How we scope fixed-price design work

Design pricing often feels like a guess on both sides. The client does not know what the final bill will be. The studio does not know how much the client will ask for. Everyone is a little nervous, and that nervousness leads to arguments in week three.

Fixed price, with a clearly agreed scope, takes most of that away. Here is how we do it, what we count, and where it does not work.

Why fixed price

We use fixed prices for most of our packages for three reasons.

• You know the cost before you start. The price is public, and the final number for your project is agreed in writing before work begins. A UX audit is $950. An MVP design sprint starts at $5,900. A marketing website starts at $3,500.
• We know the job. A written scope makes us think hard up front about what is involved. That is better than finding out halfway.
• Both sides can focus. When no one is counting hours, the conversation is about the product, not the invoice.

Fixed price is not always the better deal. It can be worse if your needs change a lot, because every change must be priced. It shifts risk from you to us, which is fair only if the scope is clear. So the rest of this article is really about making the scope clear.

What we count

For a fixed price to be fair, both sides need to count the same things. For a design sprint, the main ones are:

• Flows. The main tasks a user does, such as sign up, set up a workspace, create a report, upgrade. We list them by name.
• Screens. Our sprint covers 15 to 25 core screens. The exact number depends on how complex the flows are, and we agree it before we begin.
• Platforms. Web only, or web and mobile? Desktop and phone layouts are different work.
• The design-system starter. Colors, type and key components, as set out in the package.
• Prototype depth. Which flows are clickable.
• Review rounds. How many times your team can comment before the next step.
• Team calls. The discovery session, the weekly updates and the final walkthrough.

A screen is not always one frame. A table with filters, empty states, a detail panel and an error might be four or five frames. So we count by the thing the user sees as a screen, and we say how we count in the proposal. If we think the same screen has many states, we list them.

For a website, we count pages and whether the build is in Framer or in code, because those change the work most.

Agreeing the brief

Scope starts with listening. Before we quote a project, we have a short call, and we ask for the things in our design agency brief checklist: your goals, your users, what exists, your constraints and who decides.

Then we write down:

1. The goal of the project, in a sentence or two
2. The list of flows and the approximate screens in each
3. What you will get at the end, as a list of deliverables
4. What is not included
5. What we need from you, and by when
6. The price, and when and how it is paid

The "not included" list is as important as the included one. If branding, copywriting, illustration or front-end build is outside the scope, we say it plainly. It is easier to add something deliberately than to argue later about whether it was always part of the deal.

You read it, ask questions and change it. We do not start until you say the scope is right. Our process page shows what happens in each phase after that.

Handling changes

Things change. You learn something from a customer. An investor asks for a new feature. Good teams expect this.

Our approach is simple:

• Small changes are fine. A different label, a reordered form, a tweak to a layout. They are part of normal design work, and we do not invoice for them.
• Large changes get a conversation. If a change adds new flows, or means we redo finished work, we tell you what it affects. Then you choose: swap something else out to keep the price, or add time and cost.
• Nothing is added silently. You will not find an extra line on an invoice you did not agree to.

It helps to think of the sprint as a set of slots. If you want a new screen, which of the existing screens can wait? Often the answer is clear, and the cut is a good thing. A smaller first version is faster to build and easier to learn from.

We also protect the quality of the work. If a change arrives late, we may say that doing it well needs more time. We will not squeeze it in and hand you a rushed result.

Payment steps

How and when you pay is written into the proposal, so you see it before you agree to anything. We do not publish a standard split on this page, because it can depend on the size of the project and the way your company pays suppliers.

What we aim for is the same in every case. You should know what you are paying for at each step, you should never be asked for money for work that has not been described, and the amounts should match the scope you signed off.

If you work with a finance team or need an invoice in a certain format, say so early. It saves time at the end.

One thing we can say for certain is how the audit fee works. If you start an MVP design sprint within 30 days of a UX audit, the $950 audit fee is credited toward the sprint.

When we do not quote fixed

Fixed price is the right tool for work with a clear end. It is a poor fit for some work, and we say so.

• Ongoing design. If you need a designer every week for a changing list of tasks, a monthly plan fits better. Our Design Partner plan is $3,200 a month, with one active request at a time, and you can pause or cancel.
• Open-ended exploration. If the question is "we do not know what to build yet", it is hard to count screens. We would usually suggest a short, small first step, such as an audit or a discovery session, and quote the larger work after.
• Work that depends on others. If the scope hinges on a decision, an integration or a vendor you have not chosen, we may split the project into phases and quote one phase at a time.
• Very large programs. A full product redesign across many surfaces is better broken into stages, each with its own scope and price.

In those cases, we still put the arrangement in writing. The difference is in the shape: monthly, or phase by phase, not one number for everything.

If you are not sure which fits you, tell us what you are trying to do on the contact page. We will say which package we think matches, and if none does, we will tell you that too.