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Figma AI (Make / First Draft) vs Microsoft Designer
A plain-English comparison to help you choose between them.
A professional design tool with AI against a consumer design app with AI, and the audience decides before the features do. Figma AI assumes a design practice: files, libraries, prototypes, engineering handoff, with generation accelerating drafts and mechanical revisions inside that system. Microsoft Designer assumes none of it: describe a design and complete layouts come back, backgrounds swap in a click, and monthly credits meter the generation, free with more for Microsoft 365 subscribers. Pick Figma AI when design is a discipline in the building; pick Designer when it is an occasional need inside the Microsoft world.
Side by side
- Summary
Figma's AI turns the design tool into a generator: First Draft produces editable screens from a prompt using Figma-built libraries, with generation on your own design system not yet available, Make converts designs and descriptions into interactive prototypes and working front-end code, and smaller assists handle content replacement, image cleanup and smart search across files.
- Best for
- Editable first-draft screens generated on your design system
- Prompts to interactive prototypes without leaving Figma
- Design-to-code handoff as an engineering starting point
- Cost
- Freemium (Free tier + paid plans)
- Ease
- Openness
- Hosted service
- Data
- Designs and prompts stay within Figma's platform terms, with admin controls on AI features for enterprise plans. Make output is a prototype starting point, not production code, so review before anything ships.
- Summary
Microsoft Designer is the free, fast design app of the Microsoft world: describe a design and it generates complete layouts with imagery, text and colour handled; generate images from prompts; restyle photos; and remove or replace backgrounds.
- Best for
- Free quick graphics from a described concept
- Image generation metered by monthly credits
- Restyling photos and replacing backgrounds
- Cost
- Freemium (Free tier + paid plans)
- Ease
- Openness
- Hosted service
- Data
- Content processes under Microsoft's consumer or commercial terms depending on the account, worth knowing which one you are on.
Pricing
- Figma AI (Make / First Draft)
Free$16/user·$55/user·$90/user
Prices as of August 2026.
- Starter
- Free
- Professional
- $16per user, per monthbilled annually; $20 per user per month if billed monthly
- Organization
- $55per user, per monthbilled annually
- Enterprise
- $90per user, per monthbilled annually
- Microsoft Designer
- Sold with another product
Common questions
Is Designer ever right for a team with designers?
At the edges, yes: the quick social graphic, the internal invitation, the one-off card that should not interrupt a designer's week. Template breadth, brand kits and team workflows all favour the dedicated platforms, and it does not pretend otherwise. The moment output must match a design system, it is outside its depth by design.
What does the credit metering mean for each?
Designer's monthly AI credits cap free ambition, with more for Microsoft 365 subscribers, so sustained generation belongs on a subscription or a different tool. Figma AI's generation ships inside the platform seat, so the constraint is less a meter than what the team's plan already covers.
Do they ever meet in one organisation?
Constantly, and peacefully. The design team lives in Figma, where drafts, prototypes and code handoff belong, while the rest of the company makes its own quick graphics in Designer inside the Microsoft surround. The boundary takes care of itself because neither tool is tempted by the other's job.
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Tool facts last checked August 2026