Design retainers, without the hours.
Design, web and development from one senior studio, for a flat monthly fee. Send us as many jobs as you like. Your plan sets how many we work on at the same time, and we call each one a stream.
How a stream works
Your retainer runs on a shared board that you can see, brief into and comment on. There are no timesheets and no status meetings.
1. You fill the queue.
Brief as many jobs as you like, in the order you want them. Nothing expires, and you can reorder the queue whenever priorities change.
2. Each stream takes one job.
We work from the top of your queue, one job per stream. Most rounds come back in 2 to 3 working days. We work Monday to Friday from Plettenberg Bay on SAST (UTC+2): UK and European hours, with afternoon overlap for the US.
3. Waiting frees the stream.
When a job is with you for feedback, or at the printer, its stream moves on to your next job. When your feedback arrives, that job goes back to the front.
Queue ∞
Event landing pagenext up
Newsletter templatequeued
Event badge setqueued
Unlimited. Reorder it whenever you like.
In progress 2 / 2
Q3 report layoutdesign round · day 2
New pack artworkamends · front of queue
Your two streams. Never more jobs here than you have streams, and never empty while your queue has work.
With you 2
Brochure v2your review
Shop product pagesyour review
Does not use a stream. Send feedback and it goes to the front.
At the printer 1
275g pouchproof approved
We check every printer proof before it runs.
Done 14
Shipped this monthsource files, yours
Everything we make is yours, source files included.
Eight open jobs, two streams in use. Work that is with you or at the printer frees its stream, so you can always have more jobs open than streams.
Design and development, under one roof
A stream is not limited to one kind of work. The same plan covers your brand, print, social and website, so you are not hiring a designer, a developer and a freelancer and then refereeing between them.
Each job goes to the person with the right skill: production artwork to a production artist, a campaign to a designer, a build to a developer. One traffic manager assigns the work, creative direction comes from our founder, and the person doing the job reads your brief directly.
What counts as one job
Brand and print
A new pack from your existing system
Print-ready artwork from a dieline
A brochure or one-pager
A report or pitch deck laid out
Event collateral
Social and digital
A social campaign's assets
A homepage banner suite
An email template, designed and built
Web and development
A landing page, designed and built
New pages or sections for your site
Changes to your WordPress, WooCommerce or Shopify site
Each of these is one job. Bigger pieces, like a new packaging concept or a larger site feature, still run inside your plan; they get a stated date up front.
Pick your number of streams
Every plan gets the same studio, the same senior standard and the same board. The only question is how many jobs you need in progress at once. Start where this month's workload sits, and change plan at any billing cycle.
One Stream
$2,950or £2,350 / month
One job in progress at a time. For a steady flow of work.
- Roughly 8 to 10 jobs a month
Where most clients land
Two Streams
$4,950or £3,950 / month
Two jobs in progress at a time. A production job and a creative job can run side by side, so neither waits for the other.
- Roughly 15 to 20 jobs a month
- Monthly planning call
- Your calendar managed with you
Three Streams
$6,950or £5,550 / month
Three jobs in progress at a time. For range launches and rebrand rollouts, when everything runs at once.
- Roughly 22 to 30 jobs a month
- Everything in Two Streams
- Same-week turnaround on launch-critical artwork
- Quarterly range-planning session
Full Studio
from $7,950or £6,450 / month
Your streams, plus we run your channels.
- Streams scaled to the work, agreed on the call
- Campaigns designed and run
- Social media and paid ads managed; ad spend is always yours and passes straight through
- Quarterly strategy session and monthly reporting
Job counts are honest ranges, because jobs vary in size. Quick feedback puts you at the top of the range.
Every plan includes
Unlimited jobs in your queue, for as many brands as you like
Design, web and development from one studio
Creative direction from our founder, and senior eyes on every piece
Unlimited revisions on the job in progress
Urgent work and feedback go to the front of your queue
A shared board you can see, brief and reorder at any time
Production-accurate artwork, from dielines to printer proofs
Everything we make is yours, source files included
The terms. A two-month first term, then month to month. Pause in whole billing cycles, change plan at any cycle, and cancel with one cycle's notice. Full Studio has a sixty-day handover window instead. Prices exclude VAT and are zero-rated outside South Africa. We invoice in dollars or pounds.
Compare it to a hire, not an agency
Most brands weighing this up are choosing between us and a full-time designer. Here is that comparison, played straight, next to the hourly retainer.
One senior hire
$75,000+ a year
£60,000 or more in the UK once employment costs land, for 46 working weeks and one skill set. Packaging, production artwork, web development and creative direction are four different skills. Very few people carry all four, which is why studios exist.
An hourly retainer
Billed by the hour
Every brief becomes a negotiation and every invoice a surprise. The supplier earns more by being slow, and you spend your energy managing the relationship instead of the brand.
A one2love retainer
$2,950 to $6,950 a month
Design, web and development for one flat fee. Started in days, paused when you need a break, stepped up for a launch and back down after. No employment contract does that.
Retainers are most of what we do
More retainer workThis is not a new idea we are trying on. Retained work is most of our income, and it has run this way for years.
Aduna
Superfood brand, UK. Packaging retainer since 2018: pouches, tubes, capsules, retail refreshes and the web assets between, across a range that keeps growing.
Climate Fund Managers
Investment manager, The Hague. A monthly retainer for reports, valuations and investor communications, where production accuracy is not optional.
iSAMS
School management software, UK. An ongoing retainer for web, marketing and campaign work: website pages, social assets, guides, brochures and event stands shipped worldwide.
World Travel Awards
Global events brand, UK. Event identities and collateral delivered on immovable dates, year after year.
Asked and answered
Do unused hours roll over?
There are no hours, so there is nothing to lose. Your queue keeps its place, and if a quiet month is coming you can pause a cycle or step down a plan. Take December off; the board will wait.
What if something is urgent?
Tell us, and it goes to the front of your queue on any plan. Three Streams adds a same-week turnaround for launch-critical artwork, which is what that plan is for. What we will not do is quietly bump another client to serve you, because that is what would be happening to you otherwise.
Will we have one dedicated designer?
No, on purpose. A retainer that depends on one person’s diary is a retainer that stalls. You get continuity instead: the same studio, the same brand files and the same senior standard, month after month, with each job matched to the right skill.
What sits outside the retainer?
Full rebrands, new websites built from scratch, photography, 3D rendering, media spend and print buying. We quote those as projects with their own timelines. We check printer proofs inside the retainer, but we do not buy the print run. Hosting and website care sit in our Care plans.
Can we change plan?
At any billing cycle. Step up for a launch quarter and back down after. Most clients move once or twice a year, and the board carries straight across.
Why a call and not a buy button?
Every stream we sell is studio time we must actually have, so we only take on as many retainers as we can serve. The call takes thirty minutes: you show us the workload, and we tell you plainly which plan fits, including when the answer is the cheaper one. If nothing is open, we say so and hold you the next place.
How do we start?
Book a call. If we are a fit, onboarding takes a few days: the agreement, the board, your brand files and a kickoff. Your first job is usually back before the first month’s invoice is.
Just need your website looked after? See our Care plans.
See it in practice: seven days inside a design retainer, the AI mock-up a client asked us not to copy, and the shop emails nobody designed.