How much do startup studios charge?

You've heard about companies that will build your product with you — sometimes called startup studios — and you want to know the price. There isn't one, and that's not evasion. They price in a mix of cash and ownership, and the mix is the whole conversation. A studio taking mostly cash is priced like an agency. A studio taking mostly equity is priced like a co-founder. The number you should be chasing isn't a dollar figure — it's the shape of the trade.

Almost every arrangement is a point on a line between all-cash and all-equity. Knowing which one you're being offered matters more than any single number in it.

Here's the trade underneath it. Cash is a one-time cost; equity is forever — a point you give away is a point you keep paying out the day the company finally works. A studio taking mostly equity is betting on your outcome and tends to behave like a partner, but you're handing over a slice of everything the company ever becomes. A studio taking mostly cash is a vendor with a deadline — cheaper over the long run if you can fund it, but they move on when the invoice clears. Neither is right or wrong. It depends on whether you're richer in cash or in conviction.

• How much cash you put in. Every dollar you pay lowers the equity they need. Pure build-for-equity costs the most ownership of any arrangement.
• How early and risky it is. Building from a blank page carries more risk than extending something that already has users, and earlier work commands more of either currency.
• How involved they stay. A team that builds, then runs and grows the product, is worth more than one that ships version one and leaves.
• What you bring. If you own the customers, the domain expertise, and the path to market, you're carrying real weight — and you should keep the majority.

1. 1Ask each to state the offer in one shape: cash amount, equity percentage, and what they own after launch. Vague offers hide expensive terms.
2. 2Convert every offer to the same terms so you're comparing currencies, not vibes. A big cash number and a big equity number aren't the same cost.
3. 3Put any equity on a vesting schedule with a cliff, so ownership is earned by staying, not handed over at signing.
4. 4Get scope, roles, and IP ownership in writing before anyone builds. The code and accounts must legally belong to the company.
5. 5Keep the domain, accounts, and admin access in your name from day one, whatever the equity split turns out to be.

If you can fund the build and you just need code shipped to a clear spec, a studio's equity model is overpaying. Hire a team, keep the whole company, and bring a partner in later from a position of strength. Studios earn their share when you need someone to help shape the product, carry real risk with you, and stay in the outcome — not when you need a contractor. Giving away ownership to dodge a bill you could have paid is the most expensive shortcut in early-stage building.

This is the model we work in — building and co-founding software for people who have the idea and the network but not the code, for a fee, for equity, or a mix of the two. Whoever you end up talking to, make them put the offer in plain terms: how much cash, how much of the company, and what they still own the day after launch. Those three answers tell you far more than any single price ever could.