CrowdRiff, Brandkit or Event Connectors Mediabank — which one is right for your DMO?
Which media bank is right for your Destination Marketing Organisation?
More and more Dutch DMOs are asking us: “We want something like CrowdRiff or Brandkit, but in Dutch, less expensive and with our data stored in Europe. What’s the difference, and which one suits us best?” There’s no comparison available on the market — so we’re doing it ourselves here.
We’re comparing three platforms: CrowdRiff (Canada, market leader in DMO UGC), Brandkit (New Zealand, DAM for place branding) and our own Mediabank, part of Event Connectors. We’re looking at focus, price, integration and — crucial for the European market — where your data is stored.
Full disclosure: we’ve developed one of these three media libraries ourselves. We do our best to present Brandkit and CrowdRiff fairly and accurately based on publicly available information. Is something incorrect? Email us and we’ll correct it.
One sentence per platform
- CrowdRiff
UGC platform for tourist destinations, strong at collecting visitor photos via Instagram and displaying them in galleries on your website. Built for B2C, with a lightweight DAM underneath. Focus: US and Canada.
- Brandkit
Full Digital Asset Management, specialising in B2B partner portals for the press, agencies and stakeholders. Ideal for brand management and multi-portal setups. Focus: English-speaking markets worldwide.
- Event Connectors Media Bank
Image bank feature that integrates seamlessly with events, venues and routes on the same platform. Can also be used independently. AI automatically tags and classifies by category, season, target audience, quality, orientation, GPS and copyright. Data hosted in Europe, GDPR-compliant. Focus: Dutch, Belgian and European DMOs.
Comparison on a single page
| Feature | CrowdRiff | Brandkit | EC Mediabank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | UGC + B2C galleries | DAM + B2B Partner Portal | B2B + Integration content |
| Target audience | Major (inter)national DMOs | Global place brands | Dutch & European DMOs |
| Data storage | North America | USA / Australia | Netherlands (EU) |
| AVG / GDPR-compliant | No | Partly | Yes, from day one |
| Language interface | English | Multilingual (English version) | Dutch & multilingual |
| Content integration | No (standalone tool) | Limited | Native (events, venues, routes) |
| AI-tagging | Yes (generic) | Yes (generic via ChatGPT) | Yes (specific DMO fields) |
| Price guide | $1.000 – $2.500+ /month | $99 – $1.000+ /month | From €250 per month (all-inclusive) |
Price estimates are exclusive of VAT and are based on publicly available information and reviews. Both competitors operate on a custom pricing model. For an exact quote, please contact the providers directly.
Why AI in a Media Bank is set to make a difference
Brandkit and CrowdRiff also use AI — usually for generic auto-tagging. We have gone a step further and built the AI specifically for what a DMO needs. With every upload by an editor, entrepreneur or partner, our AI does the following:
- Categorisation: beach, restaurant, event, nature, city centre, museum, cycle route or …
- Season: autumn, winter, spring or summer, based on light, vegetation, photo creation date and clothing.
- Target audience: families, young people, seniors, business, children, international visitors or …
- Quality: scores the image on resolution, sharpness and composition and filters out ‘poor quality’ images.
- Orientation: portrait, landscape or square — links directly to the right place on your website.
- GPS: reads EXIF location data and links the image to place name, location, route or event in your database.
- Copyright and credits: reads photographer, copyright holder and usage rights from EXIF and IPTC, and flags when information is missing.
The difference: an editor uploads 20 photos and your Media Bank has a searchable, linked and publication-ready set within seconds. No manual tagging, no forgotten photo credits, no hassle over image rights.
Vergroot afbeelding
Convenient direct downloads for social media
With a single click, you can download an optimised image for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube. As a social media editor, you can easily search for and immediately download the photo for your social media post. And if you want to download a high-quality photo for your magazine, journal, digital signage or route guide? That’s possible too! You can also easily download the original file for use.
Your data stays in Europe — full stop
For Dutch DMOs and local authorities, this is not a mere detail but a requirement. CrowdRiff stores data with US cloud providers; Brandkit varies by client region. For public and government organisations, this is increasingly a no-go.
The Event Connectors Media Bank:
- Hosting in Germany.
- Data processing within the EU.
- AI models of your choice, e.g. the French Mistral
- GDPR-compliant rights management per image
- No Patriot Act risk, no Cloud Act uncertainty.
Do you work for a local authority or county council? Then you can pass this on directly to your procurement or privacy colleague. No second DPIA required.
What does it cost?
CrowdRiff
No public pricing. Reviews on platforms such as Capterra and TrustRadius indicate costs of $1,000 to $2,500+ per month for a DMO, excluding setup. Often beyond the budget for smaller DMOs.
Brandkit
Starts from $99 per month for the basic DAM. For the Place Brand Toolkit (the DMO version), Brandkit uses usage-based pricing for storage and traffic. For a mid-sized DMO, a price between $300 and $1,000 per month is realistic, depending on scale and customisation.
Event Connectors Media Bank
Our Media Bank is both a standalone product and a module on our platform. You can purchase the Media Bank ‘separately’ or activate it as an additional module within our tool for a starting price of €250.00 per month (excl. VAT). You may incur additional costs for AI credits if you use AI more than average or have more than 1,000 images in the Media Bank (pay-per-use).
In other words: what you pay at CrowdRiff for the image bank alone, you get with us including all other features. And your data remains in Europe.
When should you choose which platform?
Choose CrowdRiff if…
You are a large DMO (200+ employees, national or metropolitan scale), you primarily target American and English-speaking markets, you have a budget of $20,000+ per year for image management alone, and your main goal is to display visitor UGC from Instagram on your site.
Choose Brandkit if…
You have strong press and agency demand, requiring multiple portals (media, trade, internal) and comprehensive brand management. Particularly suitable for national tourism organisations and large-scale regional branding.
Choose Event Connectors Media Bank if…
You are a Dutch or European DMO, you already manage (or wish to manage) your events, venues and routes in a single system, you want to keep your data within the EU, you want AI that works specifically for the DMO context, and you prefer a single integrated platform rather than separate tools working alongside each other.
Conclusion
More and more Dutch DMOs are looking for a media bank that operates in Dutch, stores data in Europe and is affordable. In this blog, we compare three platforms side by side: CrowdRiff (market leader from Canada), Brandkit (New Zealand, strong in place branding) and the Event Connectors Media Bank. We compared focus, AI capabilities, GDPR compliance and price. The conclusion: there is no universal winner, but for Dutch DMOs that already manage events, venues and routes in a single system — or wish to do so — an integrated approach is both practical and more cost-effective.
There is no ‘best’ platform — there is a platform that suits where your DMO stands. For large English-speaking destinations with a budget, CrowdRiff is an excellent choice. For international place branding at press and agency level, Brandkit is powerful.
For most Dutch DMOs and CMOs, an integrated platform for events, venues, routes and imagery — with your data hosted in Europe and AI taking the work off your hands — is simply the practical winner. And, as a rule, also the cheapest, because the Mediabank isn’t a separate tool alongside your existing tools.
Would you like to find out if the Mediabank is right for your DMO? Book a 30-minute demo with Arne or Annika. (Plan demo)