Design subscription or an in-house designer?
Hire when you have full-time design work for years, someone to lead it and time to recruit. Pick a subscription when work comes in waves, you need web, brand and motion from one place, or you need to start this month. In Czechia, a web designer with five years' experience costs about 123 000 Kč (€5,050) a month with contributions. Our subscription starts at €3,900.
What's the difference?
An in-house designer is an employee. They sit in your team every day, learn your product in depth and stay with it. You pay a salary and contributions every month, busy or quiet, plus a laptop and software. You also manage them: briefs, reviews, growth, and a new search when they leave.
A design subscription is a monthly fee to an outside team. You put requests on a shared board in priority order, and the team works through them one at a time. You don't manage people. You manage a queue. When work is quiet, you pause. When you no longer need it, you stop.
So the real question isn't which one is cheaper. It's whether you have steady, full-time work for one person, or changing work that needs several skills.
What does each option cost a month?
Here are the options side by side, from published salary data and price lists.
| Option | Czechia | Slovakia | Not in the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-house web designer, 5+ years | About 123 000 Kč (€5,050): 91 899 Kč gross (Platy.cz) plus 33.8% employer contributions | About €3,140: €2,303 gross (Platy.sk) plus 36.2% employer contributions | Laptop, software, recruiting, cover for holidays and sick days |
| Freelancer, 80 hours a month | 48 000 to 120 000 Kč, at 600 to 1,500 Kč an hour (anfilov.cz, April 2026) | €1,600 to €4,000, at €20 to €50 an hour (goldcat.sk, 2026) | Their availability, usually one skill set |
| Agency, 80 hours a month | 96 000 to 200 000 Kč, at 1,200 to 2,500 Kč an hour (anfilov.cz, April 2026) | €2,400 to €5,600 at a smaller agency, at €30 to €70 an hour (goldcat.sk, 2026) | A proposal and change requests for each job |
| Design subscriptions on the market | Median entry price $899 a month across 15 services, says ManyPixels, which sells one itself (ManyPixels, October 2026). Designjoy is $4,995 a month (Designjoy, October 2026) | Same | Ask who does the work, and whether the build is included |
| Farover subscription | €3,900 a month for design · €6,900 with the build in Webflow, Astro or Framer | Same | Back-end development, copywriting from scratch, photo and video shoots, ad management |
Employer contributions in 2026: 24.8% social security and 9% health insurance in Czechia. In Slovakia, 24.4% social security, 0.8% accident insurance and 11% health insurance (PwC, Czechia, PwC, Slovakia). The 80 hours are our assumption for half-time help.
Read the in-house row as a floor. It's one national figure for web designers, before equipment and hiring costs. And a salary is paid in quiet months too.
One honest note: in Slovakia, on salary alone, a full-time hire costs less than our Design plan. If you have full-time work for one skill set, that's a fair reason to hire.
When is hiring the better choice?
We'd hire when most of these are true:
- Design is the product, every day. A product team that ships interface changes every sprint needs a designer in its planning, research and reviews.
- The work is full-time for years. Not a launch, a rebrand or one busy quarter.
- Someone can lead them. A designer needs briefs, feedback and a person who decides. Without that, a hire works alone.
- One skill set covers it. If you need product UI and nothing else, one good product designer is the straight answer.
- The numbers favour it. In Slovakia they often do, as the table shows.
Plan for the wait. Once you find the right person, they serve their notice at their current job: at least two months in Czechia (zákoník práce § 51), and in Slovakia at least two months once they've been in the job for a year (Zákonník práce § 62). Then comes a probation period of up to 4 months in Czechia (§ 35) and up to 3 months in Slovakia (§ 45).
When does a subscription make more sense?
- Work comes in waves. A launch, a campaign, a new pricing page, then a quiet month. You pause instead of paying for idle weeks.
- You need range. Web pages, brand assets, a deck and a hero animation in the same quarter. With us, Peter covers UX, web and motion, and Tibor covers brand and visual design.
- You need to start now. With us, it's about a week from the first call to the first delivery. You add your first requests on day 3.
- You'd rather not manage design. You set the order on the board. We post updates every 1 to 2 working days, and nothing ships without your OK.
- You want a way out. One month's notice, no annual contract, no exit fee.
That's how BetterBrain works with us. It started more than three years ago as a quick Webflow fix on their mobile site, and grew into their website, their brand and their digital product.
What can you get done in a month?
On a subscription, one request is active at a time. These are typical turnarounds per request:
| Request | Typical turnaround |
|---|---|
| A new section on your website | 1 to 2 days |
| A landing page for a campaign | 3 to 5 days |
| An ad or social set in 5 sizes | 1 to 2 days |
| A sales or investor deck | 3 to 5 days |
| Product UI screens or a new flow | 2 to 5 days |
| A hero animation or a motion pass | 3 to 7 days |
| A homepage redesign | 1 to 2 weeks, in steps |
Why two people can keep up: AI does the legwork. First passes on layouts and components, code for the build, ad sizes, translations, checks on speed and accessibility. We make every design decision and review everything before you see it. Every message gets an answer from Peter or Tibor, not a bot.
A full website or a new identity is a different job. It's better as a project with a fixed price, and we'll tell you so.
Can you combine the two?
Yes, and often that's the best answer.
- A subscription while you hire. Keep work moving during the search and the notice period, then pause or stop with a month's notice.
- Your product designer, plus us for the rest. Your hire owns the product. We take the marketing site, brand assets, decks and motion.
- Your developers, plus our design. On the Design plan we hand over Figma files and work with your developers in Slack. On Design + Build we ship it ourselves.
What we'd do
If design is your product and you have full-time work for years, hire, and give the hire someone to lead them. If your work comes in waves, spans web, brand and motion, or needs to start this month, try a subscription for one month and judge it on what ships. If you need one website and then quiet, a fixed-price project is cheaper than either.
Our design subscription is €3,900 a month for design and €6,900 with the build. We take 3 clients at a time. For a one-off site, see pricing or try the calculator.