Design subscription vs agency vs freelancer: which one a founder should pick
If you need design work and don’t want to hire, you have three options: an agency, a freelancer, or a design subscription. The short answer: an agency for one large, fixed project with a big budget and a long timeline, a freelancer for a single well-defined job, and a subscription when you have a steady stream of work and want it fast without negotiating every piece.
I run a subscription, so read this with that in mind. I’ll be specific about where it is the wrong choice.
How each one works
Agency. You describe the project, they send a proposal with a scope, a timeline and a price. A team works on it: an account manager, a lead, designers, sometimes developers. Changes outside the scope are quoted again.
Freelancer. One person, usually paid by the hour, the day or the project. You agree on what is included, they do it, you pay. Quality and availability vary a lot from one person to the next.
Design subscription. A flat monthly fee. You add requests to a queue, the designer works them one at a time and sends each back within a set time, often two days. No proposals, no quotes per piece. You can pause or stop when you don’t need it. Designjoy made the model popular; a growing number of independent designers now work this way.
The comparison
| Agency | Freelancer | Subscription | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Per project, quoted | Per hour, day or project | Flat, monthly |
| Start | After a proposal and a contract | After a quote | The day you subscribe |
| Changes | Re-quoted | Often re-quoted | Part of the deal |
| Who does the work | A team | One person | Usually one person |
| Commitment | The whole project | The job | One month, pause anytime |
When an agency is the right call
You have one large project with a fixed deadline, several disciplines at once (research, brand, a full product, a campaign) and the budget to match. You want a team, a process and someone accountable on paper. A subscription that works one request at a time is slower for this, because a big project gets split into many pieces.
When a freelancer is the right call
You need one thing, it is well defined, and you won’t need more for months. A logo, a single landing page, a set of illustrations. Paying a monthly fee for a one-off job makes little sense.
When a subscription is the right call
You are a founder or a small team, you ship often, and design keeps coming up: a landing page this week, a paywall next week, the App Store screenshots after that. You don’t want to write a brief for a quote, wait for a proposal, then negotiate each change. You want to send a request today and have it back on Thursday, and to stop paying in the months you don’t need it.
Requests are worked one at a time, in the order you set. A request can be one screen or a whole flow; bigger ones come back in pieces, each within 48 hours, so something always moves.
Questions to ask whichever you pick
- Who exactly will do the work? With an agency, ask to meet the designer, not only the account lead.
- What happens when I ask for a change? Get the answer before you start, not after.
- Can you show live work? Not mockups. Things that shipped, and how they performed.
- Do you build, or only design? A design that someone else has to rebuild loses detail on the way. If the same person builds the site or the app front end, what you approve is what ships.
- What is not included? Copywriting, development, photography and print are the usual gaps.
How mine works
One plan: brand, website and iOS app, designed and built by me. Requests come back in 48 hours, revisions are unlimited, and you can pause from a link with your unused days banked. The details are on the pricing page, and the full terms are in the operating system.