How long do design contests take, and what's involved?

For all design categories, the contest will usually run from anything between 24 hours to 10 days depending on the contest holders selection at the time of posting the contest. A customer can end a contest at any time by declaring a winner. Each contest goes through many stages. 

All different stages in a contest are:

1. Open Stage - This stage status signifies that the Contest is in the Design Submission Stage, it specifies the time left for designers to submit their design entries. In this stage, designers are allowed to submit design entries and the contest holder is allowed to view, evaluate, rate and select winning designs. The duration of this stage is set while launching the contest. It can be anything from 24 hrs to 10 days.

2. Selecting Winner Stage - A contest status becomes Selecting Winner when the design submission period of a contest ends. In this stage, the contest holder can rate, view, evaluate and select winning designs for their contest. Further, since the design submission period is over, the designers can no longer submit any design entries to the contest. The duration of this stage is 7 days. You can always get in touch with the customer support team to extend the duration of this stage. If the contest holder fails to select a winner during this stage, the contest is moved to "Contest Held" stage. 

3. Contest Awarded & Handover Stage - The contest status becomes ‘Contest Awarded’ stage since all available winning designs have been selected by the Contest Holder. During this stage, the designer and the contest holder, after signing the Design Transfer Agreement are moved to an exclusive handover page where they get 14-days to complete the handover process. The handover stage automatically starts as soon as the designer uploads all the required file formats. In this stage, the contest holder can also ask for any minor revisions and changes to the winning design and the designer can upload the final source files for the contest holder to download. In case a customer doesn’t review the design within 14-days, the contest will be closed automatically and the payment will be released to the winning designer.

​4. Held Stage - A contest status becomes Contest Held when the Selecting Winner Stage of a contest finishes without the Contest Holder selecting any winning designs. In this stage, designers can no longer submit any new design entries in the contest.

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5. Closed Stage -

In the Contest Closed status, the contest is closed for all participating designers and no more entries are allowed to be submitted. The contest enters the Contest Closed stage in two situations: (1) When all winning designs have been selected by the Contest Holder and all handovers are complete, (2) when no winning design is selected by the Contest Holder.

Contest holders who need more time at any stage can contact our support team.