Brandfolder alternatives: which DAM is best for your business?

Brandfolder is an established, enterprise-grade digital asset management (DAM) platform. It’s great for sharing content with lots of people outside your business. But it's built and priced for enterprise teams, and you'll need a demo and a sizeable contract to get in the door.

In this guide we'll cover what Brandfolder does, the pros and cons that matter for ecommerce teams, and compare the best Brandfolder alternatives to shortlist. That includes Bynder, Canto, Frontify, Air, Stockpress and our very own DAM, Dash.

Brandfolder alternatives TL;DR

Short on time? Here's the quick version. 👇

• Brandfolder is Smartsheet's enterprise DAM, with AI tagging, portals, brand guidelines and detailed analytics. It includes free, unlimited guest users. But pricing is quote-only, and features like analytics and SSO sit in its Premium plan.
• Dash is built for growing ecommerce and DTC brands. You get every feature, unlimited users and Shopify on every plan, from £79 / $109 a month.
• Bynder is an enterprise heavyweight with modular pricing and a median contract of around $37,000 a year.
• Canto is a quote-only DAM for mid-sized and enterprise teams, with strong AI search and approvals. Its Shopify integration sits in a higher package.
• Frontify is a brand management platform that combines a DAM with brand guidelines and portals. Pricing is quote-only.
• Air has a free plan and a $25 Starter tier, but a big jump to $900 a month for Business.
• Stockpress is a self-serve DAM with published prices and unlimited users, from $99 a month.

In summary: pick Brandfolder if you're a large organisation sharing content with hundreds of partners and you want deep analytics. Pick Dash if you want a DAM your whole team will actually use, at a price you can see upfront. 😇

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What is Brandfolder?

‍In 2020, Brandfolder was acquired by Smartsheet—a work management platform behemoth. Since then, Brandfolder’s features have been geared more towards large businesses that need to manage complex workflows, layered permissions, and large teams. 

Brandfolder is made up of a few main parts:

• The DAM library: stores your images, video and documents, with tagging, custom fields, collections and in-document search.
• Brand Intelligence: Brandfolder's AI layer, which highlights your best-performing assets and handles automated tagging and duplicate detection. 
• Portals and Brandguide: curated, branded pages for different audiences, plus online brand guidelines.
• Creative workflow: approvals, templating and an Adobe plugin for producing new content.
• Smart CDN: embed assets on your website, so an updated file changes everywhere it's used.

It's sold through two published plans, Premium and Enterprise, and neither has a public price.

If you’re a growing ecommerce business, Brandfolder may end up making you pay for more than you need. A tool like Dash—designed specifically for smaller teams—could be a much better fit.

Pros and cons of Brandfolder for ecommerce brands

‍Let's look at some key pros and cons that are important for ecommerce brands needing a home for their brand’s content. 

[fs-toc-omit] Brandfolder pros

Free guests for sharing content

‍Brandfolder offers free and unlimited guest users, so you can share assets with anyone without paying extra. If you have hundreds of retailers, distributors or franchisees who only need to view and download content, that’s a real benefit. 

Portals and brand guidelines built in

‍Portals let you create a curated page of content for each audience, and Brandguide keeps your brand guidelines online and up to date. For brands with lots of partners, that's a tidy way to keep everyone on-brand.

Detailed asset analytics

‍Brandfolder is great at showing you which assets get used, by whom and how often. If you need to prove the value of your content to the wider business, its reporting is hard to beat.

A big integration library

‍Brandfolder's integrations page lists around 50 tools. That includes Adobe, Figma, Canva, Salesforce, HubSpot, WordPress, Hootsuite and Shopify, plus a tight link to Smartsheet if your team already plans its work there.

[fs-toc-omit] Brandfolder cons

The pricing is a mystery

‍Like most DAMs (except Dash 😇), Brandfolder doesn't publish its prices, so you'll need to book a demo. Third-parties suggest the average buyer pays around $24,999 a year. That's a big commitment for a growing brand's marketing budget. 

Key features sit in the Premium plan

‍Some of Brandfolder's most useful features aren't in its core offer. On its pricing page, the Premium plan adds asset analytics, OCR search inside documents, bulk updates and uploads, single sign-on, publish and expiry dates, and Video AI. Enterprise adds custom automation, tighter permissions and a vanity URL. 

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Only guests are free

‍Free guests are great, but anyone who uploads, organises or approves content needs a paid seat.

It takes a while to get going

‍Brandfolder's own FAQ says its average onboarding takes 1.6 months, depending on how complex your requirements are. There's no free trial either. Instead, Brandfolder points you to its own public Brandfolder and an overview video. That's a long run-up for a small team that's already stretched. 

The best Brandfolder alternatives

Not sure Brandfolder is for you? Here are the alternatives worth a look.

Dash for growing ecommerce and DTC brands

Dash is a DAM built for marketing and creative teams at growing ecommerce brands. It gives you one simple, affordable home to store, find, share and use your content, without the enterprise bloat. Brands like Gozney, Rixo, BrewDog, Mountain Equipment and Roka use it every day.

What you get with Dash:

• Find images faster: Type a description of the image you're after, and AI search finds it, even if nobody tagged it that way.
• Keep your library consistent: Tag assets by SKU, campaign, season or usage rights with custom fields, so your team isn't guessing which tag someone else used.
• Collect content from creators: Guest upload links let photographers, agencies and influencers send content straight into Dash. You decide what gets in, and send the rest back with feedback.
• Let partners help themselves: Retailers and distributors get their own branded portal to download approved assets, so you're not fielding every image request.
• Update Shopify in bulk: Pull SKUs and product info from your live store to tag assets, then push images to your Shopify product pages. This is included from the entry plan.
• Resize without a designer: Crop and resize for any channel, and save your own preset sizes so every banner and product shot comes out the same.
• Get started quickly: It takes about a month to get fully up and running with Dash (and often much quicker if you’re a small team).
• Faster ROI: According to customer reviews on G2, it takes about 12 months to get ROI from Dash. That’s calculated by the amount of time saved searching for assets.(With Brandfolder, ROI is about 20 months).

What Dash costs:

• Dash’s pricing starts at $109 a month, and every plan includes every feature. You can also save 10% if you sign up annually.
• Unlimited users on every plan. That's everyone, not just guests, so inviting a freelancer to upload content doesn't bump your bill.
• Migration and support is free, and you only need to give 30 days' notice to leave.
• Start a 14-day free trial, with no credit card needed.

How Dash compares to Brandfolder: Dash isn't trying to match Brandfolder's enterprise toolkit. If you need in-depth usage analytics, custom automation or a direct link into Smartsheet, Brandfolder wins that round.

But if you want a findable, shareable home for your content that your whole team will pick up quickly, Dash is built for exactly that. Every feature is on every plan, every user is free (not just guests), and G2 reviewers rate Dash higher than Brandfolder for ease of setup. In fact, it’s about one month on average to get started with Dash. With Branfolder, you’re looking at two.

Plus, you can try it yourself today, rather than waiting for a demo.

Bynder for large enterprises

Bynder is one of the heavyweights of the DAM world. It's built for global organisations with lots of teams, regions and agencies all working from the same library. It's also the closest like-for-like rival to Brandfolder on this list.

What you get with Bynder:

• Handle huge libraries: Bynder is designed for enterprise companies with very large libraries.
• Add tools as you grow: Pricing is modular, so you can add Brand Guidelines, Content Workflow, Studio (for automating creative production) or Analytics when you need them.
• Keep templates on-brand: Lock down fonts, colours and layouts, so teams can create their own marketing without going off-brand.

What Bynder costs:

• It's quote-only so you’ll need to book a demo for the full quote.
• Pricing depends on your users, storage and modules, and each module costs extra.
• This-party data suggest an annual contract can cost somewhere between $13,480 to $74,584 per year.
• Budget for implementation cost: Reports suggest that professional services range from $10,000 to more than $50,000.

How Bynder compares to Brandfolder: These two are very similar. Both are quote-only enterprise DAMs with strong governance, templates and big integration libraries. Bynder lets you build your own bundle module by module, which is flexible but adds up quickly. Brandfolder includes more in its core product, like portals, Brandguide and the Smart CDN, and its free guest users make it the friendlier pick for sharing at scale.

Learn more in our Bynder alternatives guide.

Canto for mid-sized and enterprise teams

Canto is a digital asset management tool for mid-sized and enterprise teams. It's especially strong on AI search and structured approvals, and it has tools for linking content to product data.

What you get with Canto:

• Search in plain language: Canto's AI Visual Search lets you describe what you want, find similar images and jump to the exact moment in a video.
• Run proper approvals: Approval Hub gives you structured reviews, with proofing and version comparison built in.
• Organise around products: DAM for Products uses each SKU as the anchor, and pushes product content to Shopify and Amazon.
• Connect a big tech stack: Canto has around 50 native integrations, including the Adobe suite, HubSpot and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

What Canto costs:

• It's quote-only, sold in four packages, and none of them have public prices.
• Costs scale with your team size and storage.
• Features are spread across packages. The Shopify integration, for example, is part of DAM for Products, in a higher package.
• How Canto compares to Brandfolder: Canto goes further on product content and approvals, which helps if you've got a big, complex catalogue. Brandfolder is stronger on sharing with outside audiences, with free guests, portals and deeper usage analytics. Both are quote-only and take time to set up.

Learn more in our Canto alternatives guide.

Frontify for brand management teams

Frontify is a brand management platform first. It combines a digital asset management system with customised brand portals, and it's a strong choice for brand and creative teams who care most about consistency. 

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‍What you get with Frontify:

• Keep guidelines in one place: Build interactive brand guidelines that sit right next to your approved assets.
• Share through portals: Create portals so teams and partners can find what they need.
• Create on-brand content: Templates let non-designers make marketing materials that stay within the guidelines.
• Connect your design tools: Frontify integrates with Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office and Slack. 

What Frontify costs:

• Frontify's pricing is entirely custom, so you'll need to talk to sales. 
• Some Frontify articles suggest tehre’s a 30-day free trial, but we were unable to find a sign-up page on their website. 

How Frontify compares to Brandfolder: Both have portals, guidelines and templates. Frontify puts brand guidelines at the centre of everything, so brand teams tend to love it. Brandfolder leans more on the DAM itself, with usage analytics, the Smart CDN and lots of sales and ecommerce integrations. If your ecommerce and marketing teams need to deploy content fast, check how each one fits their day-to-day work, not just the brand team's.

Learn more in our article about Frontify alternatives.

Air for creative teams and agencies

Air is a creative operations tool, built for teams producing content, not just storing it. It organises assets on boards rather than folders, and over the last couple of years it's leaned hard into AI editing.

What you get with Air:

• Edit images with AI: Air's canvas can resize and reformat images, upscale them and edit text.
• Give detailed feedback: Comment on any asset, pin notes to an exact spot or draw straight onto an image.
• Work with creative tools: Connect with Figma, Adobe Premiere Pro, Zapier and more, plus desktop apps.
• Invite everyone: Every Air plan, including Free, includes unlimited users. 

‍What Air costs:

• Air uses credits, which cover storage and AI usage in one pool. The Free plan starts you with 120 credits, and Starter costs $25 a month for 600 credits. 
• Business costs $900 a month billed annually and includes 30,000 credits. That's a big jump from Starter. 
• Credits reset each month and don't roll over, so a busy month of AI editing can eat into the storage you were relying on. 
• Enterprise is custom, and it's the plan with Air's native Shopify app.

How Air compares with Brandfolder: These two are built for different jobs. Air is the stronger creative tool, with AI editing and feedback features that Brandfolder doesn't match, and it's much easier to try thanks to its free plan. Brandfolder is the stronger DAM for distributing finished content, with portals, guidelines and detailed analytics.

Find out more in our Air alternatives article.

Stockpress for small teams wanting a self-serve DAM

Stockpress is a straightforward, self-serve DAM for teams moving on from shared drives. Like Dash, it publishes its prices and doesn't charge per user, which puts it in a different camp from Brandfolder.

What you get with Stockpress:

• Get the basics on every plan: AI search, collections, tags, permissions, sharing and version control are included from the start.
• Invite your whole team: Stockpress includes unlimited users on all plans. 
• Unlock more as you grow: The Pro plan adds AI video tagging, duplicate detection, image editing, expiry dates, watermarking, guest upload pages and Adobe integrations. 

What Stockpress costs:

• Plans start at $99 a month for Essentials, $175 a month for Pro and $225 a month for Premium, plus a Free plan.
• You can sign up yourself, without booking a sales call.

How Stockpress computers to Brandfolder: Stockpress is the simpler, cheaper option, and you can see the price before you speak to anyone. Brandfolder does a lot more, with portals, Brandguide, deep analytics and around 50 integrations, but you'll pay enterprise prices for it. If you go with Stockpress, check which plan you need first, because guest uploads and image editing start on Pro.

Learn more in our Stockpress alternatives article.

Brandfolder alternatives: which is best for your team?

If you're a large enterprise sharing content with hundreds of partners, Brandfolder is a strong option, especially if you already plan your work in Smartsheet. 

If you're a growing ecommerce or DTC brand, your biggest headache probably isn't enterprise governance. It's scattered files, images you can't find, and the daily back-and-forth of sending content to your team, retailers and agencies. That's exactly what Dash is built for. You get every feature, unlimited users and Shopify on every plan, at a price you can see upfront. 😇

Try Dash for yourself with a 14-day trial, or book a demo with a member of our team.

Brandfolder alternatives FAQs

What are the best Brandfolder alternatives for ecommerce brands?

For most fast-moving ecommerce brands, Dash is the best Brandfolder alternative. It includes Shopify, branded portals for retailers, and cropping and resizing on every plan, from £79 / $109 a month. Stockpress and Air are worth a look if you want published prices and a free plan, while Bynder, Canto and Frontify suit larger teams.

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How much does Brandfolder cost?

Brandfolder doesn't publish its prices, so you'll need to book a demo for a quote. Third-party data puts the median contract at around $25,000 a year. Features like asset analytics, SSO and Video AI sit in the Premium plan, and custom automation sits in Enterprise.

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Does Brandfolder have a free trial?

No. Brandfolder doesn't offer a free trial or a free plan. Instead, it points you to its own public Brandfolder and an overview video, and then a sales demo. 

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Does Brandfolder integrate with Shopify?

Yes. Brandfolder's Shopify app lets you add assets to specific products and product variants from inside Shopify. 

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Who owns Brandfolder?

Smartsheet, which bought Brandfolder in 2020. Smartsheet was taken private by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners in January 2025, and Brandfolder is now sold as Brandfolder by Smartsheet.

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Is Dash or Brandfolder better for managing brand assets?

It depends on your size. Brandfolder is stronger for large organisations that need deep analytics, custom automation and free sharing with hundreds of guests. Dash is better for growing brands that want something their whole team can pick up quickly, with every feature and unlimited users from £79 / $109 a month.

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What is an ecommerce DAM?

An ecommerce DAM is a digital asset management tool built for online brands. It gives you one place to store, organise and share your product shots, lifestyle images and videos. It also helps you get them onto your website, marketplaces and social channels, with features like Shopify integrations, SKU tagging and preset image sizes.