One senior designer who owns UX, UI and the design system, works inside your team's tools, and ships dev-ready Figma every week. No agency layer, no account manager, and the person you talk to is the person who does the work.
<24h
Reply time
You talk to the designer, not a sales team.
6+mo
Typical engagement
Most clients start with one project and stay.
8yrs
Longest client relationship
iTnnovate, from rebrand to four products.
15+yrs
Designing product
SaaS, fintech, healthtech, e‑commerce.
Most freelance designers do screens. I do the part before the screens and the part after them, which is where SaaS products are won.
Onboarding, the core workflow, billing, settings. Mapped with you before a single pixel, so the product is right before it is pretty.
Tokens, components and light and dark modes in Figma, named to match your code, so every new screen your team or your AI tools build stays on-brand.
Structured Figma files, specs in Dev Mode, and me on Slack for your engineers. Handoff is reading, not translating.
For MVPs and marketing sites I also ship the code, in Next.js or Webflow. One person from first sketch to a product people can log into.
Fixed scope
Validate your idea and get a launch-ready MVP fast.
Weekly sprints
Go from idea to real product with weekly design sprints.
3-month minimum
Embedded in your team, 2 days/week.
Fixed quote on the call · 3-month minimum, then month-to-month · Pause available between quarters · Most clients stay 6+ months · Response within 24h
GliaKit is a design system that lives in Figma and in a Next.js codebase at the same time. The Kids Tales went from idea to a launched reading platform in six weeks and tripled engagement. Both were one designer, from the first flow to the shipped product. All case studies.
A token-driven design system for AI apps: a Figma UI kit paired with a wired Next.js + shadcn boilerplate, in light and dark.
Interactive storytelling platform designed to grow kids' reading habits.
A seed to Series A product rarely has a full-time design load, but it has a full-time design need. This is what a month of senior design costs each way. Salary figures are published 2026 ranges for the US and Western Europe, loaded with 20 percent for benefits and tools.
| Option | Cost per month | Time to first screens | What you commit to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time senior product designer, US | $14,000 to $19,000 | Three months to hire, then two weeks | A year, plus equity |
| Full-time senior product designer, Western Europe | $8,000 to $12,000 | Two to three months to hire | A year, with notice periods |
| Design agency | $15,000 to $40,000 | Three to six weeks | Usually three months |
| Product sprint with me | Fixed quote | One week | One month at a time |
| Fractional retainer with me | Fixed quote | Already in the room | Three months, then month to month |
The sprint buys two to three days a week of a senior designer who also builds the design system your engineers work from. When the product needs a full-time designer, I help you hire one and hand over a system they can run. Freelance product designer rates in 2026 has the full market numbers.
Three ways to get product design done, compared honestly. Each is right for someone. The long version is on the blog.
| Senior freelancer (me) | Design agency | Toptal or marketplace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | The person you met on the call | A senior pitches, a mid-level designer produces | Whoever the matching gives you |
| Owns the design system | Yes, built token-first to match your code | Sometimes, often as a separate project | Rarely, scoped per task |
| First screens | Within one week | Three to six weeks, after discovery and proposals | Days, once matched |
| Typical monthly cost | Fixed quote per engagement | $15,000 to $40,000 | $10,000 to $20,000 at $80 to $150 an hour |
| Minimum commitment | One month, or a one-time kickstart | Usually three months | Hourly or weekly |
| Communication | Direct, async by default, Slack and Loom | Through an account manager | Direct, plus platform admin |
| Best for | The product itself: UX, UI, system, handoff | Brand, site, video and product at once | Short tasks and overflow |
“Dejan rebranded our company and made our solutions more user-friendly. We have been collaborating for over 8 years, and I highly recommend him!”
“Dejan's exceptional UX and design skills have made him an indispensable member of our team. His contributions have significantly enhanced our projects.”
“Collaborating with Dejan has been a delight. Responsive, creative, and consistent quality across all our product vertical launches.”
A senior freelance product designer costs a fraction of an agency retainer and well under a full-time senior hire with equity. I scope each sprint or retainer on a call and send a fixed quote, so you know the number before work starts. The plans on this page are scoped the same way: a one-time MVP kickstart, a product sprint, or a fractional retainer.
If the job is the product itself, UX, UI and a design system that your developers build on, one senior freelancer is faster and cheaper, and the person you meet is the person who does the work. If you need brand, website, video and product at the same time with a large budget, an agency can staff that. I wrote a longer comparison of freelance, agency and Toptal on the blog.
A free 30-minute call. I open your product live, tell you what I would fix first, and we pick the plan that fits. If it is a sprint, you get a one-page brief the same day and the first screens within a week.
Usually within one to two weeks of the call, sometimes the following Monday. I take on three clients at a time at most, so the calendar on this page shows real availability.
Access to the product, or the Figma files if it is not live yet, and 30 minutes of your time for the kickoff. If you have analytics, session recordings or support tickets, send them. If you have nothing but a napkin, that is fine too, the kickstart plan exists for exactly that.
Both. Most clients have engineers, so I hand over dev-ready Figma with a token-based design system and stay on Slack for questions. For MVPs and marketing sites I also build, in Next.js or Webflow, so one person takes it from first sketch to shipped product.
Yes. I audit it first, fix what blocks the work, and extend it rather than replace it. If there is no real system, only a component library, I build the token layer underneath it so light and dark mode and new screens stop drifting.
Yes. Laffari and The Kids Tales are mobile products, and most SaaS work I do has a responsive web app plus an iOS or Android companion. The same design system covers both.
You do, from day one. Everything is built in your Figma workspace and your repository. If we stop working together, nothing leaves with me.
I am in Skopje, Central European Time. That overlaps the full UK and EU working day and US East Coast mornings. Reviews are async by default, as Loom videos and Figma comments, so time zones rarely matter in practice.
You have the screens, the system and the prototype, and your team can keep building. Most clients either move to the growth retainer for one to two days a week, or come back for the next feature set. There is no lock-in either way.
The fractional retainer is built for that: two days a week inside your team, a 3-month minimum and then month to month. Several clients have worked with me for years this way, the longest for eight.
A free 30-minute call. I open your product live and tell you what I would fix first. No deck, no pitch.
