How I work with a design studio
NDA first, no contact with your client, and a fixed price before you quote. This is what a build with me looks like end to end.
The same terms on every job
NDA signed first
Before designs, file access or a client’s name reach me.
No contact with your client
Questions, staging links and notes come to you, and stop there.
A fixed price, not an hourly rate
One figure for the build, confirmed before you quote.
What makes a studio hesitate before subcontracting a build
You quote before you know your own cost
The proposal goes to the client on a date the client chose. If the developer’s figure lands later, the difference comes out of your margin rather than out of the project.
The brief moves and nobody priced it
A new template, a new integration or a section redesigned after approval turns into an argument about what was always implied, usually while the work is already running.
Someone else talks to your client
One direct email, one name in the theme header, one screenshot in a portfolio, and the studio stops being the only party in the room.
The paperwork is in another country
An NDA that never comes back signed, an invoice with the wrong VAT treatment, a developer who cannot bill in GBP. The build can be fine and the file still fails at your end.
Your NDA is signed before anything moves
The agreement travels with the first enquiry and comes back signed before a single design, file share or client’s name reaches me.
Reading the brief starts after that: the artwork, how many unique templates it really holds, and the date you have already promised the client. Anything the artwork leaves ambiguous is queried in writing at that point, while an answer still costs nothing.
How a build runs after the NDA
Contact, pricing, changes and handover, in order.
You are the only contact your client has
Everything that would normally travel to a client comes to you instead: questions during the build, the staging link, the handover notes. What reaches them, and in whose words, stays your call.
My name is absent from the proposal, from the theme header and from my own portfolio, so a finished build points back to your studio and nowhere else.
questions during the build come to you
the staging link is yours to pass on or hold back
no name of mine in the proposal or the theme header
white label builds stay off my portfolio
The price is fixed before you quote your client
The price comes from the number of unique templates in the brief and how complex they are. It is one fixed figure for the whole build.
A rough figure follows as soon as I have seen the mockups, ahead of the fixed price that lands before you quote your client. You get a fixed price within 2–3 working days of receiving the design and brief.
priced from unique templates, not from page count
a fixed price within 2–3 working days
one figure for the whole build
a delivery date confirmed alongside the price
anything still open written onto the quote as an assumption
Changes to the brief are a separate order
The line sits at the brief. A detail the designs always implied gets absorbed without a conversation about money.
A new template, a new integration or a section redesigned after the fact is priced on its own and confirmed before it is started, so it becomes a change order your client pays for and your margin stays where it was.
details the designs always implied are absorbed
a new template or integration is priced on its own
the number reaches you before the work, never after
the change order goes to your client, not to your margin
The handover is yours to keep
Three things change hands: the theme, the repository, and notes in plain English for whoever maintains the site next.
Nothing in that package is licensed, keyed or wired to a service I run, so the site keeps working whether or not you ever email me again.
the theme
the repository
notes in plain English for whoever maintains the site
no licence, no key, nothing wired to a service I run
Invoicing for a UK studio
What a Polish business invoicing a UK studio looks like on paper.
Staged payments
Invoices are in GBP. A deposit is due before work starts, and on anything larger than a single template the work is split into three to five payments released as each stage of the build is delivered.
VAT reverse charged
VAT is reverse charged: as a Polish business invoicing a UK business, invoices go out without Polish VAT, and it is accounted for at your end. Your finance team will want to check that against your own registration.
What happens instead
The same four points, answered in the order they were raised.
The price lands before your proposal does
One fixed figure for the whole build, priced from the unique templates in the brief, with a delivery date you can put straight into your own quote. Work starts when you confirm both.
Changes are priced before they are started
A detail the designs always implied gets absorbed. A new template, a new integration or a section redesigned after approval is quoted on its own and confirmed first, so it becomes a change order your client pays for.
You are the only contact your client has
Questions during the build, the staging link and the handover notes all come to you. What reaches the client, and in whose words, stays your call.
The paperwork is settled before the work is
Your NDA comes back signed before a design or a client’s name reaches me. Invoices are in GBP, split into three to five stages on anything larger than a single template, with VAT reverse charged.
What a finished build looks like
Of the 300+ sites behind me, most carry somebody else’s name. These three ran the whole way through the process on this page: the agreement first, a fixed price before the client saw a number, open questions answered in writing, and a handover with nothing keyed to me. Two came through an agency and one came direct.
About working together
The paperwork and the boundaries, answered before the first call.
If it is a fault in code I wrote, I fix it. No time limit on that and no support contract to buy, because a build that does not do what we agreed it would do is not finished. New features and changes of mind are quoted separately.
Either of us. I can deploy to the hosting you name, or hand over the repository and let your own team take it from there. It is settled in the brief rather than on launch day, so whichever way it goes, it is in the quote you already have.
A short written agreement covering scope, price, dates and who owns the code. Your studio’s wording is fine; mine exists for studios that would rather not draft one. The code is yours on final payment, with no licence and nothing keyed.
Answers. The questions that come out of the artwork in week one need replies from you rather than from your client, and a build waiting on an answer is the only thing that moves a delivery date I have given you.
Keep reading
Figma to WordPress, coded by hand
Send a finished Figma file and get back a WordPress theme built to match it, with no page-builder kit underneath it.
Online shops coded from your design
WooCommerce and PrestaShop built to the artwork rather than bent out of a bought store theme, including the views a platform does not hand you.
Overflow support for a WordPress build already underway
The deadline is close, the site is half built, and someone else wrote the code so far. Send access to the repository and get help finishing it under your name.
Work I am allowed to show
These are the case studies I am free to show. Most of my work goes out under a studio’s own name, so the full count runs higher than this page. Each one below follows the same structure: what came in, what I built, and what it changed.
Ready to put a number in front of your client?
Send the designs and the date you have promised. The NDA comes back signed first, the fixed price and the delivery date before you quote.