Heliograph
We started publishing prices in 2021. It cost us a handful of enquiries and saved everyone several hundred hours of discovery calls that were only ever about budget.
Engagement models
All month-to-month, all inclusive of source handover, and none of them carrying an account-management layer you have to pay for.
One focused track — a brand refresh, a product surface, a site. Two of us, dedicated.
£6,500/ month
Billed monthly, 30 days’ notice
A full studio team embedded with yours: strategy, design and front-end together.
£14,500/ month
Billed monthly, 30 days’ notice
Multi-team programmes, long horizons, and the governance that comes with them.
Bespoke
Scoped after a discovery call
Line by line
Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen. Anything marked as not included can be added as a separate fixed-price track.
| What you get | Signal | Spectrum | Observatory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated people | 2 | 4–5 | 6+ |
| Parallel workstreams | 1 | 2 | 3+ |
| Weekly critique & written note | Included | Included | Included |
| Brand & identity | Included | Included | Included |
| Product & interface design | Included | Included | Included |
| Front-end implementation | Not included | Included | Included |
| Design system & tokens | Tokens only | Included | Included |
| Research programme | Not included | Included | Included |
| Motion language | Not included | Included | Included |
| Accessibility audit (AA) | Included | Included | AA + AAA targets |
| Source & IP handover | Included | Included | Included |
| Training sessions | 1 | 2 | Quarterly |
| Post-launch check-ins | 30 & 90 days | 30 & 90 days | Ongoing |
| Response time | 1 working day | 4 working hours | 2 working hours |
| Minimum term | 2 months | 3 months | 12 months |
Fixed price
Where the scope really is knowable, we quote a fixed price rather than a monthly rate. These are the figures, not a starting point for a negotiation.
Four weeks. Interviews, category analysis, an audit of what exists and a rewritten brief with costed options. Deducted in full if you go on to a retainer.
Eight to fourteen weeks. Positioning, logotype, type and colour systems, art direction and guidelines your team can apply without calling us.
Eight to sixteen weeks. Content model, component library, front-end build, CMS integration and a Core Web Vitals budget agreed in week one.
Ten to twenty weeks. Token architecture, components in design and code, contribution and deprecation rules, documentation and an adoption plan.
Four to ten weeks. Duration and easing tokens, choreography rules, a designed reduced-motion path and implementation notes.
Two weeks. WCAG 2.2 AA review of an existing product with a prioritised remediation plan and a re-test once the fixes land.
The small print, unhidden
Four things, listed here rather than discovered in month three.
And how it works
Procurement asked for a breakdown and got one on the first email, including the things that were not included. In fourteen years of buying agency work I had never had that before the contract stage.
Procurement asks
Two months on Signal, three on Spectrum, twelve on Observatory. After the minimum, everything runs month to month with thirty days’ notice from either side.
The minimums exist because the first phase — the interrogation — produces most of its value at the end, and stopping halfway wastes your money more than ours.
Once per engagement, for up to eight weeks, with two weeks’ notice. We hold the team’s calendar for four of those weeks; beyond that we cannot guarantee the same people on return, and we will tell you honestly if that is the case.
On a monthly retainer, scope changes cost nothing — the team is the same size, so we simply reprioritise in the weekly cycle. That is the main reason we prefer the model.
On a fixed-price project, a change that adds work gets a written variation with its own price before anyone starts on it. No surprise line items.
No. The first call is an hour and free, and so is the written proposal that follows it. We do not do speculative creative work — no unpaid concepts, no pitch designs. If you need to see how we think before committing, the case notes and the journal are the evidence.
Yes — MSA, DPA, security addendum, insurance certificates and supplier onboarding. We carry professional indemnity and public liability cover, and our legal review time is not billed to you.
For registered charities, public-sector bodies and organisations under ten people doing something we believe in, we hold one reduced-rate slot at a time. It is a real discount, not a smaller team — ask when you write.
Next step
It is the fastest way to a useful answer. If the number does not work we will say so in the first reply rather than the third meeting.