Most Dubai businesses don't need a brand-new website every year. What they need is someone on hand when the Ramadan campaign page has to go live next week, or when the Arabic version of the site starts drifting away from the English one. That's the idea behind subscription based website design. You pay a fixed monthly fee and get ongoing design support, so there's no fresh quote and briefing every time something on the site needs to change.

How Does Subscription Based Website Design Work?

The setup is fairly simple. You select a design plan, and the team then receives design requests through a shared board or Slack. The team works through these one by one, with each task having a defined deadline.

Most plans cover a range of work that includes creation of new landing pages, interface modifications, banners, emails, and a little bit of modification to existing pages.

In subscription based web design, your account gets serviced by the same designer(s). This means that your brand and your customers get familiar with them. There is no need to explain every time what colours and fonts you use.

Plans last for a month. Some enable you to pause payments during quieter periods. In case you are comparing different plans, here is a guide to choosing a UI/UX subscription plan.

How Is a Subscription Different From One-Off Design Packages?

Traditional design packages are priced per project. You agree on a scope, and the agency delivers it. Once that's done, the project closes.

That works great with a complete redesign or creating a new site. A website design package gives you specific deadlines and an invoice. Finance departments appreciate this.

That works well for a full redesign or a brand-new site. A fixed website design package gives you clear dates and a single invoice, which finance teams tend to like.

The trouble usually starts after launch. A Dubai-based retailer could seek a landing page for the Dubai Shopping Festival in December, Ramadan banners a few months later, and a product category afterward. Quoting each one separately eats up time, and the designer who built the original site may have moved on by then.

That's the gap subscription based website design is meant to fill.

What Does Subscription UI UX Cover?

A good subscription UI UX plan goes beyond keeping the site looking fresh. The team should also be looking at how people use your pages and making them easier to use month by month.

For most companies in Dubai, the work involves Arabic. Right-to-left design requires checking icons, menus, and numbers, along with flipping pages. The two languages also diverge when updates take place at different times. Having one team look after both keeps them in step.

Mobile deserves plenty of attention too. Since a significant portion of browsing in the UAE is done on mobile devices, create new websites and test on mobiles first.

If your website uses enquiry forms or customer information forms, it will comply with the UAE’s Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL). Using an ongoing strategy, your consent wording and form design will always be ready to change whenever your legal department requests.

Who Are UX Design Packages on a Subscription Best For?

Any business whose website keeps changing is a good candidate. In Dubai, startups are an obvious example. A team in Dubai Internet City might push out new features every few weeks, and the product pages need to keep up.

Monthly UX design packages also work well for online shops. Ramadan and White Friday each need their own banners and landing pages, and they come round faster than you'd expect.

Property developers are another good fit, since every new launch usually means a fresh project page with floor plans and a registration form. The same goes for marketing teams with no in-house designer. Rather than chasing freelancers, they send a request and get it back within a few days.

If your site barely changes from one year to the next, a subscription probably isn't worth it. A one-off website design package and a quick review once a year will likely cover you.

What Should You Ask Before Signing Up?

Most plans sound alike on a pricing page. The differences are in the details, so it's worth asking a few things on the first call:

• What counts as a request? A whole landing page and a button colour change shouldn't use up the same slot. Ask for real examples.

• How fast does work come back? And what happens if you send five requests in one week?

• Do they build the pages too? Some plans stop at design files, which means you'll still need a developer.

• Can you pause? A month-by-month agreement is better than one for 12 months.

• How is the price worked out? It's usually based on hours or on how many requests can be open at once. Ask the price in AED, and whether the 5% VAT applies to the price.

If you care more about researching and testing than aesthetics, then you should find out whether or not they offer UX design services independently. And before you sign anything, put two or three design packages next to each other and compare what you actually get.

Conclusion

If your site changes most months, there's a good chance it is. Here's a quick way to check. Go back through the last six months, add up every design job you paid for, and compare that total with a monthly fee. Don't forget the time spent writing briefs and chasing quotes, because that adds up too. If you'd like a second opinion on whether subscription UI UX makes sense for you, get in touch with The Mad Brains team.