ExpertAfter spinning up six fictional small businesses across ten brand asset platforms, the finding our team did not expect was how few of them are actually priced for a founder with no design budget. Most BAM tools assume a brand manager already exists, which is exactly the seat a small team does not have.
Creative agencies do not pick a digital asset management platform; they pick a referee. The same campaign library tested across ten DAM tools produced ten different versions of "who controls the master file," and that answer matters far more than the feature comparison sheet ever suggests.
Digital asset management software exists because the alternative -- a labyrinth of mislabeled Dropbox folders and email attachments nobody can find -- costs brands real money in duplicated effort and compliance risk.