How much does UI/UX design cost? Prices, rates, and how to calculate your budget

At Ronas IT, UI/UX design for a new product, mobile or web, starts at $2,000 and takes at least 1 week: flows, a concept, a UI kit, and every screen. A redesign of a product you already have starts at $2,500. These are minimum prices: your quote grows with the number of screens and their complexity, not with the platform. Across the market, UX/UI projects reviewed on Clutch typically cost $10,000 to $49,999.

Clutch also reports that the average UX agency project reviewed on its platform costs $84,973, and that the typical UX project runs 10 months. It notes that its figures depend on the scale of the design project, on whether web design and development support are included, and on the scope of services. Read that average as a market signal, not as the price of design alone. The price of your own project depends on its user roles, platforms, and custom visuals.

UI/UX design prices by type of work

The price depends on what you design: a new product, a redesign of one you have, a marketing website, or brand work. The table shows where each starting price applies.

If you are updating a product rather than starting one, our guide on how to redesign a mobile app explains when a redesign is enough and when the code has to change too.

What UI/UX design includes

UI/UX design covers two jobs. UX design decides how the product works: who uses it, which steps each user takes, and what each screen must contain. UI design decides how it looks: colors, fonts, icons, spacing, and components. You pay for both in one project, because a screen cannot be drawn well before its flow is clear.

A full UI/UX project includes these parts, listed in the order we work through them:

• Design concept: a few key screens in the final style, so you approve the look before the team draws the rest.
• Product map: the user roles, the steps each role takes, and a map of all features with the data and controls each one needs, so the feature set is agreed before the screens are drawn.
• Full design: every screen and every state of it, such as empty, loading, and error.
• Design review: a written quality checklist first, then a second designer's review, before any part reaches you.
• Prototype: screens people can try before any code is written. A minimal level, where fixed elements and scrolling work, is always included; navigation and animations are added when a behavior is not obvious from static screens.
• UI kit and handoff: a set of reusable buttons, fields, icons, and colors, handed to developers with structured design files.

Quotes differ in which of these parts they cover, so check what a quote includes before you compare prices. In our design work, you comment at every stage and we revise it, and the handoff includes the design files and UI kit that developers build from. Branding and a logo are priced separately. Check research and usability testing with real users most closely: ask whether a quote includes them and how many people take part. Ours does not include testing with users: you run those sessions on your side.

Every handoff also includes a DESIGN.md file in your repository, so your developers' AI coding tools build new screens in the same style.

What drives UI/UX design cost

Design cost grows with the work it takes, so anything that adds screens, screen states, or late changes to the scope raises it. The factors below add the most work, and most of them are decisions you make before the design starts.

User roles

Each type of user needs its own flows and screens. On Hamperapp, a laundry and dry cleaning service from Florida, four types of users took part in the workflow: customers, drivers, managers, and administrators. We first studied what each role needed, then built user flows and wireframes for each of them. Each extra role adds a set of flows, its own permissions, and more screens to review and test.

Platforms

iOS and Android have their own design rules: Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and Google's Material Design. A cross-platform app can use one design set with small changes for each platform, which can cost less than two separate native designs. A web product needs layouts for desktop, tablet, and mobile screens, and a staff dashboard is one more product with its own screens.

Feature complexity

A screen is not one drawing. A list needs an empty state, a loading state, and an error state; a form needs a message for every wrong input; a chart needs a view for when there is no data yet. Animations and gestures also have to be designed and shown in a prototype. A profile screen and a checkout with several payment options each count as one screen, but they take very different amounts of work.

Custom visuals and branding

Standard icons and a ready-made font cost less than custom ones. Custom illustrations, animation, and a new brand add work. Hamperapp came to us with a logo and brand colors. We added a shade of green to the palette, improved the logo, chose a clear typeface, and drew a set of custom characters for the interface.

Research and testing

Usability tests with real users are run on your side and are not part of our design price. They are worth the time: they find problems while fixing a flow still means editing a mockup rather than code. In a Nielsen Norman Group article from 2000, Jakob Nielsen wrote that the best results come from testing with no more than five users and running as many small tests as you can afford. He added that products with very different groups of users need people from each group, so a product whose roles use it in different ways needs more test sessions.

Feedback and decisions

Comments inside the agreed scope are included in the price. By default, that price covers three rounds of concept revisions; the number is flexible and agreed with each client, which is why our design prices start from a minimum. Late changes to screens you have already accepted widen the scope and are re-estimated at the agreed checkpoint. When the person who gives feedback is not the person who decides, screens accepted by one can come back for another round once the other sees them. We ask both of them to accept the key screens, so finished work is not reopened.

“A comment on the style is cheap while only the first screens exist. The same comment after every screen is drawn means going back over the whole set, so we ask for the big decisions early.”

Alexander Kontsevoy, Art Director at Ronas IT

UI/UX design rates by country

Most UX agencies on Clutch charge $25 to $49 per hour, and rates are generally higher where the cost of living is higher. The table shows the average hourly rates that Clutch's 2026 guide lists for UX/UI design companies in ten countries.

We do not sell design by the hour: the design of a new product starts from $2,000 as one project price that grows with its screens. A rate alone does not give you the total, so compare quotes by the flows, screens, and stages each team plans for the same product. If the scope matches, the rate explains the gap in price. If it differs a lot, ask which flows or stages one of the teams left out.

Freelancer, agency, or in-house designer?

The right choice depends on the size of the job and how long you need design. A freelancer fits a small, well-defined job, such as a few screens in a style you already have. An agency fits a new product that needs research, several platforms, and a handoff to developers, because the work is split between several people. An in-house designer fits a product that already has a team and needs design every week.

If the same company will build the product, ask how its designers and developers work together. A design that is hard to build turns into extra development work later, so developers should see the screens before the design is final.

How design teams charge

You will see four pricing models in UI/UX design quotes. Pick the one that matches how clear your requirements are and whether you will need design after launch. We give a per-project quote built from the screens and flows your scope needs.

• Hourly: you pay for the hours spent. It fits scoped work and requirements that are still changing.
• Fixed price per project: a set scope for a set price. It fits a new product with clear requirements.
• Per screen: easy to compare, but a weak measure, because one screen can hide many states and a complex flow.
• Monthly retainer: a set amount of design time each month, for a product that keeps changing after launch.

How to calculate your UI/UX design budget

Build the budget from the parts of your product rather than from one number. List the apps and dashboards you need: they go into one design estimate, priced by their screens. Add brand work if you do not have a brand yet.

Take a product with a customer mobile app, a web dashboard for staff, and no brand. The design of both, from flows to every screen and a UI kit, starts at $2,000; the dashboard adds screens to that estimate rather than opening a second project. A brand book starts at $3,000, already includes the logo, and is priced on top of the design. A project manager is your point of contact, and their work is already part of these prices.

To turn that starting point into an estimate for your product:

1. List the user roles and what each of them must be able to do.
2. Split each role's work into flows and write short user stories, such as “I can book an event” or “I can recover a forgotten password”.
3. Ask for an estimate per flow and check which screens and states each flow includes.

If your requirements are still rough, an analysis phase ($1,000–$2,000, at least one week, optional) produces this breakdown: user stories, flow maps, and a scope document with budget and timeline estimates.

“When a client comes with a fixed budget, we treat it as part of the brief. We agree which flows go into the first version and which wait, instead of cutting hours from every screen.”

Roman Surikov, CEO at Ronas IT

A deadline works the same way as a budget. A founder of a data analytics SaaS company in Australia, who hired us to design a clickable Figma prototype of their app, wrote in a review on Clutch:

“I had a specific deadline I needed to adhere to and we discussed early on how big the scope could be to ensure delivery within that timeline.”

Founder, a data analytics SaaS company

How to lower UI/UX design cost

Since the cost grows with the scope, you lower it by taking screens and rounds of changes out of the scope. These steps cut work before the design starts and while it is in progress:

• Design the first version only: the roles and flows it cannot launch without.
• Use one design set for iOS and Android: this works when a cross-platform app fits your product.
• Keep custom visuals for later: start from a UI kit and your current brand, and add illustrations and animation once the flows work.
• Test the prototype early: a few sessions you run with real users on an interactive prototype can cost less than changing a flow after it is built.
• Name who decides: comments that come from the decision-maker on agreed days save rounds of review.

A design system you already have can lower the price, but that is the exception rather than the rule. We assess it first, and it usually needs changes during the work, because a design system drawn before the real screens misses cases that those screens bring up.

What to do next

1. Write down the user roles and the platforms you need: iOS, Android, web, and a dashboard for staff.
2. Start from the design price for the whole product, then add a brand book, which includes the logo, if you need one, as in the example above.
3. When you compare quotes, compare the flows, screens, and stages each one includes: research, testing, revisions, UI kit, and handoff.
4. Ask for an estimate once you have the list of roles, or start with an analysis phase if the requirements are still rough.

A design budget is set by the roles, platforms, and visuals you choose. Choosing them before you ask for quotes gives you a price you can compare.

Planning a new app or web product? Send us the user roles and platforms, and we will estimate the design.

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