HACKER Q&A
📣 pentaclay

Will subscription based design agency work in 2024?


Hi, I'm Erfan. I've been designing websites, mobile apps, and SaaS platforms for more than 11 years. A few days ago I introduced a model where you can provide design services on a monthly subscription basis.

This is like Netflix for design. I worked a couple of months and released my subscription-based website pentaclay.com

But I'm not sure if that's going to see some light in 2024. Please share your honest opinion about this.

  👤 matt_s Accepted Answer ✓
Is this a sly marketing post disguised as a Ask HN? Maybe a Show HN would be better? I'm not offended, just this doesn't seem like a true asking for opinions type of Ask HN post.

Setting that aside, this is totally a valid business model - design joy (https://www.designjoy.co/) has been doing this for years now.

We're in a risk free subscription based economy.

👤 undyingtrillion
I spent a bit of time thinking over this for back end code but decided not to pursue the idea.

If you are careful with the clients you bring on it can be lucrative. But it didn't seem like it would be easy to begin delegating the coding work quickly. My wife and like to take nice vacations and that would be a big conflict. Additionally at a personal level I believe it would have taken me a long time to build the staff and actually free my time up as I don't have recruiting or management experience. At the start it would take up a considerable chunk of the day. Considering all this we agreed this was not worth it.

Maybe it will work for you, especially if you have the prior management experience or timeline to begin delegating.

👤 philomath_mn
It is an interesting idea and the site is very well executed -- nice work!

I guess one question I have is that it seems like there will need to be a linear relationship between the number of subscriptions sold and the number of designers working? Even if a design takes an hour and the turnaround guarantee is two business days, then that designer can only manage up to 16 subscriptions.

Given your pricing, that example may work out ok but then you'd have to pause new subscriptions until you can hire a new designer. Curious to hear what you think

👤 meiraleal
I've seen a few designers doing this and with the help of the new AI models available the rise of productivity will make this business model more common for services, I think.

I'm developing something similar to sell my service as a software engineer. Something like Service-as-a-software, the opposite of software-as-a-service.

👤 flowzai
launch your product or website own opinion, don't judge by public opinion. If your product or service any good, peoples accept to this anyway.