Design - Productised Elements¶
The Model¶
- Design is computed, not tiered. Unlike Discovery (fixed SKUs sold before the site is known), Design is priced at Cornerstone confirmation, when the surface inventory (templates, major variants, and set pieces - anything a designer designs once) and the ambition band are both fixed. Price = surfaces × the band rate in the effort model, rounded to a clean number. The tier vocabulary stays in Discovery.
- The two axes are both sold before Design starts. The surface inventory arrives from the confirmed IA and variant plan (2.1); the ambition band arrives from the concepts conversation (2.3) - which is why 2.3 is a commercial gate. The band sets the per-surface rate (effort model § The Ladder). By the time Design is priced, nothing about it is a guess.
- The system is what productises. Canopy (the Figma starter kit, design-side Acorn) and Roost make the System-led rates possible and the library inheritable - the same instruments-not-hours economics as Discovery, expressed through the ladder instead of an uplift.
- The surface inventory is the contract - in both directions. The estimate assumptions - surfaces and band - are confirmed against the Cornerstone at chapter start. Growth beyond them is a priced variation with the Decider, never absorbed; a band change after system sign-off reprices the remaining work. And when the confirmed inventory lands under the sold assumption, the delta redeploys by default - the top of the future-planning list, an added round, the design system line at S/M - with a lower price as the honest fallback.
- The design system is a named line, priced at 20% of the design price (minimum £2,000). One rule scaling with size and band together: ~£2,000 on a small system-led site up to ~£17,000 on an estate-scale Premium library, converging at the top toward the standalone Design system development product - which remains its own engagement for cross-surface, multi-brand, governed systems. Halved where a usable client system is inherited. Mandatory at L and XL - at that scale an unformalised library is a liability the build inherits - and opt-in at S and M, visible on the estimate so skipping it is the client's explicit decision, not a silent omission.
Indicative Price Grid¶
The public face of the computed model - real projects price from their confirmed surface inventory. All + VAT.
| Size (surfaces) | System-led | Expressive | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| S (≤5) | £2,000 | £3,000 | £4,500 |
| M (6–12) | £6,500 | £9,000 | £13,500 |
| L (13–25) | £13,500 | £17,500 | £27,500 |
| XL (26+) | from £25,500 | from £33,000 | from £50,000 |
- Surface definition and counting rules: surfaces.md.
- The design system line adds 20% (minimum £2,000) - included on every L and XL estimate, opt-in at S and M; from ~£2,000 at S to ~£17,000 at XL Premium.
- L and XL always include design-phase user testing - never waived. Baseline: one moderated round at L, two at XL; the format is scoped per project, from ~£500 (unmoderated, key journeys) upward. An added round at any size prices from ~£500 to ~£3,000 (moderated) + recruitment at cost.
- Elapsed time is an estimate, not a time-box: S 2–3 weeks · M 4–6 · L 8–12 · XL bespoke, at standard staffing. Design is fixed scope, computed time; client availability moves elapsed, never price.
- XL is always quoted bespoke from the actual inventory.
Validation Against Shipped Sites¶
The ladder is calibrated on five shipped MAJOR sites (actuals include post-launch design additions):
| Site | Band | Surfaces | Actual | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDSDS | System-led (no design system) | ~16 | 95h | 5.9h/surface |
| Tracsis | System-led, large footprint | ~49 | 270h | ~5.5h/surface |
| Concurrent | Expressive | ~15 | 120h | 8h/surface |
| Source EV | Expressive (high) | ~19–20 | 160h | ~8.4h/surface |
| Into Games | Premium | ~15–16 | 170h | ~11h/surface |
All three bands observed directly: system-led ~5.5–5.9h, expressive ~8–8.4h, premium ~11h per surface. The ladder rates (5.5 / 7 / 10.5) sit on the observations directly: System-led on Tracsis, Premium on Into Games, Expressive between Concurrent's project-window and all-in readings. A per-template plus per-component model was tested against the same sites and rejected: it missed the first four by 40–100%, where the surface unit closed all five to within ~10%.
Market Evidence¶
| Claim | Evidence |
|---|---|
| The grid sits where the UK market prices design | Moken's published design tiers - budget £3k–£8k / mid £8k–£20k / premium £20k–£50k+ - bracket the System-led column and Expressive M–L cells; Make It Clear's website-UX range is £8k–£25k; the dominant heuristic prices design at 30–40% of total project cost, which the grid matches against MAJOR build values. |
| Premium above £40k is defensible | Market premium/interactive work runs £50k+; flagship animated/WebGL work publishes at $100k–$200k with 14–20 week timelines. Award-tier design is a different production model, not a polish increment. |
| The front-loaded direction template is real | Homepage proof-of-concept publishes at 40–80h while run-rate hi-fi screens publish at 4–8h; the ladder models both explicitly. |
| Ambition multipliers are a differentiator | Nobody publishes an ambition multiplier - premiums hide in tier tables (~2.5× steps) and per-feature add-ons (simple screen $500 vs animated $2,500; micro-interactions $200–$800 each). Named bands with declared multipliers are unique in the field. |
| Testing prices have a UK comparator | A published UK fixed price of £4,950 for a moderated five-user round; unmoderated tool-run rounds cost 20–40% less. The ~£3,000 round price undercuts the comparator while covering internal cost. |
Selling Notes¶
- Sell the system, not the screens. The client inherits a tokenised, Roost-named, documented library their team can extend - the design-side proof of every-team-wins, and the reason a MAJOR design phase outlives its launch.
- The band was already agreed. By pricing time the client has seen and chosen their ambition at 2.3 - the Design price never opens the ambition conversation cold.
- The inventory next to the price, always. The surface count, the band, and the design system line appear beside the figure in every estimate - they are what makes the variation mechanism honest.
- "+ VAT" always stated.