How I price a design sprint

For my first two years as an independent designer I charged by the day. It felt fair and it was easy to explain. It was also the reason half my projects ran late: every new idea was billable, so nobody had a reason to say no to it, including me.

Today most of my work starts as a two-week sprint at a fixed price. Here is how I set that price and why it works better for both sides.

Price the problem, not the hours

A sprint has one clearly written problem. Not a feature list, a problem: new users don’t understand the pricing page, or the onboarding loses half the people who start it. If the client and I can’t agree on one sentence, we don’t start.

Once the problem is clear, I estimate what solving it is worth to the business and what it will take me. The price sits between the two. It is never a day rate multiplied by ten, because the value of the work has nothing to do with how many hours I sit at a desk.

Write down what is out

The scope document has two lists. What the sprint includes is the short one. What it doesn’t include is longer, and it matters more. Development, copywriting, a full design system, a second round of research: all written down on day one.

When a new idea comes up mid-sprint, and it always does, we look at the list together. Either it replaces something inside the sprint or it becomes the first item of the next one. No awkward conversations, no surprise invoices.

Keep one question in every call

I end every check-in with the same question: is this still the most important problem? Usually the answer is yes. Twice it was no, and we changed direction a week in, which saved the client far more than the sprint cost.

Fixed prices only work when both sides can see the edges of the work. Make the edges visible and the price stops being a negotiation. My current plans are on the services page, with what each one includes.