If you’re a marketing or creative exec for an enterprise business like Zoom or McLaren, Brandfolder might be the digital asset management (DAM) system for you. It has a massive library of features, most of which have been designed for huge organisations.

But if you’re a small or growing brand, Brandfolder might feel like a bit much. It’s packed with features you might not need—and comes with a whopping price tag to match.

If that sounds like you, we’d recommend weighing up how Brandfolder compares to other DAM systems. To help you out, we’ve done a deep dive into Brandfolder and its competitors, read hundreds of customer reviews, and put our findings in one neat place so you can make the best decision for your brand. (And yes, we’ll be comparing our own DAM system, Dash, which is built for growing brands 😇).

What is Brandfolder digital asset management?

Brandfolder is a digital asset management (DAM) platform designed to help marketing and creative teams store, organise, and share brand assets and documents in one place. It aims to make collaboration easier and help teams stay on-brand across different channels.

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. That’s great if you’re running marketing ops for a global enterprise, but can feel heavy-handed for more agile brands who want to get content out the door quickly.

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.

What features does Brandfolder offer?

Like most digital asset management (DAM) tools, Brandfolder comes with the usual set of features you'd expect—especially if you're part of a large enterprise. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Asset storage and organisation: You can store and organise all your brand assets in one place. That includes images, videos, audio files and documents (like PDFs).
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• Collaboration and sharing: In Brandfolder you can collaborate and share assets with team members, stakeholders, and external partners. Users can create custom workflows and approvals, assign tasks and deadlines. You;re also able to share assets with others and control access to sensitive information with customisable permissions and roles.
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• Search and filters: Brandfolder includes metadata tagging and search filters to help you find what you need. Just keep in mind that reviews suggest searching can be clunky if your tagging isn’t spot on.
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• Approval workflows: You can build internal approval flows to help manage your content before it goes live. Again, this is a pretty standard feature in most DAMs—and the complexity of it can feel like overkill if you’re a smaller team.
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• Asset performance insights: There’s a reporting dashboard that shows who’s using your content and which files are most popular. Tool integrations: You can connect Brandfolder to platforms like Adobe Creative Cloud and Slack.
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• Security and scalability: Brandfolder is built for big companies. It’s secure and can scale with enterprise teams. But any DAM worth its salt (like Dash) takes security just as seriously.

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Pros and cons of Brandfolder

Now you've got a summary of Brandfolder's key digital asset management features, here are some pros and cons to help you make the best choice for your brand.

Brandfolder pros

There’s a massive range of features

Okay, so we couldn't list out all of Brandfolder's features in the section above. That’s because they have a lot listed on their website. As we mentioned, you can do everything from storing and finding assets to editing, sharing and understanding how they perform. Perfect if you’re a large enterprise with tons of assets and users, and the budget to match.

Use multiple options for filtering, tagging and sorting

With its AI-powered search, Brandfolder lets you file and search your asset library by different criteria, including product SKU, performance and popularity. This could be useful if you have high numbers of people accessing creative files using different search criteria. But bear in mind Brandfolder aren’t the only DAM with AI search.
 

Keep creative control when collaborating across teams

Brandfolder gives your team the ability to customise your assets while retaining your creative control. Your teams can create branded materials with templating tools and content. It also integrates into existing workflows such as Smartsheet and Workfront.

Get asset analytics and user insights

 Brandfolder’s analytics let you export data on every aspect of your assets. You can see who’s been using what, where, how often, and what for. You can even monitor your top performing images, videos and audio files, as well as see who’s been downloading your assets.

Send your assets to print

If your colleagues on the other side of the world need to print your assets, you can ensure consistent quality with local on-demand printing straight from Brandfolder. 

Brandfolder cons

As is often the case with many large DAM solutions, Brandfolder’s strengths can also be its weaknesses. The sheer breadth of features and capabilities can make it cumbersome.

Big learning curve

Many people find the initial set-up and onboarding long and complicated — particularly if they have thousands of assets. And that’s not surprising: with so many different features, there’s a lot to get your head around. The complexity also means you’ll probably need to provide dedicated training for new hires. And to make matters worse, some Brandfolder reviewers have reported that customer service can be slow to respond, which can add to the frustration during the initial setup and onboarding process.

For example, one reviewer isn’t happy with the amount of work needed in the back end:

“The biggest challenge is finding what I need quickly. As a small startup organization, it’s tough to tag thousands of images in a way to make a search quick and easy. If you don’t have the resources to tag and sort, Google Drive or intranet shared folders might be a more cost-effective option.”

And another is still figuring out ways to make Brandfolder do what he wants it to do:

“In the beginning, getting used to Brandfolder’s structure was a little tricky. We spent hours with our account rep on training our team on how to get around Brandfolder. While it’s still not 100% where we had hoped to be, we’re figuring out creative ways to make Brandfolder do what we need it to do.”

Tricky search and navigation

Most of the negative comments about Brandfolder relate to search. With so many different search parameters, Brandfolder can bring back irrelevant results—especially when searching for specific file types like PDFs.

What's more, filters can be tricky if a file’s data isn’t inputted exactly as it should be. If you don’t have the time to spend tagging and sorting your assets, you might want to opt for a simpler and cheaper solution.

One graphic designer says:

“The page navigation is quite annoying. It’s not always intuitive to click for the next page and navigating can be a little annoying. It would be nice to see some other ways to navigate.”

Tags are not intuitive

When adding new assets, Brandfolder doesn’t score highly on auto-tagging. Customers say that sometimes the auto-tags need to be manually adjusted and often lead to confusion. This is time-consuming, especially for smaller businesses with fewer people.

Brandfolder’s pricing is expensive

Brandfolder doesn’t display pricing on its website, so you’ll need to request a demo so Brandfolder can find a “solution best suited to your needs”. However, our research suggests that costs range from around $1,600 a month to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, depending on the solution you pick and the complexity of your business demands. Many people say that some of the features they want are only available in higher-priced packages.

One small business user likes the concept but feels Brandfolder is for enterprise accounts:

“Seems to be geared toward Enterprise scale accounts. Convenience has a cost.”

💡Learn more about why you don’t need an enterprise digital asset management tool.

Thumbnails are too small

Another common complaint about Brandfolder is how you view your assets. It’s not always easy to see them. Thumbnails don’t always appear to fill the entire space, or they look imperfect and pixelated. It’s also difficult to see many images on a page. You have to scroll between multiple pages to find what you’re looking for.

One user finds scrolling irritating:

“I was hoping to have something where we could divide into folders and then place product information into those folders. Having to scroll and scroll to get to the item you need is kind of irritating. We have to scroll through the photos section. Then we scroll through the product videos. Then scroll past the presentations, then scroll past… you get the picture.”

Brandfolder alternatives to consider 

Dash (for ecommerce and growing brands)

Dash (that’s us) is a better fit for growing brands and ecommerce businesses. Unlike enterprise DAMs built for massive companies and complex workflows, Dash is designed to help smaller, fast-moving teams get organised, launch campaigns, and grow their online stores, without the fuss.

You’ll get one tidy, central home for all your images, videos, graphics and product content. Our AI-powered search and smart tagging features make it easy to find exactly what you need, fast. 

We also know that getting content to your channels quickly is key when you're running an ecommerce business. That’s why Dash includes features like:

• Shopify integration, so you can drop assets straight into your product listings
  
  
• Built-in resizing presets, so you can crop assets for social media or your website without needing a designer
  
  
• Portals, so you can give retailers, agencies, or press easy access to your latest content—without juggling file-sharing links
  
  
• Guest uploads, making it easy to collect UGC or content from creators without needing to pay for extra seats
  
  

And the best part? Dash is affordable and transparent. Pricing starts at just £79/$109 per month, and you’ll get access to all features and unlimited users on every plan.

👇 Scoot down for our full comparison of Dash vs. Brandfolder. Or check out our digital asset management guide for small businesses to see how Dash can help you scale.

Canto (for middle market companies)

Canto is a good option for middle market companies that may not have the budget for Brandfolder. It includes features like branding capabilities and detailed reporting, which can be useful for managing content at scale. However, with prices starting at $600 a month (or $7,200 a year), it’s still a big investment, especially for growing businesses. Some customer reviews also suggest the interface is clunky and tricky to use, which means there can be a steep learning curve for new teams. If you’re considering this as a DAM alternative, we’ve put together a detailed Canto alternatives and comparison guide to help you explore your options.

Bynder (for enterprise brands)

Bynder is one of the most established digital asset management systems on the market and is a strong fit for large, enterprise businesses. Like Brandfolder, it’s used by well-known companies such as Five Guys and Boohoo. It’s particularly useful for global teams who need to manage and distribute digital media files across multiple locations. While it’s slightly more affordable than Brandfolder—with basic packages starting from around $450 a month—it still caters primarily to large organisations with complex workflows. 

If you're a growing ecommerce brand, however, Dash is likely to be a much better fit. It's built specifically for small to mid-sized ecommerce businesses that need to organise, share and deploy their visual content fast—without the complexity or high cost. You get access to all features (including our Shopify and Canva integrations) from just £79/$109 per month, with unlimited users included as standard.

If you do want to learn more about Bynder, check out our Bynder alternatives article for more info on features and pricing. 

Acquia DAM (another option for enterprise businesses)

Acquia DAM, formerly known as Widen Collective, is built for large enterprises with complex content operations. It’s used by major brands like Dyson, New Balance and Energizer, and its pricing reflects that enterprise focus—with annual subscriptions reportedly starting at $29,000 (yep, you read that right).

Acquia positions its DAM as a way to streamline global content workflows, helping teams organise, manage and distribute assets across multiple departments and regions. It might be a good choice if you’ve got a global team and a big tech stack to integrate with.

But if you're a smaller ecommerce brand looking for a fast, flexible and cost-effective DAM, Acquia DAM is likely to be more than you need. 

PhotoShelter (for creative workflows)

Used by both brands and photographers, PhotoShelter certainly looks good. Its tagline “transforming the way creative people work” sums up its main features and benefits. Focusing on visual brand storytelling, it very much pushes its creative workflow capabilities. However, some customer reviews suggest it’s pricey, especially when it comes to giving new people access to basic DAM functions.

Frontify (for brand management) 

Frontify positions itself as a brand asset management platform that brings guidelines, templates, and digital assets into one central place. It’s a good fit for brand and creative teams that want to keep everything consistent and build out branded templates and documentation.

But when it comes to digital asset management, Frontify’s features feel secondary. Its DAM functionality is more of an add-on than the main event, which means you might be paying for brand management tools you don’t actually need.

It also lacks core DAM features like public portals and custom image cropping—things that growing ecommerce brands rely on when getting content into campaigns. 

If you go with Frontify, your brand teams might be happy - but it’s not going to be as useful to your ecommerce or marketing teams. If you’re after a more streamlined, ecommerce-friendly platform that your entire organisation can use to search, share and deploy assets quickly, Dash might be the better choice.

Learn more in our article about Frontify alternatives. 

Air (for creative ops management) 

Air is built for creative collaboration. It’s geared toward teams managing lots of internal feedback, content creation, and versioning. While it does offer basic DAM features, it’s increasingly positioning itself as a creative operations tool rather than a full digital asset management system.

If your focus is deploying content to marketing channels or retailers, Air might not have the tools you need. Features like resizing, cropping, or a Shopify integration aren’t part of the core experience. Their pricing is also deceptive. Whilst it starts cheaply, it can ramp up quickly, especially as your team grows or you need more support.

For ecommerce brands that want to organise, share, and launch content fast, Dash offers a more focused and affordable solution.

You can learn more about them in our article covering Air digital asset management alternatives.

Dash versus Brandfolder: which is better for your growing business?

Let’s drill down to the main features of both digital asset management systems and see how they stack up.

Dash vs. Brandfolder: features

Brandfolder lists loads of features on its website—many designed for enterprise businesses with complex asset workflows. But if you’re running a growing ecommerce brand, you probably don’t need advanced user permissions, web-to-print, or global distribution controls. You just want to manage your content quickly and efficiently without paying for functionality you’ll never use.

Dash focuses on the features that ecommerce brands actually rely on. That's things like guest uploads, a Shopify integration, image resizing and portals for sharing content with retailers. Everything is built to help you organise, share, and deploy your brand assets fast, without unnecessary complexity.

Take a look at the core digital asset management features that Dash offers (all for just £79/$109 per month). ✨

Dash vs. Brandfolder: price

Brandfolder charges from around $1,600 a month up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. That’s because its core audience has tens of thousands of users across multi departments. These teams need complex user permissions and creative workflow support that typically come with bigger brands. If you don’t, why would you pay for gear you don’t need?

At Dash, our pricing is transparent and starts at just £79 or $109 a month. That includes access to all features and unlimited users from day one. 

You won’t be forced into higher tiers or hit with hidden fees. Instead, you’ll only pay for the storage and downloads you actually need. It’s simple, flexible, and built to give growing brands a great return on investment.

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Dash vs Brandfolder: ROI 

When you purchase a digital asset management solution, you want to know you’re getting a good return on investment. It’s also a major selling point for making a business case to your team. 

According to G2, a B2B software review platform, there’s a clear winner when it comes to which DAM will give you the best ROI. 

The data shows you’ll get your money back with Brandfolder after 20 months. With Dash, you get your money back after 12 months. 🤑Plus, Dash was also voted as the DAM with the best ROI overall. 

That’s because Dash is considerably more affordable than Brandfolder, but doesn’t cut back on the key features of a good DAM. It’s also super-intuitive, so it doesn’t take weeks (or months) to get your team up and running. In fact, you’ll get going twice as fast with Dash as you would with Brandfolder. And the quicker your team can get up and running, the faster they’ll be able to find assets and push out product launches 

But don’t take our word for it. Kim, the CCO of RevAir says:

“I easily get ten times the return in productivity from my team members."

💡If you need more information about how much money Dash will save you, you can calculate the ROI of digital asset management.

Dash vs. Brandfolder: onboarding

Once you've made the decision to use a DAM, you want to get up and running ASAP. 

User ratings on G2 score Brandfolder lower on ‘ease of set up’ than Dash. That’s likely because of how Dash has been designed to be really intuitive. But, whilst you need little to no training to get started, that’s not to say Dash can’t cater to more complex needs. 

Take BrewDog, for example. They were moving from Bynder and needed their Dash set up in a way that was familiar to their teams and external users. Our Sales Team Lead, Al, worked with Jack - BrewDog’s Campaign Activator -  to create portals that were accessible to their different bars and partners across the world. He said having dedicated onboarding support helped him get going faster: 

“Alex and I had a number of longer calls where we had a more defined meeting agenda. But quite often I would send her a quick email and ask if she had 10 minutes to hop on a call. She was so responsive and always so helpful about negotiating those little bumps in the road which for me, as a new user, would have held me up.”

Our team will also help you migrate your assets from Google Drive, Dropbox or another DAM if you’ve been using one. 

🤓 Read more about migrating your assets to Dash. 

Dash vs. Brandfolder: user interface and user experience (UX)

The last thing you want with a digital asset management system is a slow, clunky interface that doesn’t allow you to see your visual content easily or in the best light.

As we’ve mentioned, a common complaint about Brandfolder is the difficulty seeing folders and images. Many people say browsing through assets is difficult and not particularly user-friendly.

If searching for assets on a DAM isn’t easy, you might as well save yourself some money and carry on using Google Drive or Dropbox. 🤷‍♀️ This is, after all, one of the primary reasons people purchase a DAM.

Luckily, Dash uses a combination of auto-tagging and custom attributes to make searching super easy. It has an intuitive user interface which means it won't take you long to get up and running. Here's what it looks like to search in Dash: 

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Dash vs Brandfolder: integrations

Brandfolder makes a big thing about the number of other software systems and platforms you can integrate into the DAM. There are already over 50 and they say it’s growing all the time.

At Dash, we build integrations to cater for the needs of small and growing brands. For instance, ecommerce businesses find our integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce useful for updating their online stores without the back-and-forth of downloads. Plus our Hootsuite integration means you can deploy images and videos to your social channels, fast.

Also, many of our customers come to us having used Google Drive and Dropbox for storing their assets. So we integrate with these tools to make the Dash setup so much smoother—you can simply drop images from your Google Drive and Dropbox directly into Dash.

Brandfolder FAQs

Still have some burning questions about Brandfolder? Here are some commonly asked queries. 

Who owns Brandfolder?

Brandfolder is owned by Smartsheet Inc., a work management platform that acquired Brandfolder in 2020. Since then, Brandfolder has been part of the Smartsheet product suite, aiming to bring digital asset management into broader project and content workflows.

How much does Brandfolder cost?

Brandfolder doesn’t list pricing on its website, so you’ll need to book a demo to get a quote. However, based on third-party sources and customer reviews, plans typically start at around $1,600 per month. Costs can increase significantly depending on your asset volume, user count, and feature needs—so it’s best suited for large organisations with big budgets.

What is Brandfolder used for?

Brandfolder is a digital asset management (DAM) tool that helps businesses store, organise, and share their marketing content. It’s used to manage large libraries of images, videos, logos, and documents, especially across big teams and departments. Features like metadata tagging, advanced search, templating, and usage analytics make it a go-to option for enterprise brands that need to keep creative assets consistent and accessible at scale.

That said, if you’re a smaller or growing ecommerce brand, you might find Brandfolder a bit complex (and expensive) for your needs. Tools like Dash are built to help you manage, deploy, and share your visual content without the extra bloat.

Is Brandfolder the best DAM for you?

There are tonnes of digital asset management benefits  – all of which make your workday so much easier. Who doesn’t want that? But the last thing you need is a complex (pricey) DAM like Brandfolder if you’re not going to use all the features it provides..

 Here’s what to look for, so you can avoid wasting time and instead pick the DAM that’s the best fit for your company: 

• Who’s going to be using it? Talk to your marketing, creative, design and sales teams and find out which key features they need. It’s worth finding a DAM that your entire company can benefit from. For example, maybe your design team needs version control and the ability to make large file transfers. Or your brand manager needs to collaborate with external users like agencies and freelancers. You can do all of this in Dash.
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• How much do you want to spend? We hope that, by now, you can see that you don’t need a super-expensive digital asset management solution—especially if you’re a growing brand. A DAM like Dash can provide all the important features you need, at a fraction of the cost.. It’ll also scale you and help your business grow, like it has for Goodrays. ✨What more do you need?
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• What time and resources do you have? You’ll probably want to get up and running quickly and if you don’t have the time to train all your people, choose a DAM vendor with excellent customer support. If you pick Dash, you can simply drop us a message within the app and we’ll get back to you ASAP (usually in under 5 minutes).

In summary, make sure to consider all your options for spending loads on an enterprise DAM like Brandfolder. With a DAM like Dash, you’ll get going faster and earn your ROI back quicker. 

Check Dash out with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.