How Much Does DAM Software Cost?

Organizations of all sizes and across all industries produce digital assets in response to market opportunities and customer preferences. These assets might include images, videos, audio files, podcasts, design files for marketing campaigns, product information documentation, troubleshooting guides, and much more.

Access to these assets is critical to service customers and markets successfully, but access can be tricky: if multiple versions of these digital sources are used, the result is confusion, lost time and errors. For this reason, companies are increasingly looking to Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions to store, document and design files in a way that leads to efficient organization and global accessibility of these assets, which boosts productivity and collaboration and aids in omnichannel content marketing campaigns and effective branding. Simply put, DAM solutions help companies realize value.

At its core, a DAM is a software application or platform that allows companies to centrally store, manage and share digital files, so all employees, departments and external partners are working with the same up-to-date resources. DAM systems are purpose-built to serve the needs of organizations of all sizes that require more advanced features to effectively handle numerous rich digital assets and build a “single source of truth” for all their content.

Today, there are a variety of DAM solutions in the marketplace. A list of Digital Asset Management software companies includes Lumavate, Brandfolder, Bynder, Canto, and Adobe DAM, to name a few. There are also content management solutions that are often mistaken for Digital Asset Management solutions: these include Dropbox and Google Drive.

Is Dropbox a DAM?

The functionality of a DAM solution is more than simply centralized file storage. While it’s true that solutions such as Dropbox allow companies to store digital assets in one place for global access to materials, DAM is about more than collecting digital files in a single location. Solutions such as Dropbox do not offer common asset management functionalities that are a feature of DAMs, such as tagging, cataloging or the ability to update existing files and have them updated in other locations automatically. Simple file storage solutions such as Dropbox also frequently lack the kind of security that is necessary for a company to feel at ease sharing its digital assets both inside and outside the organization on a global basis.

Why Is DAM Better Than Google Drive?

Similar to Dropbox, Google Drive also offers a centralized place to store digital assets as well as asset synchronization, but it is not a Digital Asset Management solution. While Google Drive does offer basic file storage, sharing and organization functionality, the solution’s DAM functionality is limited. File sharing such as that offered by Google Drive DAM is useful for the organization of a few low-resolution images, but can become cumbersome and unreliable as a company gains a larger number of files, or more high-resolution files. A purpose-built DAM system, by contrast, allows users to manage, share and collaborate on larger media files such as videos and high-resolution presentations, and provides a more granular level of searchability, an important feature for work efficiency and time savings.

In addition, Google Drive does not provide any of the needed functionality that is required for branding, marketing or sales. A true DAM solution aids and guides users who are striving to attain and maintain brand consistency across a variety of digital channels and touchpoints by allowing improved visibility into the global image of a brand across product lines, media and geographic regions.

Companies that use true Digital Asset Management solutions can empower their employees — regardless of where they are located — to deliver more consistent brand messages as well as support multichannel customer experiences at scale. Engaging in campaigns like this with simple file storage solutions would result in significantly more time and effort, as it would become necessary to manually organize branding materials.

How Much Does DAM Software Cost?

The good news for organizations seeking to gain advanced functionality from a DAM solution is that it need not be expensive. Pricing for Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions will vary a great deal based on the solutions of DAM vendors, their functionality and how their pricing is set. Pricing will be very different depending on whether companies choose a premise-based solution, a cloud-based solution or a hybrid of the two. As a result of these variances, pricing for DAM solutions can range from $1,000 per year to more than $250,000 a year, depending on the offerings of the Digital Asset Management companies.

However, Lumavate is the only Product Experience Management (PXM) solution to include a built-in Digital Asset Management solution, as well as Product Information Management (PIM) functionality, a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), text messaging, and a form builder solution. Because Lumavate’s DAM solution includes a full PIM and DXP in its platform, it provides seamless built-in integration to the DAM, allowing users to benefit from cross-functionality to enable the creation of brilliant digital marketing campaigns, all at an affordable cost. Assets stored in Lumavate’s DAM can be quickly associated with product information records with just a few clicks, and users across the enterprise can create order and build compelling digital experiences without any technical resources. Employees with no IT background can use the platform to craft memorable digital experiences for customers without the use of code.

One of the many benefits of Lumavate is that it is affordable: it is typically 75 percent more cost-effective than competitive solutions such as Brandfolder. Lumavate users can take advantage of the benefits of a highly functional PXM platform for as little as $499 a month (pricing information is publicly shared on Lumavate’s website — unlike Brandfolder pricing — making it easy to engage in a Digital Asset Management cost comparison).

For companies looking for a free DAM software experience, Lumavate offers a 14-day free trial of its Starter Plan so organizations can experience how easy Lumavate’s PIM, DAM and Digital Experience Platform (DXP) are to use for building memorable digital product experiences tied to their product data and digital assets, including product catalogs, product data sheets, sales resources, events, videos, and the company website.

Learn more about Lumavate’s DAM, PXM, PIM, and DXP via a product tour on the company’s website, or schedule a demo to discover more about the features and pricing structure that are the best fit for your business. Lumavate’s solutions experts can show you how easy it is to centrally manage digital assets and create digital product experiences that meet and exceed customer expectations.