Best fit
- A defined web or mobile project, at a startup or a larger company
- One primary user and critical workflow
- One owner who can make decisions every week
- A clear goal and a realistic first release
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Studio, agency, freelancer, or in-house?
There are four common ways for a founder or a company team to get a product designed and built: a freelancer, a traditional agency, an in-house hire, or a small, design-led studio like Choie. Each is the right call in a different situation. This page lays them side by side, including the cases where Choie is not the right choice.
Side by side
Who does the work
- Freelancer
- One person, usually one discipline: design or code.
- Traditional agency
- A team assigned by the agency; the people who pitched may not be the people who build.
- In-house hire
- Employees you recruit and manage, one discipline each until the team is large.
- Choie
- The founder leads product and design on every engagement; trusted collaborators join when the scope needs a specialist.
Design and code in the same hands
- Freelancer
- Rarely; you coordinate a designer and a developer yourself.
- Traditional agency
- Sometimes, across separate design and engineering teams with a handoff between them.
- In-house hire
- Only once you have hired both, and then across two people.
- Choie
- Yes. The same people make the design decisions and write the code that ships.
Pricing model
- Freelancer
- Hourly or day rate; totals move with the hours.
- Traditional agency
- Estimates, time and materials, or retainers; change requests reprice the work.
- In-house hire
- Salary, equity, benefits, and recruiting cost, regardless of output.
- Choie
- Fixed prices: $4,900 for a one-week prototype, from $19,000 for a build or a company project, from $9,900 a month ongoing. No tax added on top, scope in writing first.
Who owns the designs and code
- Freelancer
- Depends on the contract; check it.
- Traditional agency
- Depends on the contract; some agencies retain frameworks or license the work.
- In-house hire
- The company, as work for hire.
- Choie
- You do, once the fees for a deliverable are paid in full. Third-party libraries and fonts stay under their own licenses.
Speed to a first version
- Freelancer
- Fast to start; speed depends on the person's availability.
- Traditional agency
- Slower to start: proposals, onboarding, team allocation.
- In-house hire
- Slowest to start: hiring takes months, then onboarding.
- Choie
- One week to a coded prototype; four to six weeks to a launched build. AI and our own kit are why.
Capacity
- Freelancer
- One person, often juggling several clients.
- Traditional agency
- Scales up and down; your project competes for senior attention.
- In-house hire
- Fixed; grows only by hiring.
- Choie
- Deliberately small: no more than two projects at a time.
Best when
- Freelancer
- A well-defined task in one discipline, and you can manage the rest.
- Traditional agency
- A large program across many teams, platforms, and integrations at once.
- In-house hire
- Product work is continuous and central to the company for years.
- Choie
- A defined web or mobile project, at a startup or a larger company, with one primary user, a clear first release, and an owner who can make weekly decisions.
Watch out for
- Freelancer
- Gaps between design and code, and single-person risk.
- Traditional agency
- Handoffs, juniors on the build, and change-request pricing.
- In-house hire
- Time to hire and the cost of a wrong hire.
- Choie
- Anything that needs more than two projects' worth of capacity or open-ended staff augmentation.
The freelancer, agency, and in-house columns describe common arrangements, not any specific company. Contracts vary; read yours.
Where Choie fits, and where it does not
Better elsewhere
- A program that needs dozens of people at once
- Every platform and integration in one first release
- Open-ended staff augmentation
- No clear owner, user or first release
Questions founders ask when comparing
Why does Choie use fixed prices instead of hourly rates?
Because a founder needs one price and one date, both written down before work starts. A written scope fixes the deliverables and the total; changes are agreed in writing and may change the price or timeline, but nothing moves silently.
Is a studio the same as an agency?
Not in how the work is done. An agency assigns a team and moves work across design and engineering departments. A founder-led studio keeps a small number of projects, and the people who scope the work are the people who design and build it. At Choie, design leads. AI and our own kit make the work fast, and a senior designer decides what to build and how it should feel.
When should a founder not hire Choie?
When the work is a program that needs dozens of people at once, every platform and integration in one first release, open-ended staff augmentation, or a project with no clear owner, user, or first release. Those are better served by a larger agency or an in-house team. A defined project inside a larger company is a good fit.
Can we start small and see?
Yes. The one-week prototype is a fixed $4,900 and ends with a working coded prototype and a recommendation on what to build next. If a build starts within 60 days, the full fee is credited.
Prices are on the pricing page; the week-by-week shape of a project is on the process page. If you are still unsure, write a few lines and you will get an honest answer about fit within two business days.
Have something worth building?
- Product strategy
- iOS
- Design systems
- Launch sites
- Measurement
- Android
- Prototypes
- UX design
- MVPs
- Web apps
- UI design
Send a few lines about it. You will get an honest reply within two days, and a plan if it fits.