For founders · Start with a $490 pilot
No designer yet, and a demo next month.
Recast gives a startup a product design team without a hire: $3,900 a month, billed monthly, for unlimited tasks with five worked at once and first concepts in 48 hours. Founders who are not ready for that start with the $490 pilot, one week and up to three tasks, credited against the first month if the plan starts within ninety days. You own every file on delivery, and you can pause or cancel in any month.
Checked · by Daniel Makhamreh, lead designer at Recast
- Start
- $490 pilot: one week, up to three tasks, delivered by the week's end.
- Then
- $3,900 a month, billed monthly. No annual contract.
- Credit
- The pilot fee comes off month one if the plan starts within ninety days.
- Speed
- First concepts in 48 hours, seven days a week.
- Ownership
- Every file is yours on delivery.
- Quiet month
- Pause any month and the unused days are banked. Cancel in one click.
- Refund
- 14-day full refund.
Where to start
What should a startup design first?
The one flow that proves the product: the path from opening it to the moment it is useful. Not the settings, not the marketing site, not a design system.
What comes next depends on the stage. The table is the order we would suggest, and what can wait at each point.
| What is compared | Design first | Leave for later |
|---|---|---|
| Before funding | The core flow, end to end, as a clickable prototype with realistic content | Settings, account pages and the edge cases a demo never reaches |
| Building the MVP | Sign-up, the core flow with its empty, loading and error states, and a small set of reusable components | A full design system, a second platform, dark mode |
| First users | Onboarding, and the screens where people stop | Redesigning what already works |
| After a round | The design system, so every new engineer builds the same button | A new visual identity, unless the name is changing |
Before funding
- Design first
- The core flow, end to end, as a clickable prototype with realistic content
- Leave for later
- Settings, account pages and the edge cases a demo never reaches
Building the MVP
- Design first
- Sign-up, the core flow with its empty, loading and error states, and a small set of reusable components
- Leave for later
- A full design system, a second platform, dark mode
First users
- Design first
- Onboarding, and the screens where people stop
- Leave for later
- Redesigning what already works
After a round
- Design first
- The design system, so every new engineer builds the same button
- Leave for later
- A new visual identity, unless the name is changing
The low-risk start
How does the $490 pilot work for a founder?
It is one week of the plan for a fixed $490. You file up to three tasks, they are worked at the same time, and they are delivered by the end of the week. The files are yours whether or not you continue, and if you start the plan within ninety days the $490 comes off the first month.
It begins with a free 20-minute pilot call with the lead designer, in English or Arabic, to choose the three tasks. These are sensible ones for a founder.
The core flow
The handful of screens that show the product doing its job, in developer-ready Figma.
The demo prototype
The same flow linked up, so it runs on a phone or a laptop without a developer.
The first screen
A landing page or a sign-up screen, so the link you send has somewhere to go.
The demo
What does an investor demo need from design?
One story, shown working. A demo is judged on whether the product is understood in the first minute, and that is a design problem before it is an engineering one.
A prototype is enough for this. It does not need a back end; it needs to be specific.
One path
Pick the single user and the single job. Every screen in the demo is on that path, and nothing else is clickable.
Real content
Names, numbers and dates that could be true, in your market's language and currency. Placeholder text makes a product look imagined.
The states that look built
A loading moment, a filled dashboard and one empty state do more than ten extra screens.
The screen after
End on what the user has gained: the report, the booking, the order confirmed.
The terms
What if the runway gets short or the plan changes?
Then you pause or stop, and keep everything. The plan is billed monthly with no annual contract, which suits a company whose next quarter is not certain.
Each of these is a term of the plan, not a favour to ask for. For a founder, that makes design a cost that can follow the runway month by month.
Pause
Pause in any month. The unused days are banked and carry forward to the day you resume.
Cancel
One click. There is no annual contract to see out.
Refund
A full refund within 14 days if it is not working.
Ownership
Every file is yours on delivery, whether you stay a month or a year.
A change of direction
A pivot is a reordered queue. Tasks are unlimited, so nothing is used up by changing your mind.
The honest answer
When does hiring a designer become the better choice?
When there is a full-time job for one person and you can afford to wait for them. The comparison on our pricing page puts a senior product designer at $9,000 to $14,000 a month fully loaded and eight to twelve weeks to hire; those are typical 2026 ranges, not quotes.
Until then the plan covers the gap with no annual contract, and the design system it leaves behind is what your first designer starts from.
Design is the product
A consumer product that competes on feel needs a designer who is a founder, or close to one.
Daily work for a year
If the queue never empties and the decisions need someone who was in every meeting, that is a hire.
Research in person
Sitting with your customers every week is an employee's job.
Questions
Asked before the call.
We have no Figma file and no design system. Where do you start?
- With the core flow. The first screens come with a small set of components and tokens, and the plan includes building that into a design system and maintaining it as the product grows.
Can the pilot produce an investor demo?
- Yes. Three tasks are enough for the core flow, a clickable prototype of it and a first screen, delivered by the end of the week. What it shows investors is up to the product.
Is $3,900 a month too much before funding?
- Often, yes. If there is one flow to design, the $490 pilot is the right size. The plan fits when there are weeks of screens queued and developers waiting on them, and it can be paused in any month.
Can you build our MVP as well as design it?
- The front end, yes. The plan includes front-end build hours in React, Next.js, Webflow or Framer. The included hours do not cover a back end or a native mobile app; for those, your developers get Figma with components, tokens and spec frames.
Do we own the designs if we stop after one month?
- Yes. You own everything on delivery, and that includes what is delivered in the one-week pilot.
What if our priorities change in the middle of a month?
- Reorder the queue. Tasks are unlimited and five are worked at once, so a new priority takes the next free slot and nothing is forfeited.
We have never briefed a designer. What do you need from us?
- A sentence on who the user is, what they are trying to do and what exists today, plus anything already drawn or built. The 20-minute pilot call with the lead designer turns that into tasks.
Twenty minutes. Your product on the screen.
The pilot call is with the lead designer who would run your work. Show the screens that bother you most, pick up to 3 tasks for a one-week pilot, and leave knowing the price and the scope. The call is free; the pilot is $490 once, credited against your first month.