What Zeplin can do for you‍

First off, what exactly is Zeplin? It’s described as a design delivery platform — with design delivery sitting between the Design Creation and Development phases in a broader product development process. Essentially, it provides a structured workspace where teams can publish finalized designs, document them, and manage their workflows in order to streamline the transition from design to development. The Zeplin platform is built around seven ‘design delivery principles’ which are encompassed by the capabilities of the software:

• Separation of ready-to-build designs and designs in progress;
• Deliberate tracking of changes to shared designs;
• Standardized organization of designs;
• Communication of the complete user journey;
• Documentation of behavior and requirements in context;
• Display of design system elements;
• Inclusion of technical specs and assets tailored to the development stack.

By leveraging a platform like Zeplin, teams can increase clarity around design intention, collaborate more readily in a workspace that’s inclusive to every role, and more easily automate and scale their processes.

‍Zeplin pricing structures and tiers‍

There are four subscription tiers within the Zeplin pricing structure, so there’s plenty of flexibility to acquire the service at a level that meets your organization’s needs. Broadly speaking, the core functions of Zeplin are available in all subscription tiers. With all plans, you’ll get access to the following features:

• Creation of ‘Flows’ to dynamically map complete user journeys;
• Styleguides that allow you to create consistent experiences across your products;
• Clear organization of design variants in one screen;
• Robust version control to track changes and deliver finalized designs to your developers;
• Connected Components, so you can browse your codebase directly within Zeplin and export code snippets based on your designs;
• Extensions with apps like Xcode, Storybook, Figma, Jira, Slack, Teams, and more;
• API and webhooks to further integrate Zeplin with your existing stack.

Here’s a breakdown of the differences between each Zeplin pricing tier.

Zeplin pricing – Free

Price: $0Zeplin offers a completely free version of its software, which means it’s easy to see whether the platform fits your needs. Users can add up to six project members, although the free tier is limited to a single project with up to ten screens per Flow and a maximum of two variant groups. Up to four styleguides can be created, and up to 99 components. Screen version history is limited to 30 days. There are no workspace or user management features included — although given the Free tier is aimed at those with simpler requirements, this likely won’t matter.  

Zeplin pricing – Team

Price: $10 per seat per month ($8 billed annually)The cheapest paid tier of Zeplin is Team. Here, the limits are upped to six projects and a maximum of 250 screens per Flow. Screen variants are unlimited. The maximum number of styleguides is upped to 12, with unlimited components. Screen version history is unlimited, and support for approvals is added — albeit just for a single project. A number of workspace and user management tools are included, along with an unlimited number of free ‘Reviewer’ seats, letting your team view projects and add comments.

Zeplin pricing – Organization

Price: $20 per seat per month ($16 billed annually, 12 seat minimum)The Organization pricing tier of Zeplin increases the limits even further, with up to 12 projects in total. The cap on the number of styleguides is lifted too.It’s also possible to integrate a single Zeplin project with Azure DevOps, and there’s support for server or data center Jira integrations — in Free and Team plans, this integration is cloud only. With the Organization plan, customers get access to priority support too.

Zeplin pricing – Enterprise

Price: quote available on requestZeplin offers an Enterprise subscription level, available at a custom quote based on your organization’s needs. Here, everything is essentially unlimited and customers get access to a greater number of user and workspace management tools. Security features like SAML single sign-on, SCIM, and multi-factor authentication are supported, and there’s a 24-hour support SLA available.

Additional Zeplin costs to consider‍

We’re pleased to say Zeplin’s pricing structure is incredibly straightforward and transparent. There are no hidden or additional costs you need to consider — simply choose the plan that’s right for you. If you hit the limits of your plan, you can upgrade at any time.

Other vendors offering design delivery platforms‍

With its seven-step design delivery philosophy, Zeplin is quite a unique tool — but there are alternatives. Here are some other SaaS apps to consider, along with how they compare to Zeplin.

Zeplin pricing vs Sympli

Sympli offers cloud-based & on-premise version control and handoff tools, with the goal of reducing friction across your design delivery process. Sympli Versions offers Git-based version control for Sketch, while Sympli Handoff can be used to export design specs directly from approved design files. Zeplin does both of these things, but offers significantly more integrations with other SaaS tools. On the other hand, Sympli pricing is a fair bit lower — it starts at $5 per seat per month for Handoff and $10 per seat per month for Versions. If you only need the features of one of these Sympli products, it could be a more cost-effective solution. Enterprise plans are also available at a custom price.

Zeplin pricing vs Zeroheight

Just like Zeplin, Zeroheight aims to be a single source of truth for your design system, but with a stronger emphasis on efficiencies between design and development through workflow automation. Features of Zeroheight include documentation tools, version management, and Design Tokens which allow automated delivery from design to code. Available integrations include Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch, GitHub, and more.  Although Zeplin and Zeroheight are pretty similar in terms of the functionality they offer, Zeroheight pricing is significantly higher, starting at $59 per editor per month ($49 billed annually) for the Starter plan. Fortunately, there is a free tier available, as well as Professional and Enterprise plans available on quote. Which solution is right for you ultimately depends on your business needs.

Zeplin pricing vs Figma

Figma is one of the most popular collaborative design tools. While Zeplin is a standalone app that works in conjunction with it, Figma itself does offer some of the functionalities available in Zeplin through its Dev Mode feature. Dev Mode is primarily used by developers to get the specs they need to build a product, and also offers version management and export of components. Although the Figma pricing structure includes a free tier, you’ll need the Professional plan at minimum to access Dev Mode, which is $15 per seat per month ($12 billed annually). When deciding whether Zeplin or Figma is right for you, it comes down to the functionality you require — for smaller projects, Figma Dev Mode may provide everything you need already. Zeplin, on the other hand, offers more comprehensive control of your design delivery process.

Zeplin pricing – the Vertice verdict‍

If you’re looking for a smoother process bridging design and development within your team, Zeplin’s broad feature set will give you everything you need to reduce friction when bringing your product to life. Pricing is very reasonable. That’s partly to be expected, considering this is somewhat of a companion app to your other design tools. With that said, the potential efficiencies gained from an improved design delivery process may well be worth the cost — and with a free plan available, it’s easy to give Zeplin a try and see if it meets your needs. If you do decide to purchase Zeplin, why not let Vertice give you a hand? With our SaaS purchasing platform, we can negotiate on your behalf to procure Zeplin at the lowest possible price, as well as help you manage your existing SaaS stack and reduce unnecessary spend. Simply get in touch to get started.