What digital asset management software is right for a small business like yours? Let’s compare five commonly used options.
Let me guess: you have accumulated terabytes of digital assets like photographs, drawings, 3D models, videos, and more. And the accumulation doesn’t show signs of stopping. It’s cluttering your file storage further, drumming up anxiety, frustrating your team, slowing the work down.
Your operating system allows you to search assets by their name, but content creators often don’t follow the standard naming practices or use templates consistently. Over and over, files get rewritten and lost, and a project management crisis is looming on the horizon.
Software that simplifies digital asset management for a small business like yours? Of course, you’ve already considered it. You might have discovered the Grand Canyon of prices dividing low-cost asset hubs missing crucial features and expensive enterprise software doing too much.
Overwhelming, I understand. Maybe it’s not even worth further inquiry. Or is it? Let’s take a look at the problem digital asset management (DAM) software is designed to solve and see if you should care.
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How Digital Asset Chaos Undermines Business Growth
Messy folders, inconsistent file naming, and faulty digital asset workflows all contribute to project chaos. Here’s what it might be costing your business:
1. Wasted Creative Work
$25 million. This is how much one Fortune-500 company, on average, wastes due to unused content.
According to a recent AI-driven report by CreativeX, 52% of creative assets are left to gather dust. All because teams often struggle with sourcing assets, tracking file versions, and content syndication (e.g. repurposing content across different platforms).
2. Work Hours Lost to Locating Assets
According to a 2023 survey by Adobe Acrobat, more than 10% of employees spend over four hours a week searching for files online. So, such an employee, paid $50 per hour, wastes more than $9,600 each year in work hours.
3. Productivity Losses Due to Context Switching
Toggling between file storage and creative software damages productivity. According to UC Irvine’s study, it takes designers 12-23 minutes to recover focus after file system interruptions.
4. Inconsistent Branding
When someone recreates a media file because they couldn’t find the original, brand consistency can take a hit. Each such hit takes the company a step back. Studies show less consistent brands often have to spend more than $4.5 billion over the next five years to catch up with their most consistent competitors.
5. Data Exposure Risks
Digital asset management relies on collaboration. This means everyone involved in a project needs permissions relevant to their role. But when chaos reigns over your system, two issues arise:
- Progress gets blocked when asset owners fail to share permissions
- Outsiders may accidentally get unauthorized access
| 💡 A 2023 study of around 6.5 million Google Drive files found that a striking 40.2% contained sensitive data like contracts and passwords in spreadsheets. |
The study further revealed that 34.2% of all scanned files were shared with individuals outside the company domain, and a whopping 357,000 documents ended up exposed to everyone on the internet.
DAM software is specifically designed to tackle issues like these. However, it offers a less obvious benefit:
A Competitive Edge ⚡
The issues discussed above continue to plague large and small organizations, despite their devastating effects and industry awareness.
In 2022, only 21% of organizations reported having very efficient content and creative workflows. Only 24% described their content approval workflows as “extensively organized and managed.”
So, if you’ve been wondering how your small business could get a competitive edge, consider improving your content lifecycle with a DAM system.
How DAM Software Helps Small Companies Streamline Processes
You probably use MS Windows, Linux, or macOS to manage data on your computer. A DAM does a similar trick—with a twist: it’s designed for handling media, not just any data.
Here’s what it does:
- Metadata and taxonomy help locate digital assets quickly, independent of the file name or format.
- Automated workflows assign correct metadata and permissions to files once they are uploaded or moved forward along the content lifecycle.
- Version control and approval process settings help track individual contributions, ensure brand consistency, and repurpose content.
- Integrations with creative software like Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, CapCut, and others reduce unnecessary clicks and workflow interruptions.
- Role-based permission controls remove the need for collaborators to share files manually, thus minimizing accidental data exposure and removing potential progress blockers.
In a nutshell, a DAM helps you regain control over your team’s valuable work hours and focus on revenue-generating work. How do you pick software like this? Let’s consider five widely used options.
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Top 5 DAM Systems for Small Business Success
There are many DAMs out there. They differ in features, sophistication, industry focus, and… well, let’s see for ourselves.
1. Daminion On-Prem: Smart DAM Made Simple for Small Teams
We start with Daminion because it’s probably the best digital asset management software for a small business. Once you are familiar with the features it offers, you can easily compare “the gold standard” with alternatives and see what works best for your business.
Daminion is an on-premises-first DAM. What does this mean? You can deploy Daminion both in the cloud and on-premises, while the latter is the flagship option.
“On-premises” means that you install the software on your computer like a regular program. All your data remains on the hard drive—you don’t upload anything to external servers, as is the case with cloud-based asset hubs. Here’s what gives the on-premises model an edge:
- No unauthorized users can get direct access to your file storage
- No other hardware than yours determines how fast your files load
- Uninstall anytime—your media remain where they are
- Don’t pay for additional file storage
- Own it for a one-time payment instead of overpaying in rent over time
- No need to handle recurring payments (nonprofits love this)
- Comply with regulations that require your data to be stored locally
Key Features
The centralized library matters. But, when choosing a DAM for a small business, you will want a set of modern, purpose-oriented features. Daminion comes with the following:
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AI auto-tagging, which automatically identifies objects, people, colors, locations, and more to fill out metadata for you, so your team doesn’t waste time tagging files by hand.
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Comprehensive custom attributes, like titles, tags, authors, categories, and other attributes to track down exactly what you need, even in a large library.
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Set clear roles and keep things moving: Whether it’s assigning approval rights or limiting access, Daminion’s role-based system helps small teams stay organized without bottlenecks.
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Integration with industry tools like Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft 365 apps or AutoCAD, thanks to the Connector feature.
- Structured governance controls, including IPTC, EXIF, and MWG standards, which is ideal for regulated industries like architecture and manufacturing
Now that we know what makes a great solution for managing media assets, let’s check out other options.
2. Google Drive
| ⚠️Spoiler: Google Drive is on this list purely because many businesses use it as a DAM. But it isn’t one. |
Text documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, PNGs, JPGs, and other common office files can be stored on Google Drive. You can organize them into folders and search them by entering terms that appear in file names and inside documents into the search bar.
However, Google Drive doesn’t support custom metadata fields. Some, like file type and creation date, are extracted automatically when you upload a file. But if the file contains custom tags and EXIF data, the system strips this data off.
Drive-native apps like Google Docs and Google Sheets are great for documents and spreadsheets. But there’s no built-in functionality for editing and versioning media like video and images. Sure, you can connect some apps, play around with plugins, and configure the Drive API. But this requires tech expertise and you still get limited capabilities in the end.
For instance, you could add “indexableText” to improve search results for visuals. The text has a size limit of 128 KB and Google discourages sorting text in order of importance “because the indexer does that efficiently for you.”
Finally, if you upload a video related to a specific campaign, metadata like “usage rights” or “campaign ID” will be lost by default.
Last but not least, I can’t count how many times access to an organization’s internal folders on Google Drive was shared with me. Staff personal data. Contracts. Budgets. All kinds of things I was not supposed to have access to.
3. SharePoint
Microsoft’s SharePoint is another cloud-based system companies often use to manage all kinds of files—often because it’s included in Microsoft 365 plans.
With this software, you get more advanced metadata features than with Google Drive. SharePoint even has a built-in feature set dedicated to digital asset management: Asset Library.
You can easily create thumbnails, automatically extract metadata for images, tag assets with predefined or custom metadata, and more. An interesting feature making it easier to discover content across an Asset Library is user-generated ratings.
Part of the Microsoft product family, SharePoint integrates easily with its relatives like PowerPoint and Word. However, it’s not designed for seamless integration with creative apps.
Despite its limitations, you can still use SharePoint to create approval and publishing workflows. For example, a graphic designer can upload a logo to SharePoint, trigger an approval workflow, and have the approved version automatically published to a hub site.
SharePoint trumps Google Drive in terms of digital asset management. But it still focuses on text documents rather than managing large, complex media asset libraries.
So, if your organization is Microsoft-centric and your processes include little creative work on visuals, go for SharePoint. Otherwise, consider purpose-built software like Daminion to tap the resource-saving potential of AI-powered media-library software.
4. Filecamp
Filecamp is a purpose-built, cloud-based digital asset platform. Unlike Google Drive and SharePoint, this software prioritizes managing media files over text documents.
Metadata management features in Filecamp are much more flexible than in SharePoint. For example, users can manually edit EXIF data without leaving the platform and create custom labels for rating or categorization.
Like Daminion, Filecamp supports auto-tagging via AI analyzing images and assigning relevant keywords to make content easy to find. Another similar feature is integrations with cloud services like Adobe Creative Cloud and Canva for real-time collaboration.
Filecamp has a very simple user interface. In fact, users note it feels outdated, although you can customize your folders’ design. Others dislike the way users are notified of new images or galleries—as a list of file names in an email rather than thumbnails. Many users complain about struggling with navigating search results in Filecamp.
| All in all, Filecamp comes very close to Daminion as a purpose-built solution. The critical difference is that you can’t manage assets on your hard drive as you can with Daminion. |
5. Dash
Another common choice, Dash is use in E-commerce. It does so by making metadata editing lightweight, prioritizing visual browsing over metadata-based search, and integrating with Shopify, Canva, and Hootsuite.
This simplicity will come in handy if you are a fast-moving startup testing a B2C hypothesis. With Dash, you get essential modern features like AI-powered auto-tagging for automated metadata population and extraction, role-based controls, and others. Product detail pages (PDP) and social media are the target platforms.
Features like preset social media crops and embedded previews reduce steps in putting content to work. Users like how search works by combining keyword queries with AI-generated tags, though occasional syncing issues disrupt workflows.
That said, metadata editing with Dash is less granular compared to Daminion’s XMP-based system. Speed is prioritized over depth.
Teams that use the Microsoft ecosystem may struggle to make Dash part of their workflows due to its limited integration. But Zapier and Slack users will appreciate its integrated automation features.
So, to Dash or not to Dash? If you’re in E-commerce and need to move fast, go for it. Companies with more diverse creative needs will likely prefer systems like Daminion.
On-Premises vs. Cloud DAM: Which One is Right For Your Small Business?
You choose a DAM system once. This choice will determine your business’s efficiency for years, maybe decades ahead. Metadata management, integrations, access distribution, and search are all important features, but none more so than how you deploy your assets.
| On-Prem DAM | Cloud DAM |
|---|---|
| ❗ Pay more at the start if you don’t have the required IT infrastructure (costs can be reduced, though) | ✅ Pay less at the start |
| ✅ Pay less with time and library growth | ❗ Pay more with time and library growth |
| ✅ Process an invoice once | ❗ Process invoices every month or year |
| ✅ Keep your data on your hard drive | ❓ Store your data on someone else’s computers |
| ❗ Buy more hardware to increase your storage space | ✅ Scale the storage space up and down as needed |
| ✅ Only rely on your hardware, local software and DAM for file load speed | ❗ Rely on your hardware, internet connection, DAM and cloud provider for file load speed |
You could be storing your files on your hard drive or someone else’s servers—on premises or in a cloud. Most providers only offer the cloud, so they can take the driver seat and steer you wherever they like.
Meanwhile, cloud storage and digital asset management are two different services—just like buying a car and renting a parking lot. You can choose to pay for them as a bundle, but you shouldn’t have to be forced to do so. As an on-premises-first system, Daminion leaves this choice to you.
Of course, you need to make an informed decision when choosing between cloud and on-premise deployment. The below table sheds light on their differences.
All things considered, an on-premises system provides a higher ROI over time and puts you in the driver seat.
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Daminion On-Prem: an SMB’s Natural Choice
Transformation begins when we acknowledge the need for a change. Next, we can direct the change by making practical choices—like which DAM system to use for managing media assets as a small business.
You already know more about this type of software than most people ever will. And nobody knows more about the needs of your small enterprise than you do. This should be enough to make an informed choice.
Ask yourself: Does my business efficiency rely on how well my team handles digital assets? Am I in it for the long run? Is growth on my calendar?
If your answer is ‘yes’ to all three, look no further: check out Daminion. Start by scheduling a no-obligation demo call with our team today.
