FAQ
Questions we get before we start
The questions that come up on a first call, answered with the figures and the terms behind them rather than a promise to discuss it. If yours is not here, the form at the foot of the page reaches us.
What it costs
How much does a design team cost?
Ours is $4.2K a month for a senior team working part-time on your product, $7.7K a month for the same team full-time, and from $30K for a fixed-price project with an agreed scope. The pricing page states all three in your own currency and lists what each includes. Rates elsewhere vary more than most buyers expect, which is the argument for having a number in writing before the first call rather than after it.
Should we hire an agency, a freelancer, or a designer in-house?
A freelancer is the cheaper answer when the work is one defined thing and somebody on your side already knows what it should be. An in-house designer is the right answer once product design is a permanent function with enough work to fill every week — the cost being a salary, a notice period and the months it takes to hire. A team like ours covers the middle: a strategist, a UX designer and a UI designer working together for a monthly fee, starting within a week and ending on three weeks’ notice. If one of the other two is obviously your situation, we would rather say so than sell you the wrong shape.
What does fractional design mean?
A senior team on your product part-time, rather than a junior one full-time. In practice: we work on one priority at a time, join your standups, planning and reviews, and share progress every week. Full-time is the same people on two priorities at once. Neither is a pool of hours you draw down — you have the team for the month.
Do you work fixed-price?
Where the work has a clear edge — a launch, a fundraise, a redesign — yes. We agree the scope and the fee in writing before anything starts. Projects begin at $30K and usually run two to three months. The fee follows what the project is worth to the business rather than a count of hours.
Can we pause or cancel?
Either side can cancel a subscription with three weeks’ written notice. You can pause it with two weeks’ notice for up to two consecutive months, charged at 25% of the monthly fee, which holds your seat while no design work is done. Moving between Fractional and Full-time takes one week’s notice and applies from the next billing cycle. The terms page sets all of it out in full.
How an engagement runs
How does an engagement start?
A call, then a written agreement setting out the fee, what the month includes and the notice to end it. Before the first day of design we read what you already have — analytics, support tickets, past research, the backlog — and come back with what we think the first priority should be. The first week goes on your product rather than on onboarding us.
How is the work organised?
In Miro, Trello and Slack, or in your tools if you would rather not add ours. You get a client space holding the project detail and a kanban board, progress every week, and calls when a decision needs one rather than on a standing schedule.
How many people will work on our product?
Two to three, including the manager. One person often holds more than one role, and which specialists are involved changes with the stage the work is at. On Fractional that team is part-time on your product; on Full-time it is the same people, full-time.
Do you work with our in-house designers and engineers?
Yes, and most engagements are that shape. We join your standups, planning and reviews, work in your files and your conventions, and hand over in the form your engineers already build from. Nothing here depends on us being the only designers in the room.
Where are you, and what hours do you work?
Most of the team is in Vietnam, with two of us in Mauritius. We work remotely and asynchronously, typically between GMT+2 and GMT+11 — which covers the European working day and the start of the American one.
How soon can you start?
Within a week, if a seat is available. If none is, we say so and give you the date rather than keep you in a pipeline.
What the work covers
What do we actually get?
Production-ready screens in Figma, the components and tokens behind them, the states and edge cases written down, and a prototype wherever a flow has to be felt rather than described. Everything is named and structured for the people who will build it. Ownership of a month’s work passes to you once that month is paid.
Do you do research, or only the interface?
Both, and the first usually decides the second. Interviews, usability tests and competitor research are run by the designers who then act on the findings, which is the difference between a research report and a changed design.
Do you build design systems?
Yes. A design system here is components, tokens and the rules that hold them together as the team grows, built against the code that will use them rather than as a Figma library nobody opens. It is usually part of a wider engagement rather than a purchase on its own.
Do you write the code as well?
We build MVPs and smaller products ourselves, using AI-assisted development workflows, and keep a vetted network of engineers for work beyond that. On most engagements your own engineers build it and we hand over what they need.
Do you do branding and marketing?
Not in-house. We work with branding and marketing specialists we know and can bring them in, but the studio itself is product design. If branding is the actual job, a studio that does only branding will do it better.
Do you design AI features?
Yes, and increasingly that is the work. Most AI features are not a chat panel — the field that fills itself, the list already in the right order, the summary above a thread nobody wants to read. The design question is usually what happens when the model is wrong.
Contracts and risk
What if the scope changes?
On a fixed-price project we update the Scope of Work to cover it, in writing, before the work changes. On a subscription there is usually nothing to update: you change the priority and we work on the new one, which is most of the reason the subscriptions exist.
Can we sign an NDA?
Yes. Send yours, or we will send ours before anything confidential is shared.
Who owns the work?
You do, once the month it was produced in has been paid in full; work from an unpaid month stays ours until it is paid. You get the source files rather than exports of them. The terms page states this in full.
What if it is not working out?
Three weeks’ written notice ends a subscription, from either side, and everything produced up to then is yours. There is no minimum term and no exit fee. Fees already paid for the current month are not automatically refunded — refund requests are considered individually.
Ask us the one that is not here.
The form below goes straight to us. Say what you are building and where it is stuck — a question is a perfectly good reason to use it.
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