99designs

99designs runs a contest-based book cover design model where dozens of professional designers submit concepts based on your brief, and you select the best. Unlike hiring a single designer, you see 30 to 90+ distinct design directions before committing to one — a meaningful advantage for authors who don't know exactly what they want until they see options.

How It Works#

You submit a design brief describing your book, target audience, genre, and style preferences. The contest then runs in two rounds: a 4-day Qualifying round where designers worldwide submit concepts — roughly 30 at Bronze, 60 at Silver, 90 at Gold — followed by a 3-day Final round where you work with up to 6 finalists to refine their entries. Between the two you get 4 days to pick your finalists; miss that window and the contest is put on hold. So it is 7 days of design work, but budget closer to 11 days end to end if you use your full selection window. The winning designer delivers production-ready files including Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, PDF, and EPS formats, with full legal copyright transfer.

What You Get#

• Design concepts: ~30 (Bronze), ~60 (Silver), ~90 (Gold), ~60 (Platinum — Top Level designers only)
• File formats: Print-ready and digital versions — AI, PSD, PDF, EPS — plus web mockups in PNG/JPG
• Copyright: Full legal copyright transfers to you on project completion
• Money-back guarantee: 100% refund within 60 days of payment — but it lapses the moment your contest enters the Final round (see Limitations)

Who It's For#

• Authors who want options before committing: The contest format cuts the risk of paying one designer and disliking the result — though it does not remove it, since the refund window closes early
• Established authors with cover budget: The $299 floor makes this unsuitable for first books on tight budgets
• Genre fiction authors: Many 99designs specialists focus on romance, fantasy, thriller, and sci-fi conventions

Pricing: Bronze $299, Silver $499, Gold $799, Platinum $1,199. For contests the package price is all-in — 99designs states the amount you enter "will include our fee as well as the prize amount to the winning designer," so no platform fee is stacked on top. The only checkout addition is indirect tax: listed prices exclude sales tax, and you may be charged US state sales tax or, in Australia, 10% GST. You can also set a custom package price above the Bronze minimum; the surplus goes to the prize pot, which buys more designer attention. Higher tiers restrict entry to more experienced designers and include a dedicated account manager to help guide feedback and selection. A 1-to-1 project option is also available ($279–$999) if you prefer working directly with a single designer — note that this track does carry a fixed 5% client platform fee on top of the quote, and is excluded from the money-back guarantee.

Strengths#

• High concept volume: 30-90 designs from different creative perspectives reduces risk and surfaces unexpected directions
• Fast turnaround: 7 days of design work across the two rounds, with the option to award a winner early
• Vetted upper tiers: Gold and Platinum restrict entry to Top Level designers and add a dedicated manager — the closest thing any contest platform offers to curation
• Early-exit refund: If the qualifying round produces nothing usable, you can still take a full refund before selecting finalists

Limitations#

• The money-back guarantee dies exactly when you'd want it: It covers 60 days from payment, but is void once the contest enters the Final round — and selecting finalists is what triggers that round. 99designs' own explanation is that choosing finalists "tells us you are happy with the way things are heading." In practice the refund is only available before you narrow the field, which is before you have seen any refined work. Guaranteed-prize contests are excluded from the start.
• Refunding forfeits every design submitted: If you take the refund, you "aren't legally entitled to use any of the designs submitted to your contest" — you cannot bank a concept you liked and walk away.
• Independent review scores run well below the on-site figure: 99designs advertises 4.8/5 from 37,560+ reviews (4.9 from 773 for book covers specifically), but that is self-reported. Trustpilot has it at 4.2/5 across ~1,562 reviews, and Sitejabber at 2.6/5 across 410 — the Sitejabber spread is sharply bimodal, 48% five-star against 40% one-star, which fits a model where outcomes hinge on the designers your brief happens to attract.
• Designer quality varies by tier: Many experienced freelance designers avoid the contest model on principle — lower tiers attract proportionally fewer top-tier designers
• Legal risk from stock imagery: 99designs does not audit what stock images designers use in submissions; if a designer uses images with copyright restrictions, the legal liability falls on you as the author
• Price floor is high: $299 minimum is steep for debut authors or those testing the market

Alternatives#

For a direct one-to-one designer relationship with editorial collaboration, Reedsy Designers offers vetted book cover specialists. For lower budgets, the premade marketplace BookCovers.com (formerly SelfPubBookCovers) starts at $35, and the budget custom studio GetCovers designs from a brief for $10–$35.