Sketch

About Sketch

Financials

Dated, source-cited figures. Estimates are marked.

Competitive Landscape

Who Sketch competes with, and how they differ.

Figma, Inc.

Figma is a browser-native, real-time multiplayer design tool requiring no desktop install -- the model that took the market Sketch dominated pre-2016 -- and has since added FigJam whiteboarding and AI features Sketch does not match.

Framer8.1/10

Framer began as a code-based prototyping tool and has evolved into an AI-assisted website builder that publishes directly to production, competing with Sketch on UI design and handoff but extending further into shipped, live sites rather than static design files.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

V

Visily7.5/10

Visily generates wireframes and mockups from text prompts or uploaded screenshots for non-designers, competing with Sketch on speed and accessibility of concepting rather than on precision vector editing.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

Uizard Technologies7.3/10

Uizard turns hand-drawn sketches, screenshots or text prompts into editable UI designs and working prototypes via AI, competing with Sketch's manual vector workflow for fast early-stage concepting.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

Company Timeline

Key milestones in Sketch's history, with sources.

1. Oct 12, 2023Milestone

   Sketch returns to the Mac App Store after eight years

   Sketch made its Mac app available again on Apple's Mac App Store, nearly eight years after leaving in December 2015 for direct sales.

   sketch.com
2. May 12, 2021Milestone

   Version 72 repositions Sketch around subscription collaboration

   Sketch shipped real-time multi-author collaboration (introduced in v71, expanded in v72) as its answer to Figma's browser-native editing, while downgrading perpetual-license holders' cloud features and raising the renewal price from $79 to $99 -- pushing the base toward its Teams subscription.

   theregister.com
3. Mar 13, 2019Funding

   Series A -- $20M led by Benchmark, first outside funding after nearly a decade bootstrapped

   Sketch raised $20M from Benchmark, its first capital raise since starting the product around 2010; the company said it had been profitable from the outset on direct sales of $99 licenses, with no prior institutional investors.

   techcrunch.com
4. Jun 8, 2016Milestone

   New per-version licensing model replaces major-version pricing

   Sketch dropped traditional major-version numbering (no "Sketch 4.0") for sequential versioning, giving every buyer one year of free updates from their purchase date for a flat $99 license.

   sketch.com
5. Dec 1, 2015Milestone

   Sketch leaves the Mac App Store for direct sales

   Bohemian Coding pulled Sketch from Apple's Mac App Store, citing slow app review, sandboxing limits and the lack of upgrade pricing, moving to direct license sales ($99) from its own website.

   macrumors.com
6. 2012Milestone

   Sketch wins a 2012 Apple Design Award

   Sketch by Bohemian Coding won an Apple Design Award in the Mac category at WWDC 2012, a recognition that significantly raised the app's profile among designers.

   macstories.net
7. Sep 7, 2010Launch

   Sketch 1.0 released for macOS

   Pieter Omvlee's Bohemian Coding (later renamed Sketch B.V.) released Sketch 1.0 in a private beta on 7 September 2010, a vector-based screen-design tool for macOS that predated the browser-based design-tool era.

   en.wikipedia.org