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Home / How we work

How we engage—before the intro call

One place for what happens after the first email, what moves the quote, and straight answers on contracts, IP, maintenance and time zones—so intro calls stay about your product, not admin.

Reply < 1 business day
Proposal Usually 2–5 days after the fit call
Hours ET · CET · worldwide

Services we phase this way: UI/UX design · Web development · SEO & growth · Brand & design systems · Content & CMS · WordPress · 3D & rendering · AI & automation · Analytics. Pricing is on the packages page, examples in our work.

What happens after the first email

Dates shift with scope, but the order doesn’t. Share this section with colleagues who ask “when do we get a proposal?” before you book a call.

Proposals and contracts (SOW) are in Serbian for local clients and in English for US and EU teams - whichever suits you better.

  • A good first email - goal, deadline, rough budget, links and who makes the decision.
  • NDA - we sign mutual NDAs when needed; it never blocks the first reply.
  • No work without a contract - we don’t start billable design or development until scope and the deposit are agreed in writing.
  1. Day 0 - you reach out

    Contact form or email

    Tell us what you ship, who the users are and whether there are fixed dates. Attach a deck only if it’s already the source of truth - otherwise a short written project brief is faster for everyone.

  2. Within 1 business day

    First review by a human

    A senior team member confirms receipt, asks 1–3 questions if needed and proposes either a 30-minute intro call or - if we’re not the right partner - a short, honest answer explaining why. No waiting queues.

  3. Days 2–5

    Intro call (optional) + alignment

    We go through goals, constraints and risks. You leave with a clear summary: recommended approach, rough timeline and whether a formal proposal makes sense.

  4. Usually 2–5 business days after we agree to send a proposal

    Written proposal and contract

    Scope, key dates, deliverables, price, payment schedule and start date. If something is out of scope, we say so clearly - no guesswork.

  5. Kickoff meeting

    Signed contract + deposit + access

    We schedule the kickoff, set up shared tools (Slack, Linear, Figma as agreed) and start the Listen → Plan phase from the process section on the homepage.

Cadence

When you’ll see the first design review

Most UI/UX sprints aim for a first design review within 8–12 business days of kickoff - once the contract is signed, the deposit has arrived and we have access and an agreed project brief.

Review-only or audit packages move faster; work with heavy legal, procurement or multi-team reviews needs more calendar time. We write the target date into the contract so silence never becomes the default uncertainty.

Policy

If the first creative round misses what we agreed

Design is subjective; the project brief shouldn’t be. If the first phase doesn’t meet the success criteria in the contract (audience, constraints, references we discussed), we redo that phase once at no extra charge before the next billable round.

Changing goals mid-project is a scope change, not a free pass - fair to both sides. If we’re still not there after the repeated round, we pause, realign in writing and only then continue billable work.

An honest exit: if the intro call or early research shows we’re not the right partner, we say so directly - we’d rather stop than spend your budget on polite formalities.

Before the kickoff: use our public brief checklist to pull together goals, links, decision makers and success criteria - it’s exactly what we ask for on early calls, so nothing important waits until week three.

What drives the proposal (and where the packages are)

The cards on the homepage give a range - starting prices that realistically match what we deliver. The final price always follows the scope in the contract.

See packages and comparison tables

Surface area

Number of pages, user flows, languages and whether it’s a marketing site, an app or both. Larger scope means more design, QA and coordination among decision makers.

Integrations

CRM, payments, SSO, headless CMS, ERP or custom APIs. Every integration carries risk and a test plan - we spell that out in the contract.

Design maturity

A new brand and UI versus evolving an existing system. “Just ship what we have” costs less than building a component and token system - until it turns out a rework is needed after all.

Deadline pressure

Parallel sprints, overnight work for a fixed date or a tied-in marketing launch increase the coordination load. We’ll tell you early if a date isn’t realistic.

Compliance and accessibility

WCAG level, the need for a VPAT, industry regulations - we expand the test matrix and documentation, not just a “we do our best” line in the footer.

Decision-making structure

Large approval boards, legal reviews or security questionnaires add calendar time - sometimes a full hour a week for workshop-style status meetings.

When we’re probably not the right studio for you

Saying “yes” to everything is the fastest route to overbooked calendars and half-done work for clients. Here are the situations where we’ll politely decline - or refer you to a partner who does exactly that.

None of this is a judgment of your business. It’s how we keep the senior team’s attention on projects we can actually deliver.

  • Asking for a price without a scope - if the only criterion is “beat this hourly rate,” we can’t honestly assess the risk. Start with the goal and the constraints.
  • 24/7 on-call support - we’re not a NOC. We plan launches, handoff and a limited post-launch support window - not on-call duty for systems we didn’t build.
  • Staff augmentation without a product owner - if decisions wait on a committee and tickets have no single owner, speed drops. We work best with a clear product owner or marketing lead.
  • Guaranteed rankings or “viral” spikes - we’ll improve structure, speed and experiments - but we won’t promise SERP #1 in 30 days or “virality” as a deliverable.
  • Unlimited liability or IP grabs - we carry standard professional insurance and a fair transfer of copyright in the contract. We turn down one-sided clauses that would sink a small studio.
  • Impossible fixed dates + undefined scope - short launches are fine when the trade-offs are clear. “Everything in the deck, live on Friday” with no flexibility needs a different team.

What we build in public

Client work pays the bills - but we also ship internal tools, site experiments and small helper scripts. This is a simple changelog, not a product roadmap - just proof that we keep building things for ourselves too.

  1. Public intake checklist and quality signals

    We published a print-ready brief checklist, a clear accessibility and performance bar on the About page, a studio line in the footer (response time + links) and a stricter reference policy for testimonials.

  2. Scope estimate and hero CTA

    A scope estimate on the pricing page (four questions → a suggested rough scope) and a clearer split between primary and secondary actions in the hero of key pages - contact first, information second.

  3. Engagement and fit page additions

    We added “when we’re not a good fit” and this lab changelog to How we work—fewer surprises before the first call.

  4. SOW checklist template

    An internal Notion checklist that mirrors the proposal sections (integrations, a11y depth, stakeholder shape) so nothing gets skipped by hand at signing time.

  5. Storybook a11y regression pass

    A small script + CI hook that flags new components without labels or contrast tokens—experimental; we tune the thresholds per client design system.

Updates are occasional. Day-to-day build context lives in your project channels and kickoff pack—not in a public changelog.

Contracts, IP, maintenance, time zones

Extended questions that usually land in the same inbox thread before work starts. We’re still happy to clarify details on a call.

Send an inquiry
Not always. For smaller engagements we can work from a single SOW that includes the key legal terms. Larger or repeat clients often prefer a master agreement plus short SOWs per phase—we’re flexible if your legal team has a template.
We usually invoice a deposit to reserve calendar time, then tie the remaining invoices to milestones in the SOW (for example approved designs, staging handoff, launch). Net-15 or Net-30 depends on your procurement—we state it up front.
Once you pay for the work described in the SOW, you own the deliverables (designs, code, documentation) unless we agreed otherwise for licensed third-party assets. Fonts, stock and some libraries stay under their own licenses—we list them in the handoff notes.
Packages on the site include a limited window for bug fixes, small tweaks and launch monitoring. New features, campaigns or a larger CMS restructure are out of scope—those go through a change order or a follow-up SOW.
Yes. Many teams choose a monthly block of hours for design/development, analytics checks or CMS guardrails. We’ll suggest a tier that matches your release cadence—no vague “unlimited” retainers.
We anchor collaboration between US Eastern and Central European time (New York + Novi Sad). For other regions we use predictable overlap windows and async-friendly rituals—written standups, Looms and shared boards—so you don’t wait overnight for every decision.
If scope grows mid-flight, we pause, write a short amendment (what was added, the cost and the impact on the timeline) and get written approval before doing the work. Urgent production fixes follow a severity ladder agreed in advance so nobody surprises finance.
Yes. Send the templates early—we answer honestly about subprocessors, data handling and insurance. Heavy reviews can push kickoff dates; we factor that into the proposed timeline.

Ready for the first email?

Once this page has covered the operational side, the intro call can stay focused on the product and metrics.