ColorDesigner

Overview

ColorDesigner is a web and browser-extension toolkit for creating palettes, gradients, and color variations. It suits designers and other people who regularly move between color exploration, image sampling, and color checks. Its breadth is the draw; the Free plan’s tight save limits make it a better starting point than a lasting workspace.

Key features

Palette building and image tools

The Palette Builder creates tints, shades, and tones, along with complementary, analogous, split-complementary, triadic, and tetradic schemes. That gives users several ways to explore relationships around a base color rather than relying on one palette-generation method. Image palette extraction and an image color picker make it useful when the starting point is an existing visual rather than a chosen color.

A broader color workflow

ColorDesigner lists 13 tools, including a gradient generator, mixer, wheel, converter, contrast checker, and compare-colors tool. Free includes access to 12 tools; Pro adds palette variations, multi-color gradients, a Color Blindness Simulator, a Color Contrast Checker, and an advanced picker for LCH, LAB, OKLCH, and OKLAB. This breadth is valuable for users who want related tasks together, but those needing the expanded checks and gradient options must subscribe.

Exports and integrations

Free exports in HEX. Pro adds RGB, HSL, LAB, LCH, OKLAB, and OKLCH, a useful expansion for workflows that need more than web-style hex values. The Figma plugin generates tints, shades, and harmonies from selected layers or local styles and creates stepped gradients, but it supports only solid fills. The Pro Photoshop extension adds a color wheel, OKLCH support, harmonies, and stepped gradients with hue interpolation across multiple color spaces.

Pricing

The Free plan costs nothing, billed excl. tax. It includes ads, 12 free tools, HEX export, up to five saved colors, up to five saved palettes, and one project. Those caps are workable for occasional exploration, but quickly constrain anyone building a reusable color library or juggling projects.

Pro costs $37.20 a year, billed annually at $37.20 per year (= $3.10/month, billed annually). It removes ads and storage limits, and adds the wider export formats, palette variations, multi-color gradients, Color Blindness Simulator, Color Contrast Checker, and advanced LCH/LAB/OKLCH/OKL options. It is the more practical choice for frequent users whose work depends on saved assets or those Pro tools.

Subscription plans include a 14-day free trial; the one-time payment option has no trial. Color Designer says payments are powered by Paddle and card details are stored on Paddle’s servers. For refund requests, its policy directs customers to support at [email protected].

Platforms

ColorDesigner is available on the web and as an extension. Its Figma plugin and Pro Photoshop extension connect color work to those applications, with the Figma plugin limited to solid fills.

Who it's for

ColorDesigner is a good fit for designers who want palette construction, image-based color picking, gradients, and checks in one toolkit, especially if they expect to save more than a handful of colors and projects. It is less compelling for occasional users who can work within the Free plan’s five-color, five-palette, and one-project limits, or for people who need a Figma workflow that handles non-solid fills.

Pros and cons

• Pro: The Palette Builder covers multiple harmony types and tonal variations, supporting more exploration than a single palette generator.
• Pro: Image extraction, color picking, gradients, conversion, and checks extend the toolset beyond palette creation.
• Pro: Pro combines unlimited saved colors, palettes, and projects with seven export formats.
• Con: Free storage is capped at five colors, five palettes, and one project, limiting its usefulness as an ongoing library.
• Con: The Figma plugin supports only solid fills, a constraint for designs built around other fill types.
• Con: The 14-day trial applies to subscription plans, not the one-time purchase option.

Alternatives

For a directory of other palette-making options, see Color Palette Generators. Choose Pantone Connect Palette Generator if access to 15,000+ colors and its Search, Pick, and Measure tools is more important than ColorDesigner’s broader toolkit. Color Palette Generator AI is a stronger fit for users who want unlimited generations, every export format, shareable links, and an API at no cost and without an account.

Colora is a free, open-source Windows option. ColorBox is free and ad-free across web and extension. Colorfool is a free web option with accessibility checks not behind a paywall. ColorKit is a free web-based color-tool alternative. ColorMagic is a free web and API option with unlimited palette generation, though it may show ads. Grabient is a free web and API option for documented reads without signup or an API key, subject to 300 requests per 10 seconds per IP across API, PNG, and JSON reads.

Verdict

Choose ColorDesigner if you want one toolkit for building and saving palettes, sampling images, creating gradients, and checking color, with Pro providing substantial storage and export headroom. Look elsewhere if the Free plan’s small library limits are too restrictive, or if your Figma work requires fills beyond solid color.