Ownership vs. Subscriptions
Sameness costs $149 once. Many competing tools charge ongoing annual fees that add up to thousands over time. Over two years, teams typically save 70–90%.
One payment gives you lifetime access. No renewals, no price increases, and no risk of losing access to your guidelines. You own your brand system rather than renting it.
Pricing based on publicly available information at the time of writing and may change.
Sameness vs. The Market
Feature
Sameness
Enterprise, Saas Platforms
(Frontify, Standards, Corebook)
Design Tools
(Figma, Canva)
DIY Solution
(Static PDF)
How does Sameness compare to enterprise platforms like Frontify?
Enterprise platforms like Frontify excel at serving large organizations with complex workflows and extensive digital asset management needs.
Sameness focuses specifically on brand guidelines documentation for agencies and SMBs who need professional tools without enterprise complexity or cost.
Key differences:
Cost: Sameness offers one-time pricing ($149) vs. Frontify's $5,400+ annual subscriptions
Ownership: Self-hosted on WordPress vs. cloud-only dependency
Feature scope: Streamlined guideline tools vs. full DAM suite
Setup: Hours vs. weeks of implementation
Choose Sameness : If you're an agency managing multiple client brands, need to control costs, or want WordPress integration.
Choose enterprise platforms: If you need full DAM capabilities, manage 500+ team members, or require extensive enterprise integrations.
What about Standards.site or Corebook?
Standards.site ($180-480/year) and Corebook ($450-3,192/year) are design-focused platforms on proprietary cloud systems. Sameness offers one-time pricing ($149 lifetime) on WordPress with self-hosting.
Choose Sameness: If you want lifetime ownership, WordPress integration, or manage multiple client brands without recurring fees.
Choose Standards/Corebook: If you prefer cloud-only solutions and are comfortable with annual subscriptions.
How is Sameness different from design tools like Figma or Canva?
Figma and Canva are design creation tools. They help you make brand assets. Sameness is documentation software, it helps you organize and share how those assets should be used.
Think of it this way: Figma is where you design your logo. Sameness is where you document which logo version to use, when, and how.
Complementary, not competitive:
Design teams use Figma/Canva to create assets
Brand managers use Sameness to document usage guidelines
Stakeholders reference Sameness to apply brand correctly
Why choose Sameness over PDFs?
PDFs work for early-stage brands, but they break down as you scale. Without real-time updates, PDF brand guidelines quickly become outdated, leading teams to use wrong assets and create version control chaos.
PDF limitations Sameness solves:
No real-time updates: PDFs require manual redistribution every time something changes. With Sameness, update once and everyone sees it instantly.
Static examples only: PDFs can't demonstrate motion, animations, or how your brand behaves across platforms. Sameness shows, not just tells.
Version control chaos: Multiple PDF versions floating around means teams never know which is current. Sameness is always the single source of truth.
Generic presentation: PDFs feel like documents, not brand experiences. Sameness creates professional, interactive guidelines that match your brand identity.
For the brand builders, guardians and contributors
For Freelance Designers Delivering Brand Identities
Deliver interactive online guidelines instead of static PDFs. One license per project, clients own their brand portal permanently.
For In-House Brand & Marketing Managers at SMBs
Professional guidelines without the $5,400+ annual cost. Self-hosted on WordPress means you control your data.
For Agencies Managing Multiple Client Brands
No recurring costs per client. The 5-license bundle ($480) lets you deploy and hand off with full ownership.
Here are some answers to the most common questions from designers, agencies, and marketers. Can’t find what you need?