Guide · 12 October 2026 · 8 min read
Free trial, paid pilot or money-back guarantee: how to test a design partner before you commit
The three ways design services let you try before you commit, what each one proves and what it cannot, the terms nine providers publish, a trial brief that tells you something, and a one-week evaluation checklist.
By Daniel Makhamreh, lead designer at Recast
The short answer: the format matters less than what you put through it. A free trial costs nothing and is usually too short to show a revision and a handoff. A money-back guarantee gives you the full service, on the condition that you pay first and read the refund terms. A paid pilot costs a little and has a defined scope and end. Whichever you are offered, put one real task from your own product through it and judge three things: the first concept, how a revision is handled, and the file you are left with. One week is enough.
The terms quoted below are from providers' own sites as we read them on 12 October 2026. They change, so open the link before you rely on one.
What are the three ways to test a design partner?
A free trial is a period of service at no charge, usually a few days, before billing starts.
A money-back guarantee is a refund of your first payment if you cancel inside a set window. You are a full customer from the first day, and the terms carry the risk.
A paid pilot is a small, fixed-price engagement with a defined scope and an end date, bought before a subscription or a contract.
There is a fourth case: no trial and no refund. That is a legitimate way to sell, and it means the first month is the test. Know which of the four you are in before you enter a card number, because each one changes what you should do in the first week.
What does a free trial prove?
A free trial proves that the provider responds, that the process and the tools work, and what a first concept looks like. It costs nothing, so it is the easiest to start.
Its limit is time. Kimp advertises a "7 Day Free Trial". Eleken offers a "3-day free trial" and describes it in steps: "Pick a small part of your existing product", then "Get 1-2 screens designed for you on trial period". Three days is long enough for a first concept. It is rarely long enough for a revision round and a finished handoff file, and those are the parts that decide product work.
Ask three things before you start one. Is a card required, and what is charged when the trial ends? Is the trial team the team you would work with afterwards? What is the commitment after it? Eleken's pricing page, for example, states: "The minimum contract we offer is 2 months."
What does a money-back guarantee prove?
A money-back guarantee lets you test the real service, at full speed, with the real team, for longer than most trials. Published windows run from a week to a month: Duck.Design states a "7-day money-back guarantee", Teamtown a "15-day money back guarantee", and Penji a "30-day money-back guarantee".
What it proves depends on the terms, so read them:
- Full or partial. Designjoy offers "Not loving it after a week? Get 75% back".
- Conditions. Duck.Design's FAQ words its guarantee as: "If, after several design requests, you still don't think Duck.design is the right fit for you, we will refund 100% of your initial membership fee."
- The clock. A window that opens on the payment date is shorter than it looks if onboarding takes a few days.
- The files. Ask who owns work delivered before a refund.
Read the terms page, not only the pricing page. ManyPixels' terms of service, effective 15 October 2026, state: "All subscription fees are non-refundable under any circumstances."
What does a paid pilot prove?
A paid pilot proves the whole loop on a defined piece of work: brief, first concept, revisions, finished file. Both sides have something at stake, the scope is agreed in advance, and there is an end date that forces a decision.
It has two weaknesses. It costs money. And it is only a fair test if the pilot is done by the same people, to the same standard, as the service you would buy afterwards. Ask that directly. Ask whether the fee is credited if you continue, and who owns the files if you do not.
Pilots exist at both ends of the market. Superside, whose subscriptions "start at a $15,000 monthly minimum on an annual term", describes an Exploratory Project as "a paid, scoped engagement that lets you experience Superside's work before committing to an ongoing subscription". Recast's pilot is $490 for one week and up to three active tasks.
Where the commitment is annual, a paid project is the only test available before you sign. Take it.
How do real providers' terms compare?
| Provider | Format | Terms as stated on their own site |
|---|---|---|
| Kimp | Free trial | "7 Day Free Trial" |
| Eleken | Free trial | "3-day free trial". "The minimum contract we offer is 2 months." |
| Penji | Money-back guarantee | "30-day money-back guarantee". "If Penji isn't the right fit, we'll refund your first month." |
| Teamtown | Money-back guarantee | "15-day money back guarantee" |
| Duck.Design | Money-back guarantee | "7-day money-back guarantee" |
| Designjoy | Partial refund | "Not loving it after a week? Get 75% back" |
| ManyPixels | No refund | "All subscription fees are non-refundable under any circumstances." |
| Superside | Paid project | "An Exploratory Project is a paid, scoped engagement". Subscriptions "start at a $15,000 monthly minimum on an annual term". |
| Recast | Paid pilot, plus a refund | $490 one-week pilot, up to three active tasks, credited against the first month if the plan starts within ninety days. 14-day full refund on the plan. |
The longest window is not automatically the best test. Thirty days with a vague brief tells you less than seven days with a sharp one.
What should you put in a trial brief?
Three tasks, chosen to test different things.
- One real screen from your backlog. A single screen with all its states, or a flow of two or three screens. Pick something you understand well, so you can tell a good answer from a good-looking one.
- One small fix. An hour or two of work. It shows how the queue handles something minor: does it come back the same day, or wait behind the larger task?
- One task with a gap in it. Leave out something a careful designer would need, such as what the screen shows when the list is empty. A good partner asks. A weak one guesses, and you find out in the build.
Give each task what a real one would get: access to the live product, the design system file, real data and the constraint that matters. How to brief a product designer has the five-part template.
Do not test with a logo, a homepage hero or "show us your style". Those test taste, and taste is visible in a portfolio for free.
What should you check, day by day?
A one-week evaluation that works in any of the formats.
| When | What to do | What you are checking |
|---|---|---|
| Before | Write the three briefs. Write down what a pass looks like. | That you judge against a standard you set before you saw the work. |
| Day 1 | File all three. Note the time. | Time to acknowledgement. Whether anyone asks about the gap. |
| Days 2 to 3 | Read the first concepts. | On time by the clock. Whether it solves the problem in the brief, with reasons, or decorates the screen. |
| Days 3 to 5 | Give one precise comment and one loose one. | How long a revision round takes. Whether the loose comment gets a question or a guess. |
| Days 5 to 6 | Open the finished file with an engineer for fifteen minutes. | States, components, tokens, a spec. What the engineer would still have to ask. |
| Day 7 | Decide. | Who you actually dealt with all week, and whether a year of weeks like this one would work. |
The day 5 check is the one most buyers skip. What a developer-ready file contains lists what the engineer should find.
Which format should you choose?
- The work is graphic and the stakes are low: a free trial is enough.
- The work is product design: you need to see a revision and a handoff, so choose a paid pilot or a guarantee of two weeks or more.
- The contract is annual: pay for a scoped project first.
- There is no trial and no refund: treat the first month as the pilot, and file your three tasks on the first day.
Then compare what each plan gets through in a month. What "unlimited" gets you has the arithmetic.
Where Recast fits
Recast does not offer a free trial. It offers a paid pilot and a refund window.
The pilot is $490, once: one week, up to three active tasks, delivered by the week's end by the same team to the same standard as the plan. The fee is credited against the first month if the plan starts within ninety days, and the files are yours either way. The plan is $3,900 a month, billed monthly, with a 14-day full refund. You can pause in any month and cancel in one click.
If you would rather talk first, the pilot call is free and takes 20 minutes.
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See it on your own product, in one week.
The $490 pilot is a test run of the plan: up to three active tasks from your product, worked by the same team to the same standard and delivered by the week's end. Credited against your first month if you continue.
$3,900 a month. 14-day full refund. Pause any month — unused days carry forward.