bridge · retainer · $8,000/month
Design until your designer lands
You've posted the Founding Designer or Product Designer role. The search will take two to four months. The roadmap won't wait. A senior designer from non boring.gg embeds with your team until the hire starts — and hands over a system, not a mess.
Who it's for
- You just posted a Founding, Senior or Product Designer role and the first good candidate is months away.
- Design is the bottleneck this quarter: engineers are guessing, screens are diverging, launches slip.
- You want the person you eventually hire to walk into a system, not a rescue.
How the handoff works
| Phase | What we do | What your hire inherits |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1–2 | Join your planning and your Slack. Audit what exists, agree the two or three metrics that matter this quarter, and ship the first fixes. | A written audit and a prioritised backlog. |
| Ongoing | Product, brand and web work as the roadmap needs, in weekly cycles with a daily async update and a live review in your hours. Design system upkeep so velocity doesn't decay. | A design system that's in the product, with tokens, components and documentation. |
| While you hire | We review the job post, sit in on portfolio reviews and tell you what we see. No fee on the hire; we don't recruit. | A shortlist you made with a senior designer in the room. |
| Last 2 weeks | Handover: decision log, open questions, and pairing sessions with your new designer while we're still on the call. | The system, the docs, the context — and someone to ask. |
What it costs, compared
| Option | Cost | Time to start | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bridge retainer (non boring.gg) | $8,000/month, invoiced in USD from India | Within two weeks | Senior designer, ends when your hire starts. Zero-rated export; no GST added. |
| US senior product designer, full time | $110,000–160,000 base plus 25–40% on-costs (benefits, payroll tax, equipment) — typical ranges for 2025–26 postings; the US Bureau of Labor Statistics median for web and digital interface designers was about $104,000 as of 2025 | 2–4 months of search, typical | The right long-term answer; this retainer covers the gap until it lands. |
| Design subscription | $1,000–6,000/month, published rates in our studio dataset | Days | Built for one queued request at a time; not embedded, not in your planning. |
Two months of Bridge is $16,000; the same two months of an unfilled role costs you the roadmap. We're not the cheaper option in year two — the hire is. That's the point.
We invoice from India in USD (AUD, GBP or EUR on request). Design services exported from India are zero-rated, so no Indian GST is added. UK, EU and Australian business clients typically account for VAT/GST themselves under the reverse-charge rules; confirm with your accountant.
How it runs
- Weekly cycles. You see real screens in week one and every week after; nothing is held back for a reveal.
- Daily async update. A short written update every working day: what moved, what's blocked, what we need from you.
- One live review a week, in your time zone. Australian afternoons, the European day, or a US-morning slot in our evening.
- The people on the call do the work. No handoff to a junior team after signing.
- Fixed scope, fixed price, milestones. Invoiced in USD (AUD, GBP or EUR on request) from India. IP assigns to you on final payment.
Questions
What does the Bridge cost?
$8,000 a month, two-month minimum, then monthly with two weeks' notice. That's the bottom of our design team extension range ($8,000–15,000/month) because the scope is defined: keep the product moving and set up the person you're hiring.
How is this different from a design subscription?
Subscriptions queue requests one at a time and are built for marketing assets. This is a senior designer in your planning and your sprints, with judgement — and with an explicit end: the day your hire starts.
What does 'they inherit the system' mean?
Your new designer starts with a design system that's already in the product, documentation of every decision we made and why, a backlog they didn't have to discover, and a two-week handover with us still on the call. Not a Figma file and a shrug.
Will you help us hire?
Yes. We'll review the job post, sit in on portfolio reviews, and tell you honestly what we see. We don't recruit or take a fee on the hire; we just want the handover to go to someone good.
What if the search takes longer than expected?
The retainer continues monthly. Typical searches for a senior product designer in the US run two to four months; we've planned for that, and there's no penalty for ending early when the hire lands.
Can the Bridge designer become the hire?
No. We're a studio, not a staffing agency, and the point is to leave you with your own person. We'll say so in the first call.
What hours do you work?
IST, with a live window in your time zone every day: Australian afternoons, the European day, or a US-morning slot in our evening. Daily written updates in your Slack.
How do you bill, and is there tax on top?
We invoice from India in USD (AUD, GBP or EUR on request). Design services exported from India are zero-rated, so no Indian GST is added. UK, EU and Australian business clients typically account for VAT/GST themselves under the reverse-charge rules; confirm with your accountant. Payment is by wire or Stripe, in milestones.
Open-scope version: design team extension ($8,000–15,000/month). Fixed-scope projects: sprints. When to hire instead: our guide.
Cover the gap
Email atul@nonboring.gg with the subject pre-filled →
Send the job post link; we'll tell you on the first call whether we're the right shape for the months in between.
Building something people should remember?
non boring.gg is a product and brand design studio in Bangalore, India, working with startups and tech companies across the US, Europe and Australia. Average engagement around $20,000. atul@nonboring.gg