Design audit cost: How much do design audit services cost?

A design audit is a comprehensive evaluation of all the design elements of a digital product such as an app, website, SaaS platform, or software. 

The purpose of the audit is to identify areas for improvement in your product’s design, ensuring that the product meets user needs and business goals.

In a design audit, the following aspects of your product design are evaluated for improvement:

1. Usability: How easily and efficiently users can navigate and interact with the product to achieve their goals.
2. Accessibility: Making the product usable for all users, including those with disabilities.
3. Visual Aesthetics: The overall look and feel of the product’s design.
4. Content: Clarity, relevance, and organization of the product’s content.
5. Responsiveness: The product's ability to adapt across different devices and screens.
6. Performance and Speed: How quickly and efficiently the product operates.
7. Brand Consistency: Ensuring alignment with brand identity and messaging

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A digital product design audit typically ranges from $1,000 to $50,000+, depending on factors such as the scope of the audit, complexity of the product, requirement of user research, experience of the agency etc. 

Basic audits focus on evaluating usability and design, while comprehensive audits go further by incorporating user research, usability testing, and providing detailed recommendations in the final report. 

However, larger or enterprise-level products require more time and effort for the evaluation. 

The cost of a digital product design audit is influenced by several factors as described below:

The scope defines the extent of the digital product under review, ranging from a single page to an entire ecosystem of pages, user flows, and features across platforms.

Impact on cost: A larger scope increases the time and effort required for analysis, directly driving up costs due to higher resource allocation.

Technical Insight:

• Narrow Scope: Auditing a single landing page (e.g., an e-commerce homepage) may require 4–8 man-hours for a thorough review of UI, UX, and functionality.
• Broad Scope: Auditing a full e-commerce platform—including product listings, checkout flows, user accounts, and payment integrations—could demand 50–100+ man-hours, depending on scale.

Example: A simple webpage audit focuses on isolated elements (e.g., layout, CTA placement), while a platform-wide audit evaluates interconnected systems, increasing workload and cost.

Complexity refers to the number of pages, user flows, features, and integrations within the product, as well as the expertise required to evaluate them.

Impact on Cost:

• Increased Workload: Complex products (e.g., enterprise SaaS) have more components to assess, requiring significantly more man-hours than simpler products (e.g., a static website).
• Expertise Demand: Auditing intricate systems necessitates senior designers or specialists, raising hourly rates and overall costs.
• Simple Product: An event registration site with 3–5 pages and linear flows might need 10–20 man-hours.
• Complex Product: An enterprise SaaS with multiple user roles, interdependent features, and third-party API integrations could require 100–200+ man-hours, plus advanced skills in UX heuristics and system architecture.

Example: A simple ‘Event Registration’ website might have less pages and less number of user flows than a typical Enterprise SaaS product with multiple user roles, complex interconnected feature flows ad integration with third-party systems. This makes SaaS products more complicated and hence costlier to audit.

The pre-audit state of the product’s design, measured by adherence to design principles, usability, brand consistency, and visual appeal.

Impact on Cost:

• High-Quality Design: A well-executed design (e.g., intuitive flows, consistent UI) requires less time for issue identification and solution proposals, reducing audit duration and cost.
• Low-Quality Design: Poor or inconsistent design demands in-depth analysis to pinpoint flaws and develop detailed recommendations, increasing effort and cost.
• High Quality: A product with clear typography, seamless navigation, and minimal usability issues might take 10–15 man-hours to validate.
• Low Quality: A product with broken flows, inconsistent branding, and poor accessibility could require 30–50+ man-hours to dissect and document.

Example: Design audit for a cluttered e-commerce website with inconsistent colors, confusing navigation, and a chaotic checkout process, where users struggle to find products or complete purchases, would require more time and effort.

Whereas, a clean, user-friendly e-commerce site with intuitive navigation, consistent colors, and a smooth checkout process, following all the UX principles, would require minor improvements and optimizations, and hence less time and effort in the design audit.

Check out the screenshots below from Penny Juice’s:

In the screenshot below of Penny Juice’s landing page, you can see even the most basic design principles have not been followed. 

The website’s header is interfering with the layout. The site’s font and colour choices also need some serious work. 

Here’s another example from Jeton:

It has a clean, intuitive, brand consistent and visually appealing UI.

Clearly, the design audit for Penny Juice’s website would take much more effort (if all other factors same) than Jeton’s website due to its poor design quality.

If you wish to include user research as part of your audit process, the cost of the audit will go up due to this additional task.

Conducting user interviews, surveys, and usability testing for user research requires significant time and effort. It doesn’t end at just gathering feedback from the users, you have to then analyze the data, and provide useful design improvement insights in the final audit report.

Conducting user research also requires expertise in the domain, so the human resources conducting it charge a premium rate.

Here are some tools that we use to conduct user research:

• Lookback - Offers real-time user testing and interviews, allowing you to observe users' thoughts, actions, and behaviors as they interact with your app or website
• Hotjar - Records user sessions and provides heatmaps to show where users are clicking, scrolling, and spending time.
• SurveyMonkey - Allows you to create surveys to collect quantitative and qualitative feedback from users.

Example: 

If users are abandoning a checkout process on an e-commerce site but it's unclear why, user research such as surveys and usability testing can provide valuable insights to identify pain points and guide improvements.

The audit focus—usability (navigation and interaction efficiency) or visual design (aesthetics and brand alignment)—or a combination of both.

Impact on cost:

• Single Focus: A usability-only or visual-only audit targets specific criteria, requiring less time.
• Combined Audit: Evaluating both aspects doubles the analysis scope, increasing man-hours.
• Usability Audit: Assesses flow efficiency, error rates, and task completion (e.g., 15–25 man-hours for a medium site).
• Visual Design Audit: Reviews typography, color consistency, and brand adherence (e.g., 10–20 man-hours).
• Combined: 30–50+ man-hours for holistic coverage.
  Example: A site with strong visuals but poor navigation needs only a usability audit, while one with both inconsistent UI and usability flaws requires a combined approach, raising costs.

Example

If a website (or any other digital product) has a visually appealing and brand-aligned visual design but users struggle with navigating and completing the tasks, a usability audit would be sufficient to identify and fix usability issues. 

However, if the product has both poor navigation and a cluttered interface with inconsistent colors and typography, a combined usability and visual design audit would be necessary.

6. Experience of the Audit Team

The expertise level and reputation of the professionals or agency conducting the audit.

Impact on Cost:

• Rate Variation: Senior experts with specialized knowledge charge higher hourly rates (e.g., $150–$300/hr vs. $50–$100/hr for juniors).
• Value Add: Deeper insights and actionable recommendations justify the premium.
• Technical Insight: A seasoned UX expert with industry-specific experience (e.g., e-commerce) delivers precise, high-impact solutions faster than a generalist.

Example: A senior designer with 10+ years in SaaS might charge 50% more but reduce implementation risks with tailored recommendations.

The tools and software used in design audits also add to the overall cost. 

Many of these tools require subscriptions or licenses, which increases the audit cost.

Here are some tools that are used in the design audit:

• Hotjar - Provides heatmaps, session recordings, and user feedback polls.
• LookBack - Enables live remote user testing and interviews.
• SurveyMonkey - This lets you create surveys to collect quantitative and qualitative feedback
• Google Analytics - Offers comprehensive website traffic data and user behaviour metrics.
• Mixpanel - Tracks user actions to help understand engagement and retention.
• Dovetail - Assists in consolidating and analyzing qualitative research data.

8. Timeline for Completion

The cost of the audit rises with the urgency to complete the audit.
Impact on Cost:

• Resource Allocation: Tight deadlines (e.g., 1 week vs. 1 month) demand overtime, additional staff, or project prioritization, increasing rates.
• Effort Surge: Compressed timelines amplify resource intensity.
• Technical Insight: A standard 50-man-hour audit over 4 weeks might cost 20–30% more if rushed into 1 week due to overtime and expedited workflows.

Example: A month-long audit compressed to 7 days requires double the daily resources, inflating costs.

The depth and format of the audit output, from basic summaries to comprehensive reports with wireframes and mockups.

Impact on Cost:

• Preparation Time: Detailed deliverables (e.g., annotated findings, design prototypes) require 10–30+ additional man-hours.
• Complexity: Rich documentation scales with audit scope.
• Technical Insight: A simple report (5–10 pages) takes 5–10 man-hours, while a detailed one with visuals (20–50 pages) might take 20–40 man-hours.
  Example: A basic usability summary costs less than a full report with UX flow redesigns and UI mockups.

The cost of design audits for products of industries such as finance, healthcare or enterprise software might be more than others.

Impact on cost:

• Specialized Knowledge: Domains with compliance or complexity (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR) require auditors with niche expertise, raising rates.
• Audit Depth: Additional standards increase evaluation time.
  Technical Insight: Auditing a financial app with compliance checks might add 20–40 man-hours compared to a generic consumer app.

Example: Auditing a financial app would require a thorough understanding of compliance standards to audit the app thoroughly, compared to a less regulated product, thus increasing the overall audit cost.

Here are the descriptions and examples of digital products for each design type:

Original Product Design involves creating a completely new and innovative digital product from scratch. These products then challenge the established markets with their better, more efficient technologies.

This process begins by identifying an unmet need and then conceptualizing creative solutions to address it. 

There are two variants of products powered by original product design: one inspired by the latest scientific advancements and technological innovations, and another that combines existing solutions in new ways, offering fresh features or functionalities. 

In both cases, creativity and innovation are key to bringing a groundbreaking product to life.

Let me cite an example:

Instagram is an example of original product design. It started as a photo-sharing app that uniquely focused on social media interaction through photos, filters, and later, stories, creating a whole new category in the digital world.


2. System Design

System Design in digital products involves organizing and structuring components and features in a logical, user-friendly way to meet both user needs and business objectives. 

Just like how a store layout is designed to guide customers smoothly through different ‘appealing’ sections, digital system design organizes and structures software systems such as databases, user interfaces, and workflows to ensure that users can navigate through the strategically placed sections on the platform, easily and efficiently.

System design is about organizing content, features, and data into a cohesive structure, so as to enhance the usability of the product and support the business goals.

Example: Amazon

Just like a physical store layout, the website's system design organizes products into categories (e.g., electronics, clothing, home goods) and arranges them logically to facilitate smooth navigation. 

Key features, such as promotions, discounts, or new arrivals, are strategically highlighted to capture user attention.

Check out the screenshots below:

Adaptive Product Design focuses on modifying existing solutions to meet new challenges or requirements. While the core concept remains unchanged, there are some tweaks made to the existing solutions to solve the new problems.

 

It involves adjusting existing functionality or user interfaces to suit different use cases, demographics, or digital environments. 

Example: Spotify

The music streaming service has adapted its interface and features to cater to various user demographics and contexts. For instance, Spotify offers different layouts for mobile, desktop, and smart devices, ensuring a seamless user experience across platforms. 

Additionally, Spotify's interface is continually updated to meet the needs of various user groups, like offering simplified versions for children or accessibility features for users with disabilities.

Check out the screenshots below for Spotify’s desktop layout, mobile layout and ‘Spotify Kids’ version.

Engineering (or Variant) Design in digital products involves modifying an existing product to improve its performance, functionality, or cost-effectiveness without changing the core concept. 
This might include redesigning a feature to cater to specific user needs, improving the user interface for a particular market segment, or adjusting the product’s technical specifications. 

For example, a software tool may be adapted to support new user roles or digital platforms, or a mobile app might be optimized for different device specifications. 

The goal is to refine or optimize the product, improving efficiency or reducing costs while retaining the original product’s core functionality.

Example: Google Chrome

Over time, Chrome has been adapted and optimized for various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Additionally, Chrome has been continually updated to support emerging web standards, improve security, and enhance performance without changing its fundamental design.

Interface design in digital products focuses on how users interact with the product, ensuring the layout, controls, and visual elements are intuitive and easy to navigate. 

It emphasizes creating a seamless and aesthetically pleasing experience while prioritizing usability. 

The goal is to guide users through the product, helping them interact with it instinctively. The interface design makes it easy for users to understand the product’s function, allowing them to perform the actions you want them to perform, with ease.

Example: Google Maps

The app features an intuitive interface that allows users to easily navigate through maps, find directions, and explore nearby places. 

The use of interactive elements like zoomable maps, clear icons for locations (restaurants, gas stations, etc.), and colour-coded routes makes the app easy to use. The clear and simple design ensures users can focus on navigating without distractions, enhancing the overall user experience.

Check out the screenshot of the Google Maps mobile app below.

Here are the design audit service cost and pricing models at a glance:

How it works:
In project-based pricing, a fixed price is agreed upon for the entire design audit, regardless of how many man-hours are spent on the project. 

The scope and deliverables are defined upfront, and the client pays a predetermined price for the audit. This model is ideal for well-defined, one-off initiatives where the scope of work is clear.

Best for:
When the audit scope, goals, and deliverables are clearly defined, and the audit is a one-time thing.

Pros:

• Predictable and clear pricing
• Clear deliverables and timelines
• No ‘shocks’ with additional costs

Cons:

• Limited adaptability to unforeseen issues
• Can be more expensive if the project is complex

Typical cost:
The cost typically ranges from $1,000 to $15,000, depending on the complexity of the product and the depth of the audit.

How it works:
Hourly pricing means the client is charged based on the actual time spent on the design audit. The freelancer or agency tracks their hours and provides an invoice for the number of hours worked, which offers more flexibility if the scope or work is unclear or likely to change over time.

Best for:
Companies whose audit scope is flexible, or the requirements are unclear, allowing adjustments as needed.

Pros:

• Flexibility in adjusting scope as needed
• More affordable for smaller projects or short-term needs
• No fixed commitment upfront

Cons:

• Harder to predict total cost upfront
• Potential for high costs if the project drags on
• Can lead to inefficiency if the scope isn’t well-managed
• Requires trust in the freelancer’s time tracking

Typical cost:
Hourly rates for freelancers typically range from $50 to $200 per hour, depending on the freelancer's experience and expertise.

How it works:
Value-based pricing is based on the perceived value the design audit will provide to the client rather than the time spent on the audit. Agencies assess the impact and results that the audit will bring to the client’s business (e.g., increased conversion rates, and improved user experience) and charge accordingly.

Best for:
Companies looking for high-impact audits that deliver specific business results.

Pros:

• Pricing reflects the value delivered
• Focus on results and business impact
• Can be more lucrative for agencies with proven success
• Aligns the agency’s incentives with the client’s business goals

Cons:

• Harder to estimate upfront
• Requires clear alignment between client expectations and value delivered
• Can be more expensive due to the focus on results

Typical cost:
The cost typically ranges from $5,000 to $50,000 based on the perceived value, business impact, and scope of the audit.

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We at Tenet are passionate about transforming digital experiences. Founded in 2024 (formerly KodeGlobe), our innovative team of 30+ experts delivers actionable design audits that drive growth. 

With over 450 projects completed for 300+ clients in 15+ countries—generating $1.54 billion in revenue and impacting over 20 million users—we combine creativity with precision. 

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For example, our work with Pazazz Athleisure in APAC involved deep market analysis, brand discovery workshops, and crafting a bold, distinctive identity. 

We built a conversion-optimized e-commerce platform with AI personalization and advanced analytics, enhancing user engagement and delivering measurable business results.

Contact our experts to improve your digital products and create measurable business impact.