Retainer Partnership for AI Startup Velocity
Get a fractional design lead embedded in your team—shipping UX, landing pages, and design systems every month so you stop leaking users and time.
Instead of chasing freelancers or overloading your PMs with Figma, you get one partner who owns product UX, conversion journeys, and visual consistency across your AI product and marketing.
Built for AI founders who need a design adult in the room
This retainer is for AI startup teams who have a live product, constant ideas, and not enough design capacity to ship them without chaos. You’re moving fast, but your onboarding, pricing, and UX are a Frankenstein of past experiments.
If you’re pre‑seed to Series B and juggling roadmap, investor decks, and landing pages, this gives you an embedded senior partner who speaks product, not just pixels.
Ideal fit:
- AI startup with a live product or beta and a real roadmap, not just an idea.
- No in‑house design lead, or a small team stretched across product and growth.
- Frequent “small but critical” design tasks: new flows, onboarding, pricing tests, launch pages.
- You care about metrics: activation, retention, LTV, and fundraising outcomes—not Dribbble shots.
What your design partner actually does
This is an ongoing engagement focused on moving metrics, not burning hours.
Product UX
- UX reviews and “friction clean‑ups” across onboarding, core flows, and dashboards.
- New feature flows, wireframes, and production‑ready UI in Figma.
- Design system upkeep and extension for new patterns and components.
Growth & marketing design
- Conversion‑focused landing pages and campaign pages in Figma + Framer/Lovable where needed.
- In‑product promos, launch visuals, and simple email/ad creative aligned with your brand.
- Testing support: variants for pricing, messaging, and UX experiments tied to your analytics.
Strategy & feedback loops
Simple workflow. Clear boundaries. No drama.
Step 1 – Kickoff & audit
In week 0, we run a 60–90 minute workshop to align on goals, metrics, roadmap, and tools (Figma, Slack, Linear, Notion, HubSpot, etc.). You also get a rapid audit of your product UX, funnels, and visual system to spot quick wins.
Step 2 – Monthly focus and backlog
Each month we pick 1–3 key outcomes: improve activation, launch a feature, redesign a landing page, or stabilize your design system. All requests live in a shared backlog; you can add ideas anytime, and work is pulled in based on hours and impact.
Step 3 – Communication
Day‑to‑day is async‑first via Slack/Discord with 24–48h response time on business days. Weekly Loom or live calls keep decisions moving without killing your calendar.
Step 4 – Delivery
Everything ships in organized Figma files with Loom walkthroughs and implementation notes. For landing pages, we can either hand off designs or ship directly in Framer/Lovable with basic tracking wired in.
Choose how embedded you want Poplab to be
| Plan | Best for | Hours / month | What’s included | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter Retainer | Solo founders and small AI teams needing a senior design partner for core UX and 1 key initiative per month. | 10–15 | 1 main initiative (e.g. onboarding, core flow, or landing revamp), weekly check‑in, async support, light design system updates. | From € 1.500,00 / month |
| Growth Retainer | Seed–Series A AI startups with an active roadmap and ongoing marketing experiments. | ~20 | 2–3 parallel initiatives (product + landing pages), priority support, design system maintenance, closer PM/dev collaboration. | From € 2.900,00 / month (custom proposal) |
| Scale Retainer | Larger product orgs needing fractional design leadership plus heavy execution across squads. | 35–40 | Roadmap‑level involvement, stakeholder workshops, experiments across multiple funnels, close work with leadership and data. | Custom / from € 4.500,00 + / month |
Unused hours do not roll over; this keeps the work focused and proactive instead of hoarding tasks. Initial term is 3 months, then month‑to‑month with 30‑day cancellation. Price does not include VAT; EU businesses with a valid VAT ID are not charged VAT.
FAQs about the retainer partnership
How many requests can we send per month?
You can submit as many requests as you want; work is pulled from a prioritized backlog based on your plan’s hours and the impact on your metrics.
What’s the minimum commitment?
The initial commitment is 3 months so there’s enough runway to audit, prioritize, and ship meaningful improvements, then we move to a simple month‑to‑month model.
Can we pause the retainer?
You can pause once per year for up to one month if you hit a funding or roadmap freeze; your slot is held, but hours do not accumulate.
How is this different from hiring a freelancer?
Instead of chasing availability for one‑off tasks, you get an embedded partner who understands your product, team, and stack—and is accountable for outcomes, not just delivery.
What’s not included?
No emergency same‑day work, bespoke illustration or video production, or backend development; for front‑end builds, delivery is focused on Framer/Lovable and your existing no‑code stack.
Trusted by AI startup founders from pre-seed to Series B
The brands and organizations we’re privileged to work with.
What Founders & Leaders Say
Brute-Force Outcomes. Measurable Impact. Real Voices from AI-Driven Product Teams.
“With Poplab’s AI-powered prototyping and UX/UI Design, our artists now launch galleries 36% faster—AI-first user flows translate directly to time-to-value.”
— Product Lead, LettsArt
“AI-driven user research and agile roadmapping unlocked a new era for our subscriptions. Churn dropped, and every new feature doubled as a growth engine.”
— Product Owner, Jot
“Poplab’s blend of AI analytics and experience design not only improved our site’s look—it increased qualified leads by 32% and conversions by 36%.”
— Head of Digital Transformation, Aeonvis
Curious how these outcomes were achieved?
Ready to compress your design backlog?
If your AI roadmap is moving faster than your design team, a retainer gives you consistent senior support without the risk and delay of another full‑time hire. Let’s map your next 90 days and see whether a starter, growth, or scale retainer fits your runway.