What investor-ready design actually costs.
Raise Studio packages a senior design lead, strategists, and a multi-disciplinary design team from $5,500/month, shipping in week one. Hiring it in-house: $35K+/month and 90 days to recruit.
Here's the math, side by side.
What building this team in-house costs, role by role versus what Raise Studio packages into one subscription.
From $5.5K /month
Shipping in week one. Cancel anytime. 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Your single point of contact. Knows your business, market, Series A timeline. Reviews everything before delivery. Doesn't rotate.
- Product UI/UX, web, brand, motion, illustration. The right specialist for each project, coordinated by your design lead.
- Positioning, brand audits, design system creation, GTM strategy, pitch optimization. Bundled into the subscription, not separately metered.
- Days 1–2: align on priorities. Day 3: first project kicks off. Day 5: you'll review real deliverables.
- Pause anytime at $0/month. Resume anytime. Cancel anytime. No penalties, no contracts.
Hiring it in-house
$35K+ /month
90 days to ramp. Salary commitment. Management overhead.
- Senior design lead$14–20K/mo
- 2 senior specialists$20–30K/mo
- Outsourced consultants hired per project for positioning, brand strategy, and creative direction. Each engagement is scoped separately, contracted separately, and onboarded separately.$5–50K/project
- Posting roles, sifting resumes, screening calls, interview loops, negotiating offers, ramp time before they ship anything.60–90 days
- Salary, benefits, equipment, taxes, severance if you part ways, equity dilution, opportunity cost of a bad hire.Hard to reverse
Same capability, minus the recruiting, hiring, and managing.
Choose the number of active projects that match your Series A timeline.
Our partnership is structured, but flexible, designed to support evolving needs without constant resets.
$5.5K / month
Best for starting out, or one focused priority.
At least $29.5K a month less than hiring in-house.
Included with every plan:
- Your single point of contact. Knows your business. Sends daily async updates. Runs monthly reviews. Checks every deliverable before it ships.
- Product UI/UX designers, web designers, brand specialists, illustrators, motion designers. The right specialist for each project.
- Positioning sprints, brand audits, design system creation, GTM design strategy, pitch optimization. Bundled in, not upsold.
- We integrate into your existing workspace. Shared Figma files, dedicated Slack channel, project management in your tool. You don't learn ours.
- Daily progress visible in shared spaces. 24–48 hour feedback loops. Minimum 4 hours of timezone overlap with your team.
- Pause for a month at $0. Resume anytime. Cancel anytime. No long-term lock-in.
Simple. Transparent. Scalable.
From signup to shipping in one week
- Align on priorities.
- First project kicks off.
- You review real deliverables.
Align
- You brief us on your business, customers, positioning, and Series A timeline.
- Based on what we learn, we propose a capacity level (1, 2, or 3 active projects).
- We get context.
- You make the final call.
Embed
- We integrate into your world.
- Shared Figma. Slack channels. Project management.
- Your tools, not ours.
- Design team introduced. Everything wired.
Prioritize
- Everything you need becomes visible in one shared backlog.
- Strategic work. Tactical work. Everything.
- Together, we prioritize what matters most for Series A.
- Nothing gets lost.
Ship
- We ship your top priorities.
- 24–48 hour feedback loops.
- Weekly reviews let you adjust, learn, and reprioritize based on what moves the needle for Series A.
- Real-time progress in shared spaces.
Every design capability you need to raise Series A
Strategy, in every plan
- What makes your company different in one sentence and why investors should care. The most-leveraged piece of design strategy work.
- Brand voice, visual identity direction, narrative architecture across every touchpoint. The framework everything else is built on.
- Visual standards and creative judgment across pitch, web, product, marketing, applied consistently so nothing drifts.
- Information architecture and user journey design at the product level. How users actually move through what you've built.
- Strategy first, deck second. We pressure-test your raise story (what to emphasize, what to cut, what order to tell it in), then design the deck around it. The slides are just how the strategy shows up.
- Timelines, backlog and weekly reviews, run by your design lead so nothing slips.
Product & experience design
- Product UX/UI design
- Design systems
- MVP prototyping & testing
- Onboarding flows & micro-interactions
Web design
- Website design and build (Webflow, Framer)
- Launch design and rollout support
- Iteration, optimization, and refinement
Marketing & sales design
- Visual identity design
- Email, social media & campaign assets
- Demo & explainer videos
- Sales decks & customer collateral
How founders spend their active projects.
An active project is a single, discrete stream of work with a clear scope and timeline. Some examples:
Quick wins
- Core product screen redesign
- Feature launch landing page
- 60-second product demo video
- 12 launch ad variants
Tactical projects
- Messaging pillars
- Brand consistency audit
- Pitch deck narrative
- Campaign visual direction
Strategic projects
- Full website rebuild
- Product UI overhaul
- Design system foundations
- MVP for a new product line
Why founders choose Raise Studio?
| In-house | Freelancers | Big agencies | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | $5.5–12.5K/mo | $35K+/mo | $15–150/hr each | $5–50K/project |
| Skillset coverage | All you need | Limited | One per person | Full, premium |
| Strategic thinking | Included | Depends on hires | Tactical only | Premium-priced |
| Management overhead | Low | High | High | Medium |
| Built for Series A | Purpose-built | Depends on hires | Varies | Enterprise-first |
| First delivery | Week one | 60–90 days | Inconsistent | One month |
| Commitment | None | High | None | Long contracts |
| If it's not working | Full refund | Sunk cost | Pay regardless | Pay regardless |
Results or refund
30-day money-back guarantee
Month one doesn't move the needle for your Series A?
We refund. Full stop.
You keep everything. No questions. No hard feelings.
Founders who move fast, raise fast.
Your Series A window is short. Every month without investor-ready artifacts is momentum lost.
30-day money-back guarantee. No contracts. No surprises.
Frequently asked questions
To raise your Series A, you need multiple design disciplines working together. Product designer, brand strategist, web designer, visual designer, motion designer, plus someone ensuring they all work on a shared vision. Hire it in-house: $35K+/month and 90 days to recruit. Hire freelancers: chaos. Hire an agency: slow and expensive. Raise Studio packages the same capability stack from $5,500/month, shipping in week one. One dedicated lead. Multi-disciplinary team. Strategy work included.
Freelancers are transactional. You manage multiple people, chase quality inconsistently, and restart onboarding every time. Raise Studio is a partnership. One design lead who knows your business, your market, your Series A timeline. They run a multi-disciplinary team behind them. One point of contact. Consistent quality. Brand coherence month after month.
Agencies are built for big budgets and long timelines. Slow onboarding. Big project fees. “Creative process” delays you can't afford. Raise Studio is built for founder reality. Month-to-month. From $5,500/month, shipping in week one. Together, we prioritize what moves the needle for Series A and ship.
You don't need to have it figured out. That's what week one is for. You brief us on your Series A timeline and the most urgent gaps. We audit your current state, identify what's missing, and sequence the work. By end of week one, you have a prioritized backlog and a first deliverable shipped. You know what to ship next, in what order, and why.
Immediately. Days 1–2: We get context. You brief us. We propose a capacity. You make the call. Day 3: First project kicks off. Week one: First deliverable shipped. We move fast because your Series A clock doesn't pause. We're intentional about scope because fast doesn't mean sloppy.
Depends on the project. Product UI project: high-fidelity Figma files, design specs, component documentation. Brand strategy project: visual identity system, messaging architecture, brand guidelines. Website project: a live, deployed site (Webflow or Framer) or new pages on your existing one. Everything ships in shared spaces with real-time visibility. Your design lead writes up the strategic context behind every decision. No surprises. No “that's not what I needed” moments.
Revision is part of the process. We refine until the work is right: 24–48 hour feedback loops, daily progress, your design lead managing quality. If month one doesn't move the needle for your Series A, we're not the right fit. Full refund. No questions. No hard feelings. The model is built around founder reality, not vendor ego.
Async-first. Daily updates from your design lead. Progress visible in shared spaces. 24–48 hour feedback loops. One monthly review call. Everything else is documented, visible, asynchronous. Built for founder speed. Built for founder sanity.
Positioning refinement. Brand strategy. Creative direction. UX strategy. Investor narrative and pitch deck. This isn't an upsell. It's the foundation. Strategy work is included at every tier. The only constraint is your active project count. Most design partners start with “what should we design?” We start with “what are you trying to achieve?” That's how every design decision compounds toward Series A.
Yes. That's what active projects means. Pick 2 active projects, and we run product UI and brand strategy in parallel. Pick 3, and add web. Your design lead coordinates everything so it stays aligned. One lead. Multiple specialists. One coherent story.
Your design lead owns it. They manage the team. They review every deliverable before it ships. They keep your story consistent across product, web, marketing, and pitch. They're also your strategic thinking partner, the one you call when you're unsure about positioning or narrative. That's how you get the coherence investors expect.
Talk to your design lead. Pause, upgrade, downgrade, or cancel, anytime. No contracts. No penalties. Capacity changes apply next billing cycle. This month's work continues as planned. You don't need to predict the future. You adjust as your Series A reality changes.
Raise Studio is built for founders raising Series A, when design intensity peaks and positioning clarity matters most. Pre-seed? Start with 1 active project. Lean into positioning and pitch deck work to prepare for Series A conversations. Already raised Series A and targeting Series B? We scale to help you execute the product and market positioning you pitched. The model stays the same: dedicated design lead, multi-disciplinary team, strategy work included. Optimized for the Series A journey. Built to scale with you.