Cheaper than hiring
A senior product designer costs $180K+ a year plus 3 months to hire, if you can find one. A retainer starts in days and stops when you don't need it.
Ongoing partnership
Embedded Design Retainer
From $10,000/moPause or cancel anytime
A senior product designer embedded in your team: strategy, UX, UI, and production-ready front-end code, shipped in weekly cycles. All the momentum of a full-time hire, none of the hiring.
Start a Retainer
Free 30-minute call. No commitment.
How it works
- 01
Discovery call
A free 30-minute call to understand your product, your roadmap, and where design is slowing you down. We tell you honestly whether a retainer is the right shape.
- 02
Embed, week 1
Your designer joins your Slack and standups, audits the current product, and agrees on a 30-day priority list with you. No months of onboarding.
- 03
Weekly ship cycles
Every week ships something real: flows, interfaces, prototypes, design system components, and front-end code your engineers can merge. You see progress every Friday, not at a big reveal.
- 04
Monthly steering
Once a month we zoom out: what shipped, what it changed, and what's next. Scale up, pause, or stop anytime, with no lock-in.
What you get
- A senior product designer embedded in your team
- Product strategy, UX, and UI, end to end
- Prototypes and user testing on the hard parts
- A design system your team can build on
- Production-ready front-end code, not just Figma files
- Senior direction on every deliverable, every week
Why it’s worth it
Faster than an agency
Traditional agencies quote $40K+ and 3–6 months, with juniors doing the work behind a senior's slide deck. Here the senior does the work, with AI handling the heavy lifting.
Code, not artifacts
Most design engagements end with a Figma file your engineers still have to interpret and build. Ours ends with front-end code that plugs into your product.
Common questions
What does 'from $10,000/mo' include?
The base retainer covers one embedded senior designer at steady weekly capacity. Bigger scopes (multiple workstreams or added research) price above that. We fix the number on the discovery call before anything starts.
Can we really pause anytime?
Yes. Retainers renew monthly. Pause or cancel with notice before your next billing date, no penalty.
How is AI involved?
AI synthesizes research, drafts prototypes, and accelerates production code. Every creative and strategic decision stays with your senior designer. It's why we move in weeks, not quarters.
Who exactly does the work?
A senior designer who has built products used by millions at companies like SAP, Oracle, Intuit, or Synopsys. Never juniors, never handoffs.
Ready when you are.
Start with a free 30-minute strategy call. We’ll tell you honestly if this is the right fit.
Start a Retainer