Makreate vs Clay — Which Design Agency Is Right for You?

Short version: Clay is a high-end New York UX and brand agency working at the $250K-$1.5M project tier for category leaders like Slack, Coinbase and Facebook. Makreate is the better pick for US, UK and UAE growth-stage teams that need senior UX work shipped in 4-12 weeks at USD 160/day or USD 1,600/month — a 10-15x lower entry point with comparable senior-led execution.

This guide compares both on the dimensions that actually matter when you're picking a partner — pricing, engagement model, deliverables, and the decision criteria for "which one fits my situation."

At-a-glance comparison

Pricing comparison

The biggest practical difference between Makreate and Clay is the price floor. Makreate's UX Design pricing starts at USD 160/day or USD 1,600/month for retainers. A typical project — say, a SaaS dashboard redesign with research, wireframes, prototypes and a design system — runs $20K-$80K end to end.

Clay doesn't publish pricing but most engagements start at $250K and typical project work runs $500K-$1.5M. They charge senior consultant rates ($250-$400/hour) and staff multi-disciplinary teams.

What you get for Makreate's price

• One senior designer (8+ years) leading the project
• Backed by a team of UX veterans (35+ combined years), available as needed
• Direct Slack channel — your engineer/PM talks to your designer, no account-manager layer
• Shipped work: wireframes, prototypes, UI, design systems, sometimes the build itself
• USD-fixed proposal in 48 hours, kickoff within a week

What you get for Clay's price

• Brand and product strategy
• Visual identity and brand systems
• Product UX and UI design
• Design systems
• Motion design and prototypes
• Sometimes: front-end engineering
• Executive workshops
• Marketing-site design

Engagement model

Makreate runs three engagement models:

• Daily retainer (USD 160/day): a senior designer dedicated to your team. You pay only for days they work. Good for ongoing UX needs without committing to a full-month retainer.
• Monthly retainer (USD 1,600/month): 40 hours/week of senior UX work. Best when you have continuous UX needs and want predictable monthly cost.
• Fixed-price project: defined scope, defined timeline, USD-fixed cost. Best when the project is well-defined upfront.

Clay runs multi-phase engagements. Engagements are typically scoped end-to-end across multiple workstreams (strategy, design, sometimes engineering) running 3-18 months. You commit to the full arc, not piece by piece.

Who they serve

Makreate's client list skews US, UK and UAE growth-stage: SaaS founders (pre-seed through Series C), fintech and tax-tech operators (Cleartax, Accuvat), healthtech and fitness (BurnCal AI), B2B enterprise (DESC, GGCF, ICICI Bank, IDFC First Bank, Oracle), and ecommerce (Sneakers retail, Glass World UAE). See the case studies.

Clay's client list: Slack, Coinbase, Facebook, Snapchat, Amazon, Google, Adobe, Stripe.

Deliverables

Makreate ships production-ready design work:

• UX audit reports + heuristic evaluations
• User research reports (qualitative + quantitative)
• Information architecture and user flow maps
• Wireframes (low and high fidelity)
• Clickable Figma prototypes
• Production-ready UI (Figma → handoff)
• Component libraries and design systems
• Often: the front-end build itself (HTML/CSS/React)

Clay ships:

• Brand and product strategy
• Visual identity and brand systems
• Product UX and UI design
• Design systems
• Motion design and prototypes
• Sometimes: front-end engineering
• Executive workshops
• Marketing-site design

When Makreate is the better choice

• You need senior UX work shipped in 4-12 weeks
• Your budget is under $250K for the engagement
• You're a SaaS, fintech, healthtech, ecommerce or B2B growth-stage company
• You want to skip the account-manager layer and talk directly to designers
• You need production-ready design, not just strategy
• You bill in USD or GBP and want pricing in your currency

When Clay is the better choice

• You're a Series B+ company with $250K+ design budget
• You're a category leader (or trying to look like one)
• You need a polished brand-and-product overhaul together
• You want the Clay brand stamp for fundraising or PR
• You can wait 6-10 weeks for the right team to assemble
• Your in-house team will own implementation

For everyone else — most US, UK and growth-stage companies — Makreate is the closer fit. The two firms are solving different problems. Comparing them by price alone misses that point.