There's no true consensus on how to pay for creative work. Hourly, day-rate, project-based, retainer, even unlimited subscriptions. Each has their strengths and drawbacks.
How hourly design pricing works
"What's your hourly rate?" is probably the pricing question creatives are most used to hearing. You pay for the time they spend on your work. They track hours and invoice you after the fact.
It sounds fair on paper, but it's the model with the most surprises in practice. You don't know what you're spending until the invoice lands, which makes budgeting hard and pushback awkward. Every invoice tends to become a negotiation about whether the hours were necessary.
It works well for genuinely ambiguous, small-scope tasks. For anything recurring or strategic, it creates more friction than it's worth.
How project-based design pricing works
You agree on the scope and price, then the designer delivers. Clean and predictable — when the scope holds.
The problem is that scope rarely holds perfectly. Design work is iterative by nature, and fixed-price contracts handle that with revision limits and change orders. Once the scope is set, changes often mean added costs. At some point you're probably going to have an awkward "that's out of scope" conversation.
It's the right model for one-time, well-defined work — a brand identity, a website build, a pitch deck. Less suited to anything ongoing.
How design retainers work
You pay a fixed monthly fee for an agreed set of deliverables on an ongoing basis. It's the closest thing to having a dedicated designer without hiring one full-time.
Retainers work well when your needs are consistent month to month. The tradeoff is commitment: you're paying whether or not you have a heavy month. Without a solid agreement, you might be wasting money during lighter months, and be kept needing more during heavier ones.
Design subscriptions are a different flavor of this. Services like DesignJoy and Kimp are particularly notable here. A flat monthly fee, unlimited requests, queue-based delivery.
For companies cranking out a high volume of marketing assets every month, it can work well. The tradeoff: when these services get overloaded, turnaround drags and designs start to feel templated. "Unlimited" becomes more of a sales gimmick than a meaningful service model. They're built for throughput, not strategy.
Are there other pricing models for creative work?
Of course! Some agencies mix and match, sell bundles, offer project-based services that lead to a retainer, and more. The best adapt to you or have a flexible model that takes different needs into account.
One model worth knowing about, even if you haven't heard it called that yet: credit-based pricing.
What is credit-based design pricing, and how is it different?
You know how this works from going to an arcade. You buy a pack of tokens, and use them to play. Cooler games require more tokens, simpler ones need less. Brands like ClassPass and Mailchimp are already operating on this model. Buy capacity upfront and spend it on your own terms.
Applied to design, it works like this: you purchase a pack of credits, each deliverable has a fixed credit cost you know before anything starts, and you spend them at whatever pace makes sense for your business. Slow month? Hold them. Big launch coming? Use them all at once.
It's not a retainer, since you're not locked into monthly output regardless of need. It's not project-based either — there's no scope document or change order process. Change your mind about what to use credits on? Go for it.
This model sits somewhere in between: the cost predictability of projects with the flexibility of an ongoing relationship.
For founders and marketing leads who need design to move with the business rather than against a billing cycle, it tends to click pretty naturally.
How does Floresta's credit model work?
That's the model we run on. Credits are available as one-time packs or monthly plans across four tiers ranging from 15 to 60 credits/month. Every deliverable has a set credit cost agreed before work starts. No surprises, no scope debates.
Curious what your next project would run? The project planner is a good place to start.
