# Baked vs hiring freelancers

> How Baked compares with hiring freelance designers and developers: reliability, range, speed and managing the work.

Freelancers are flexible, and a great one is gold. The hard part is finding them, keeping them, and joining up the work of several people. Here is how it compares.

## Cost
- Baked: A flat monthly plan: $8,999 a month for Basic, $12,000 for Pro. YC companies get 10% off ($8,099 or $10,800), and referrals take off another 10% each.
- Freelancers: Hourly or per project. It varies a lot with who you find and how much changes.

## Finding people
- Baked: One team. Book a call and send your first request as soon as you're in.
- Freelancers: Searching, vetting portfolios and trial projects, for each skill you need.

## Range of work
- Baked: Brand, product design (web and mobile), marketing sites, full-stack web apps, launch videos and pitch decks, in Framer or code. Full-stack dev is part of Pro.
- Freelancers: Usually one specialty each, so brand, product, web and code mean several people.

## Reliability
- Baked: A studio team rather than one person.
- Freelancers: Depends on one person's other clients, holidays and availability.

## Joining it up
- Baked: One team keeps brand, product and site consistent.
- Freelancers: You manage the handoffs and keep everyone's work consistent.

## Commitment
- Baked: No contracts. Pause or cancel any month.
- Freelancers: Flexible, though good freelancers get booked up.

## When Baked makes more sense
- You need several skills, brand, product, web, code and video, to work as one.
- You don't have time to find, brief and manage several people.
- You want work to keep moving every week, without gaps.

## When freelancers makes more sense
- You need one small, clearly defined piece of work.
- You already have a freelancer you trust who knows your product.
- Your budget is for a one-off task rather than ongoing work.

## Questions
### Is Baked more expensive than freelancers?
Baked is a flat $8,999 a month for Basic, $12,000 for Pro. For a single small task, a freelancer is often cheaper. For ongoing work across several skills, one plan replaces several people and the time spent managing them.

### Can Baked work alongside our freelancers or team?
Yes. Work runs in a private Slack channel, and anyone on your side can join it.

### How fast is it?
Most requests are ready to review within a day. Basic gets 2–3 updates a week, Pro gets 3–4 updates a week.

## Next steps
- Book a 30-min intro call: https://cal.com/baked/30min
- Plans: https://baked.design/#pricing
- Recent work: https://baked.design/work/
- Other comparisons: https://baked.design/compare/