Fresh Consulting Review
Fresh Consulting is a strategy, design, and development firm that tackles big projects. They design innovative software solutions, autonomous robots, and websites.
Their portfolio is impressive, with a roster of clients that includes some of the biggest technology companies in the world. But is Fresh Consulting one of the top candidates for small businesses looking for web design services?
When it comes to website development for professional service providers, we've reviewed many of Fresh Consulting's competitors. So now it's time to examine what services this company provides and whether or not they also work for smaller budgets and smaller agendas.
What is Fresh Consulting?
According to the company’s LinkedIn profile, "We design and build strategies, brands, products, robotics, systems, and apps to help you stay fresh." This helps explain why distilling Fresh Consulting's offerings down to a simple sentence is a bit challenging.
Founded by Jeff Dance and Steve Hulet in 2007, Fresh Consulting has stuck to its mission of "pairing design and technology to drive innovation in the emerging digital economy" over the last 15 years. In its latest iteration, it's one-third a brand strategy, one-third a software developer, and one-third an engineering firm.
Since its launch more than a decade ago, it has grown to more than 365 Fresh Consulting employees and four global offices in Seattle, Austin, Portland, and Bangkok. It's also made several acquisitions in recent years, including Glacier River Designs (2022), Uncorked Studios (2019), and SiTech RTD (2018).
What features does Fresh Consulting include?
At first glance, it's a little hard to quantify precisely what Fresh Consulting does as a company — simply because it does so much.
From systems designs to software development to autonomous mobile robots, they have several core teams working across a broad spectrum of categories.
But, broadly speaking, their competencies fall into four key classes:
Strategy
Fresh Consulting sells itself as an end-to-end service for innovation. Under the Strategy umbrella, they offer high-level options, including Innovation Sprints, Innovation as a Service, Customer Experience, and Digital Transformation.
Design
For Fresh Consulting, their design work can mean a new website design, a software design, or even industrial design. Whatever the category, their design work is entirely custom. It also typically entails several complex and interlinked final products, like a new logo and branding, a mobile app, and user experience.
Software
Fresh Consulting also has a software development team that can help with websites, web apps, mobile apps, XR, automations, and machine learning. When it comes specifically to web development services, they offer all custom development, including content management systems (CMS), WordPress, and UX/UI design.
Hardware
Fresh Consulting stands apart from other web design and brand strategy companies because of its hardware component. They can not only help you design a customer experience, but they can engineer the physical technology to support it. Need an autonomous robot, full-scale automation, PCB design, or even industrial robotics? They can do that.
How much does Fresh Consulting cost?
As an entirely custom strategy, design, and engineering firm, the Fresh Consulting company keeps its prices under wraps. This is in line with most other high-end design companies, only this time, we couldn't find any off-site resources to help shed light on a potential project cost.
The only hint about possible project rates comes from Clutch, which reported a minimum project size of $10,000. However, no additional reviews support this price tag, and we suspect it's higher.
Based on the types of projects they have taken on before — a habit-tracking app for Adidas, a content management environment for Facebook, and Robotic Air Hockey for Microsoft, for example — we can assume their projects run well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.
So while we don't have a specific price breakdown on the many different services from Fresh consulting, it's likely they sit at the very extreme end of possibility.
Who is Fresh Consulting best suited for?
With a former clientele including the likes of Facebook, Nike, and Adidas, it's clear that Fresh Consulting works for some of the largest companies in the world.
They also tend to tackle projects from end to end, starting with strategy sessions (aka Innovation Sprints or Innovation as a Service) and building upward with completely custom software solutions, mobile apps, web apps, and other highly complex final products.
All of this leads us to believe that Fresh Consulting is ideally suited for the world's largest companies needing technical, comprehensive design services spanning several modalities (software, hardware, design).
However, this also means they are not ideal for small- to medium-sized companies just looking for a new website or brand refresh.
Fresh Consulting takes on projects with a massive scope, whereas there are far better solutions for those who just need a website, new online tools for service customers, or SEO help.
What are the pros and cons of Fresh Consulting?
How good are Fresh Consulting's pre-built website templates?
When Fresh Consulting takes on straightforward website development, they do not use pre-built website templates.
Unlike Wix, Shopify, and WordPress, Fresh Consulting builds websites from the ground up after extensive consultation, strategy sessions, and coding. Some of their projects are so complex they don't just design a website for clients; they create an entirely custom website builder for them. Meaning they build a custom Wix-like website builder for their clients rather than just a Wix-based website.
So, if you are looking for a cost-effective template-based website, Fresh Consulting isn't your best option.
What are some Fresh Consulting alternatives for small businesses?
If you stumbled onto Fresh Consulting while looking for a company that can help you build a new website, rest assured there are definitely more options for you.
Even if you are looking for a totally custom site and have a budget to support this work, you can find a smaller-scale web design agency that would likely serve your unique needs and budget.
A few options include:
- Builder Designs: a firm that works with Home builders
- Lounge Lizard: a design and marketing firm whose projects start at $10,000
- OuterBox: An agency focused on building ecommerce platforms
Of course, not everyone is a home builder or ecommerce platform. Nor do they have $10,000+ to launch a website.
As a small business, solopreneur, or professional service provider, you need a fast, mobile-friendly alternative that is search engine optimized.
B12 uses AI and experts to build industry-specific, professional websites 15x faster than similar platforms. See a draft of your new website in only 60 seconds, then collaborate with a team of expert SEO specialists, copywriters, and designers to refine and launch it. Integrated with a full suite of online business tools, we make it easy for your customers to find, schedule appointments, sign contracts, and pay you.
We promise clear pricing, plans, and processes to ensure your project is simple — from the start.
Fresh Consulting review summary
Overall, it's clear that Fresh Consulting's ethos is about innovation, strategy, and product design. They are all about big-picture thinking, leveraging technological innovation and their "cross-disciplinary approach" that "blends human ingenuity and technology."
While all of this is precisely what Nike, Facebook, T-Mobile, and other international heavy hitters are looking for, chances are this is overkill for the lawyer, accountant, or insurance broker looking for a new website.
Fresh Consulting may offer incredible services for the upper echelons of today's major tech companies — but we can safely bet they don't provide solutions for anyone with a budget of under $10,000.
If you need a professional website that enables you to attract, win, and serve your clients, B12 can help. We offer everything you need, from custom domains to web hosting to the powerful B12 Editor, to ensure you are up and running in 30 days or less.
Plus, with a growing list of online tools, we help you not just meet your clients’ expectations for an online experience, but exceed them.
Get started today with our AI-powered website builder and team of specialists who can help you build and launch your online presence in 30 days or less.
