Agency is separating UI and UX design and pricing them individually — what's the difference, who should I pay for?

When one person does both jobs in the market, it's usually on smaller gigs, and those folks are mostly just drawing visuals anyway. Think of UX as the architect calculating the structural load and drawing the floor plans, while UI is the interior designer picking the wall paint and furniture. You can't paint walls without load-bearing columns.

On our first project, we skipped UX research and paid 18,000 SAR just to get the interface drawn. Once we went live, a huge chunk of users were dropping off before even reaching the checkout step. We ended up burning 25,000 SAR on a redesign plus two months of developer salaries just to fix the flow. Splitting them from day one is cheaper.

This distinction is twice as critical for Arabic interfaces. In an RTL layout, the direction of icons, the logic of form fields, and microcopy are completely different from standard Western UIs. Make sure to get it in writing whether the agency will run local user tests during the initial phase.

The agency splitting it up makes sense, but they really need to justify that 32,000 SAR research fee. If all they're going to do is pull inspiration from ready-made templates and draw gray boxes, that's not UX design. Ask them point-blank if they will conduct real user interviews and clickable prototype tests.

If you want to bring the cost down, do this: use an off-the-shelf template for the service provider/cleaner portal initially, and only have the agency design the mobile screens where end users place orders. That cuts your screen count in half and drops your budget to around 35,000 SAR.

Before approving the quote, make sure the agency guarantees these two deliverables: 1) For UX: user flow diagrams and a clickable grayscale prototype. 2) For UI: a developer-ready design system, Arabic font licenses, and error states for all screens.

if a single person claims they do everything they're usually just a graphic designer drawing random buttons... keeping them separate is way healthier but make sure the agency commits to strict delivery dates in the contract, projects tend to drag out otherwise.

Following.

Looking at it as a process, the picture changes. Access credentials should be opened in the company's name, not personal accounts.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I've been down this road let me tell you. Don't hesitate to ask; those who don't ask always pay more.

This is my opinion I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

Timely topic. Access credentials should be opened in the company's name, not personal accounts.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

I'll argue the opposite, don't get mad. When we decide without measuring, we always end up in the same place.

If acceptance criteria aren't written, when the work is done is open to debate. That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

Let me speak from the other side; I'm on the supplier side. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

Implementing a change request process doesn't slow things down, it speeds them up. If you have questions, write them; I'll answer as best I can.

I'm a small business, let me explain from my side. People defend habits, not processes. Resistance comes from there.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

How did you solve this? If code ownership isn't in the contract, you have no bargaining power when leaving.

Hope this helps.

I have no experience with ui ux design so I'm asking. The cheapest quote is usually the least thought-out one.

youre right Ive been down that road too... the harder it is to reverse a decision the slower you should make it.

processes without records never improve, because you don't know what to fix then just leaving this note it might be useful.

you're right. the biggest time-waster for us was not knowing who had the final say.

just leaving this note it might be useful.