mid-sized businesses, it can feel like buying a mansion when you only need a well-designed, functional space.

Dash, on the other hand, offers a scalable and intuitive DAM that works just as well for growing brands as it does for larger teams, without unnecessary complexity or cost.

If you're considering Brandfolder but want a more flexible and cost-effective solution, check out Brandfolder alternatives for a deep look into how this digital asset management system works.

3. Bynder: Also for large organisations 

Like Brandfolder, Bynder is designed for large businesses with big teams and complex workflows. It comes with a long list of features—from creative workflow management to brand templates and multi-language support. That’s great if you’re running a huge corporation with strict brand guidelines, but for DTC brands that need a fast, flexible DAM, it’s probably overkill.

Bynder’s pricing is high, and its asset library feels clunky and outdated. If you’re a small or mid-sized ecommerce brand, you’ll likely find it too complicated and time-consuming for everyday use. Large brands can afford the long onboarding process, but for businesses that need to get content organised and out into the world fast, Bynder just doesn’t make sense.

We've covered more about Bynder's features and alternatives on our blog. 

4. Frontify: For brand management 

Frontify is a brand management tool designed to help teams organize brand assets, create templates, and build brand guidelines. It’s useful for maintaining brand consistency, but its DAM features are limited, making it harder to organize and retrieve assets efficiently.

Frontify isn’t transparent about pricing, and costs are reportedly based on monthly active users, which can make budgeting unpredictable. If you need a full-featured DAM to store, search, and distribute marketing assets, consider alternatives like Dash.

You can learn more in our article about Frontify digital asset management alternatives. 

5. Canto: For mid-sized businesses 

Canto's platform offers advanced features such as metadata management, version control, and user permissions to ensure businesses can manage and control their digital assets effectively.

Although Canto isn't clear about its pricing on its website, third-party sites say the platform costs about $600 per month. We delved into the nuts and bolts of how this digital asset management system works in our Canto alternatives article.

What's the right DAM software for you? 

Finding the right digital asset management (DAM) tool for your team comes down to a few key factors. Here’s what to consider when weighing up your options:

1. Your use case: what do you need your DAM to do?

Different DAMs serve different purposes, so it’s important to consider who will be using your DAM and what you need it to achieve.

• Air is built for creative operations, helping teams manage content production and approvals. If your main priority is refining creative workflows, it might work for you.
  
  
• Dash, on the other hand, is designed for ecommerce and marketing teams who need to store, organise, and deploy assets efficiently. If you need a DAM that helps get content out into the world—whether that’s retailers, social media, or marketing campaigns—Dash is the better choice.

2. Your budget: what can you afford?

Pricing is a big factor when choosing a DAM.

• Air and Dash offer affordable plans for small and growing businesses, though Air locks key features behind higher-tier plans.
  
  
• Enterprise-focused DAMs like Bynder and Brandfolder come with a high price tag and are often overkill for ecommerce brands that don’t need complex admin tools.
• Dash offers transparent, scalable pricing with all features included, so you’re not forced to upgrade just to unlock essential tools.

3. Onboarding and ease of use: how quickly can you get started?

As a small or mid-sized team, you need a DAM that delivers value fast—not one that takes weeks to implement.

• Dash is plug-and-play, meaning you can start uploading and organising assets right away. If you need help, we offer free onboarding support on all plans to guide you through setup, folder structures, and tagging strategies.
  
  
• Air only provides onboarding support on Pro and Enterprise plans, which means smaller teams may be left figuring things out on their own.

4. Customer support: will you get help when you need it?

A DAM should make your life easier, not create frustrating delays when you need support.

• Air offers live chat support, but if you need face-to-face help or a dedicated success manager, you’ll have to upgrade to a higher-tier plan.
• Dash provides fast, reliable customer support for all users. Our in-app chat connects you to a real person, usually within 10 minutes during UK business hours. If you need more help, we’re happy to jump on a call to walk you through any issues.

Ultimately, the best digital asset management software for you is one that caters to your specific business needs effectively. Say you're looking for a simple way to streamline content operations for your creative team, then Air might be the right choice. 

But if you want a powerful digital asset management platform that will simplify your content workflows and offer core DAM software features at an affordable price, you can't go wrong with Dash. 

Brands like Beavertown already use Dash to streamline creative operations and easily deploy a wide range of relevant assets  — and they're loving it! 

Now, it's your turn. Try Dash for free and join hundreds of growing DTC brands around the world.