Retainer Partnership
Pre-Seed to Series B · From $1,500/month · 10–40 hrs/month
A fractional design lead embedded in your team — shipping every month.
Not a freelancer you chase. Not an agency that disappears after the handoff. One senior design partner who owns product UX, conversion, and visual consistency across your AI product — and is accountable for outcomes, not just Figma files.
This is for you if
- You have a live product or beta, a real roadmap, and a design backlog growing faster than your capacity
- You have no in-house design lead — or a small team stretched so thin that “design” means whoever has 20 minutes free
- You care about activation, retention, and LTV — not Dribbble shots
What your design partner actually does
Product UX
Friction clean-ups across onboarding, core flows, and dashboards. New feature flows, wireframes, and production-ready UI in Figma. Design system upkeep as your product scales.
Growth & Marketing Design
Conversion-focused landing pages in Figma + Framer/Lovable. In-product promos and launch visuals. A/B testing variants for pricing, messaging, and UX experiments tied to your analytics.
Strategy & Feedback Loops
Weekly async or live prioritization touchpoint. Monthly mini-retro: what moved, what didn’t, where to focus next. Input across product, marketing, and fundraising to keep the story coherent.
Plans
| Plan | Best For | Hours/Month | What’s Included | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Solo founders and small teams needing a senior design partner for 1 key initiative/month | 10–15 hrs | 1 main initiative (onboarding, core flow, or landing revamp), weekly check-in, async support, light design system updates | From $1,500/month |
| Growth | Seed–Series A startups with an active roadmap and ongoing marketing experiments | ~20 hrs | 2–3 parallel initiatives (product + landing pages), priority support, design system maintenance, closer PM/dev collaboration | From $2,900/month |
| Scale | Larger product orgs needing fractional design leadership across squads | 35–40 hrs | Roadmap-level involvement, stakeholder workshops, experiments across multiple funnels, close work with leadership and data | From $4,500+/month |
Unused hours don’t roll over. That keeps work focused and proactive — not hoarded and rushed at month-end.
Proof
This is what consistent, outcome-focused design execution compounds into over time:
- ~40% reduction in first-session drop-off + ~35% increase in plan upgrade conversion (AI VentureFactory) — from fixing activation friction and unclear value signals across core flows
- 38% reduction in support tickets + 35% reduction in design-to-development cycle time (Mimecast) — after a structured design system and UX review created consistency across the product
- 183% growth in total projects on platform + enterprise sourcing cycle reduced from 10 weeks to 7–10 days (Maistro) — design and front-end function scaled from 1 to 22+ practitioners with embedded design leadership
- +32% qualified leads + +36% website conversion rate (Aeonvis) — the compounding result of aligned product, UX, and marketing design over time
One-off sprints move metrics. Embedded design compounds them.
Terms
- Initial commitment: 3 months — enough runway to audit, prioritize, and ship meaningful improvements
- After that: Month-to-month with 30-day cancellation
- Pause policy: Once per year, up to one month — your slot is held
- Not included: Same-day emergency work, bespoke illustration/video production, backend development
- VAT: EU businesses with a valid VAT ID are not charged VAT
Your roadmap is moving faster than your design capacity
A retainer gives you consistent senior support without the risk, delay, or cost of another full-time hire. Let’s map your next 90 days and find the right plan for your runway.