Design subscription vs. hiring a designer
What a monthly design team costs next to a full-time hire, a freelancer or an agency, and when each one makes sense for a startup.
Short answer
A King Tide design team starts at $3K a month, is embedded and shipping within a week, and you can pause or scale anytime. A full-time hire costs more and takes longer: in the US, the median web and digital interface designer earns $104,000 a year (BLS, May 2025), before benefits. All prices are in US dollars.
The cost, side by side
| Option | Monthly cost | Time to start | Flexibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design subscription (King Tide) | From $3K | Within a week | Pause or scale month to month |
| Full-time senior hire (US) | About $12,400 with benefits | Three to six months to hire | A long-term commitment |
| Freelancer | Varies by person and hours | Days to weeks | Flexible, but availability varies |
| Agency | Quoted per project | Weeks, after a proposal | One project at a time |
Where the full-time number comes from: benefits are 30% of what an employee costs in US private industry (BLS, June 2026). If the salary is the other 70%, a $104,000 salary means about $148,600 a year in total, roughly $12,400 a month, before recruiting.
What the monthly fee covers
Senior product and brand designers who work in your Slack, Figma and Linear and ship work every week.
- Product UI and UX: flows, screens and prototypes your engineers can build from.
- Design systems: components and tokens that keep everything consistent as you scale.
- Web and landing pages: marketing sites and launch pages, designed and built in Framer.
- Campaigns, social and motion: paid social, display, content systems and launch videos.
- Pitch decks and packaging: fundraising and sales decks, retail boxes and merch.
When hiring makes more sense
If you have steady, full-time design work for years and the budget to hire senior, a full-time designer builds deep product context. Many teams use a subscription until then: it covers product, brand and web while they hire, and scales down when the hire lands.
When a freelancer or an agency makes more sense
A freelancer fits a single, well-defined deliverable. An agency fits a one-off project with a fixed brief, such as a rebrand. A subscription fits ongoing work that changes every week.
How it works
| When | Step | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Kickoff | We learn your product, brand and backlog, and set up in your tools. |
| Week 1 | Embed | Your designer joins standups and starts shipping. |
| Every week | Ship | Shippable work every week, reviewed in your normal rituals. |
| Every month | Flex | Add capacity for a launch or pause between sprints. |
Examples
Sunrun uses King Tide as an embedded design team for web, social and campaign visuals. GoPuff ran a year-plus in-house creative engagement across six channels. Mural Pay has King Tide on all product, UX and UI design, plus its Framer site.
Questions
How fast can someone start?
Usually within a week. We match you with a senior designer, set up in your tools and start on your highest-priority work.
Is it one designer or a team?
Either. Start with one senior designer and add product, brand or motion people as the roadmap calls for it.
Can we pause?
Yes. It’s month to month, so you can pause between sprints and scale back up for a launch.
Do you also build?
Yes. Marketing sites ship in Framer, and when you need a product built, our AI MVP crew picks it up with the same team context.