Baked Design StudioCompare / Hiring a full-time designer

Baked vs hiring a full-time designer

Most founders weigh this first: hire a designer, or work with a studio. A great in-house designer is worth a lot. Here is how the two compare, and when each one makes sense.

Side by side

BakedHiring a full-time designer

CostA 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.A salary plus benefits, equipment and tools, and the time it takes to recruit.

Time to startBook a 30-min intro call, join your private Slack channel and drop in your first request as soon as you're in.Sourcing, interviews, an offer and often a notice period before they start.

Range of workBrand, 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.One person's strengths. Brand, product, web, code and video rarely live in one hire.

SpeedMost requests are ready to review within a day. Basic gets 2-3 updates a week, Pro gets 3-4 updates a week.Depends on one person's time, alongside meetings and the rest of the team's asks.

Who does itSenior designers who have worked at Meta, Netflix, HubSpot and Expa, and been founding designers at 25+ startups.The person you hire, with their own level of experience.

CommitmentNo contracts. Pause or cancel any month.A long-term role. Quiet months still cost the same.

Baked vs hiring in-house in San Francisco: first-year cost

The three senior hires it takes to cover product, brand and marketing design, against one Baked plan. A rough guide, not a quote: change any number to your own.

Hiring in-house

Senior Product Designer$

Senior Brand Designer$

Senior Marketing Designer$

Benefits and taxes, % of salary%Recruiting per hire (agency fee, ads, time)$Laptop, software and tools per person a year$Months to hire, with no designer mo

Baked

BasicPro

YC company (10% off)Months of design you need this year mo

No contracts: pause or cancel any month, so you pay only for the months you use.

In-house$0

Baked$0

Starting salaries: Senior Product Designer, Built In, San Francisco median; Senior Brand Designer, Glassdoor, San Francisco average; Senior Marketing Designer, ZipRecruiter, San Francisco average. Benefits: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Benefits are 31.5% of total pay for full-time private-industry workers, June 2026. Recruiting, tools and hiring time start at zero: add your own.

When Baked makes more sense

You need brand, product, a site and launch work in the next few weeks, not after a hiring round.
Design needs come in bursts: launches, fundraising, a new product.
You want senior people across several skills without hiring several people.

When hiring a full-time designer makes more sense

Design is your product's edge every single day and you need someone in every product decision.
You have a design leader ready to manage and grow them.
You're building a design team for the long run. You can also do both: Baked now, a hire when you're ready.

Questions

Is a design subscription cheaper than hiring a designer?

Baked is a flat $8,999 a month for Basic, $12,000 for Pro, with no recruiting, benefits or tools to add. Whether that's cheaper depends on what a hire costs where you are, and how much design you need each month.

Can we work with Baked until we hire?

Yes. There are no contracts, so you can pause or cancel any month, and stop once your hire starts.

Who will we actually work with?

Senior designers who have worked at Meta, Netflix, HubSpot and Expa, and been founding designers at 25+ startups. Work runs in a private Slack channel with your team.

Who you'd work with

Nick, founder and creative director17+ years in product and marketing design, including Meta.
The teamSenior designers who have worked at Meta, Netflix, HubSpot and Expa, and been founding designers at 25+ startups.
Since 2023Three years in, Baked has grown from one person to a team of 10, worked with 150+ clients, all without a single cold email or DM.
ClientsWe work with 11 YC companies, 8 from the current S26 batch, including Inkbox, Stoa, tash, OpenTag, Belvedir, Spaceflow, Coach AI and Context Dev. Text.AI, Orchid and Menza are from W26.

See the work · About the studio

Next steps

See if it fits in a 30-min call, or start today on a plan.

Book a 30-min call See the plans Recent work

Also: Baked vs a design agency · Baked vs hiring freelancers