What UI/UX design actually costs in the USA, priced line by line: what each deliverable takes, what a real quote should include, and the published prices we work to, so you can check any quote you receive against real numbers.
Key takeaways
- Price follows the number of screens, the states each screen has, and how much research you need.
- Our published prices include the build: $1,599 for five pages and $1,999 for eight pages with a design system.
- A focused UI/UX project runs five to seven weeks across four signed-off phases.
- A quote you can trust names every deliverable, the number of revision rounds, and what happens after handoff.
What you are actually paying for
A UI/UX quote is really a count of decisions. Every screen needs its layout, content hierarchy and interactions decided, and every screen has states beyond the happy path: empty, loading, error, a first-time user with no data, a user without permission. A ten-screen product can easily mean forty designed states, and that, not the page count on the proposal, is what drives the hours.
Research is the second line item. Interviews, an analytics review and a competitor teardown take about a week on a focused project, and they are the part cheap quotes quietly drop. The third is the design system: reusable components and tokens that let developers build every future screen without asking the designer. Without it you pay for design twice, once now and again when the product grows.
- Screens and every state each screen can be in
- Research: interviews, analytics review, competitor teardown
- A design system your developers can build from
- Handoff and support while the product is built
Published prices, line by line
Most agencies publish nothing and quote after a call. We publish our prices because it lets you check any quote you receive, including ours. The table below is our current list for design and build; SEO is priced separately by the month.
The first three rows are design only. If you already have developers, that is usually what you need. The build rows are for teams that want the design shipped as working software by the same people who designed it.
Related: top UI/UX design agencies in the USA.
| Plan | Price | Pages | What is included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter website (design + build) | $1,599 | Up to 5 | Design in Figma, WordPress or React build, responsive layouts, contact form, on-page SEO setup |
| Business website (design + build) | $1,999 | Up to 8 | Everything above plus a design system, a CMS you can edit, analytics setup, 2 revision rounds |
| Growth website (design + build) | $2,999 | Up to 30 | Everything above plus blog or content collections, motion and micro-interactions, speed optimisation |
| Custom software (design + build) | From $4,999 | Scoped | Dashboards, scheduling, internal tools, API integrations and auth, ongoing support |
Hourly, fixed or retainer: which to accept
Hourly billing moves the risk of an unclear scope onto you. It makes sense for genuinely open-ended work, such as ongoing iteration on a live product, and for little else. A fixed project price moves that risk onto the agency, which is why it forces a proper scope conversation before work starts.
A monthly retainer suits a mature product with a steady stream of design work. For a first version, a redesign or a new feature, ask for a fixed price in writing. If an agency will not give one, it is usually because it has not understood the job yet.
- Hourly: open-ended iteration on a live product
- Fixed price: first versions, redesigns, defined features
- Retainer: steady design work on a mature product
How long the money takes to turn into design
A focused UI/UX project runs five to seven weeks. Research and audit take about a week, wireframes and a clickable prototype one to two weeks, high-fidelity UI two to three weeks, and the design system and handoff about a week.
Each phase ends with your sign-off, so you pay for progress you have seen rather than for a big reveal at the end. When a project runs long, it is almost always because feedback on one phase took longer than the phase itself, not because the design did.
Related: our published UI/UX prices.
- Research and audit: about 1 week
- Wireframes and prototype: 1 to 2 weeks
- High-fidelity UI: 2 to 3 weeks
- Design system and handoff: about 1 week
Three typical budgets, worked through
A service business redesigning a five-page marketing site with a booking link needs research, five page designs with their mobile versions, and a handoff to whoever builds it. With us that is the Starter website at $1,599, designed and built, in about five weeks.
A company that sells online and needs eight pages, a design system its developers can reuse, and a checkout flow designed for every state falls in the Business website at $1,999, with the build included in WordPress or React.
A SaaS product with a dashboard, roles, onboarding and billing is not a website at all. It is product design, and it is quoted as custom software from $4,999, because the design and the data model have to be decided together.
- Five-page service site, designed and built: $1,599
- Eight pages with a design system, designed and built: $1,999
- Up to thirty pages, designed and built: $2,999
- SaaS dashboard product: custom software from $4,999
What a quote should include, and the red flags
A quote you can trust names each deliverable, says how many revision rounds are included, says who owns the files, and says what happens after handoff. Ours adds four terms to every project: a fixed price in writing, your sign-off at each phase, payment of 30% to start, 40% at review and 30% at launch, and 30 days of fixes after launch.
Watch for quotes that list only page counts, say nothing about states or research, or include unlimited revisions. Unlimited revisions sounds generous and usually means nobody has agreed what finished looks like.
- Every deliverable named
- Revision rounds stated
- You own the Figma files
- Support after handoff defined
Why the cheapest quote usually costs more
The cheapest design skips the states and the research, and both come back later. The states come back as developer questions and inconsistent screens; the missing research comes back as a feature nobody uses. Each costs more to fix after launch than it would have cost to design properly.
Judge the price against what the design has to do. A booking flow that converts a few more visitors pays for its design quickly; a brochure site with no clear job does not need a signature budget. Match the tier to the job, not to the logo on the proposal.
Costs after the design is delivered
Design is not the last bill. Budget for the build if you have no developers, for hosting and a domain, and for design changes as you learn from real users. The first month after launch usually shows what to fix, and fixing it early is cheap.
Every one of our projects includes 30 days of fixes after launch. After that, ongoing design work is quoted as a small fixed project or a monthly retainer, whichever fits how often your product changes.
