By Mehdi HassanWhat are alternatives to Eleken for SaaS design?
Alternatives to Eleken for SaaS design fall into two groups: other design-only product studios, and partners that design and build. Which group you should look at depends on one question: do you have engineers ready to implement what gets designed?
Eleken is a well-known SaaS UI/UX design partner with a focus on product interfaces. This guide doesn't argue that design-only is wrong. It's often exactly right. It helps you tell whether your bottleneck is design or delivery, then points you to the right kind of partner. For the full map of agencies and subscriptions, see our DesignJoy alternatives hub.
What does Eleken offer?
Eleken offers SaaS UI/UX design without development. It publishes a starting price on its site, so check there for exact plans, as pricing changes. For context, the research we use puts design retainers in general at about $2,000 to $12,000 a month.
- Development not included
- Design-only
- Typical design retainer range in our research
- $2k–$12k/mo
- Designify's design and development retainer
- $6,000/mo
The gap between a design-only fee and a design-and-build fee is roughly the cost of getting the design built. Whether that's worth paying depends on what your engineers would otherwise do with their time, and on whether the work is product UI or marketing pages.
When is a design-only SaaS partner the right choice?
A design-only partner is the right choice when you have front-end engineers who can implement designs accurately and have time in their sprints to do it. In that setup, adding developers from outside would only create overlap.
- Your product team has front-end capacity. Designs move from Figma into code within a sprint or two.
- Your codebase is complex. Outside developers would need weeks to get productive in it.
- You have a design system in code. Designers can work within existing components that engineers already maintain.
- The work is research and UX. Discovery, flows and usability testing don't need a build partner.
If that describes you, compare design-only studios on SaaS experience, how they run research and how they hand over to engineering. Our shortlist of product design agencies for SaaS and AI startups is a good place to start.
When do you need a partner that also builds?
You need a partner that also builds when designs regularly wait for engineering, or when the work is your marketing website rather than your product. In both cases, design isn't the slow part; shipping is.
Designs waiting in Figma
If finished designs sit for weeks behind feature work, you're paying for design that isn't producing anything. A partner who can implement front-end work, or at least prototype it in code, removes the queue.
Marketing website work
Product engineers are rarely keen to build landing pages and CMS templates, and those pages change often. Marketing sites are usually better built by a team that does them every week, in a stack your marketers can edit. That's where a design-only product partner leaves the biggest gap.
How do Eleken alternatives compare?
Eleken alternatives differ mainly on whether development is included, how they price, and whether they handle marketing sites as well as product. The table groups options by model and uses typical figures from the research we rely on; confirm current pricing with each provider.
Alternative | Typical pricing | Builds? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
Design-only SaaS studios, including Eleken | Varies; check each studio's current plans | No | SaaS product UI/UX with in-house engineers |
Other design-only product studios | Varies; retainers typically $2k–$12k/mo | No | Research, UX and UI for engineering-led teams |
Single-designer subscription | One flat monthly plan; check pricing pages | No | A steady queue of separate design tasks |
Brand-and-web agencies (e.g. Ramotion) | Project-based | Varies | Brand plus website programs |
Freelance product designer | US rates about $80–$180/hr | Rarely | Short, defined UI work |
Designify retainer | $6,000/mo | Yes: Next.js, Framer or Webflow | Product UI and marketing pages that need to ship |
For brand-led options, see Ramotion alternatives. For broader shortlists by budget, see best SaaS web design agencies. If your marketing site is built as a React app and struggling in search, a build partner matters even more; our guide to fixing a React SPA marketing site for SEO explains why.
Hypothetical example: design-only vs design-and-build for one quarter
For example, suppose a Series A SaaS company has two goals for a quarter: redesign its onboarding flow and launch three new marketing pages. It has two front-end engineers, both fully booked on features.
With a design-only partner, the onboarding designs are excellent but wait for an engineering sprint, and the marketing pages need a separate builder. With a design-and-development partner, the marketing pages are designed and built in the company's site stack, and the onboarding designs are handed over with front-end help where the codebase allows it. The right choice depends on engineering capacity. This is an illustration, not a real client.
How do you choose between design-only and design-and-build?
Choose by measuring how long designs wait before they ship. That one number tells you whether to buy more design or more delivery.
List the last ten finished designs
Include product screens and marketing pages.
Note the gap between approval and release
Count days from final design sign-off to live in production.
Split product from marketing
Product work and marketing pages often have very different gaps.
Decide per area
If product gaps are short, stay design-only for product. If marketing gaps are long, add a partner that builds the site.
Test with one deliverable
Give a new partner one real page or flow and judge it live.
Many SaaS teams end up with a split: design-only support for product, close to their engineers, and a design-and-build partner for the marketing site. If you're also reconsidering your CMS or site platform, see Framer alternatives for growing startups and Contentful alternatives.
