For the studio that counts rounds
Revisions are free until they are not. Then they are a number.
Tag the rounds. Show the client what round four cost. Bill day rates without a hack, keep studio budgets honest with hours bars, and do not pay per seat for a freelancer you had for three weeks.
One payment. No rent. File is yours.
Design Teams — straight talk
The parts that usually go sideways.
One more round, times seven
Tag entries r1, r2, r3 as you work. When round four arrives, the talk is easy because the count is on the page: three rounds took 22 hours, round four is new scope. Clients respect counts more than complaints.
Seats cost more than the freelancer
One license covers up to three people, $99 early-bird then $149, forever. Bring a freelancer for a sprint without triggering a subscription. When they leave, their file stays readable.
Day rate or hourly? Yes.
Log hours underneath, present either way on top. Shoot day bills as one day at $800, concept work as 22 hours at $110, same invoice, no hack. Mixed deals finally look natural.
The studio cannot see the month
Budget bars per deliverable on Today. Logo at 80% in week two means a staffing talk now, not an apology later.
What you’ll actually use
Just the bits you bill for.
Round tags
r1, r2, r3 on entries. Scope talk becomes factual, not awkward. Beyond-scope rounds bill as their own lines with the tag as proof.
Budgets per deliverable
Logo, guide, deck each hold an hours budget. Creep shows per piece, so the piece that is bleeding gets attention.
No seat math
Buy once per license, forever, up to three people. Freelancers do not trigger an invoice from us, and leavers do not take the history with them.
Proof in the notes
Notes autocomplete from history and the grid shows the story. When a client asks what the hours were, you show them, line by line.
And the rest of owntime
Timers, timesheets, invoices with tax, expenses with snaps, estimates, per-client currency, CSV you can hand to anyone — the full list.
Set it up like this
Your world, in your trade’s words.
First run: pick Design teams
Deliverables for projects, Craft for tasks, Rounds for tags, and r1, r2, r3 suggested as you type. owntime seeds Concept, Refinement, Art direction, Admin and calls estimates Quotes. Accent: violet.
Client = the client
One record, their currency. Retainers and projects all roll up here.
Project = the deliverable
Identity, guidelines, deck. Each with the hours you quoted. Rounds tracked inside.
Tasks = the craft
Concept, refinement, art direction, admin. Same tasks across deliverables for studio-wide comparison.
Tags = the round
r1, r2, r3, plus shoot or travel where needed. The scope story tells itself.
A week in owntime
How the work actually flows.
Kickoff: budget the pieces
Split the quote into deliverables, set hours each. Everyone sees what good looks like before starting.
Make: log with round tags
Timer on, tag the round. Notes capture decisions so revision three remembers why revision two died.
Review: read the bars
Mid-project, check each deliverable bar. Over pace means a talk about scope or staffing, today.
Bill: rounds and days
Invoice concept hours, beyond-scope rounds, and shoot days on one PDF. Expenses like prints ride along.
What the client sees
A bill that looks like you wrote it.
| Description | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand identity — concept | 22h | $110 | $2,420 |
| Round 2, beyond scope | 5h | $110 | $550 |
| Shoot day — art direction | 1 day | $800 | $800 |
| Total | $800 | ||
Plain lines, your letterhead, your numbers. PDF, made locally. No server in the middle.
Straight talk
What it will not do.
Every tool has edges. Here are ours, plainly, so you find out now and not in month three.
- ×Budgets count hours, not rounds. A round limit is a tag count you read, not a warning the app fires.
- ×No proofing, no annotations, no version files. The work lives in Figma, the truth about time lives here.
- ×No team dashboard. Each seat keeps its own file. The studio combines at invoice and review time.
Asked a lot
Questions design teams people ask.
How do we charge for extra rounds?
Bill tagged beyond-scope hours as their own invoice lines. The round tags behind them are the backup if the client asks.
Can we bill shoot days as days?
Yes. Log the hours underneath, present the line as one day at the day rate. Hourly and daily lines share the invoice cleanly.
What about short-term freelancers?
One license covers up to three people with no monthly clock. Their entries export to CSV when they wrap.
Do retainers work for studios?
As reminder templates with amount and cadence. When due, one click builds the draft and you send it. Never automatic.
Test it on a real week.
14 days, full app. If it doesn’t survive your busy week, don’t pay. Simple.