Sell a Figma File Teardown: Price & Deliver It Async

A Figma file teardown is a paid, async critique of a follower's actual file — layout, hierarchy, spacing, accessibility — delivered as written notes, a marked-up file, or a recording. On Brillay, a designer scopes it as a priced custom request: the follower submits the file link, pays upfront, and gets feedback within a set turnaround, no live call required. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. pricing

The request usually arrives in the same shape: a link to a Figma file and "any feedback would help so much." Whether it lands once a month or several times a week, that DM has historically had only two endings for the designer who receives it — answer for free, or leave it unread. A priced, scoped teardown offer adds a third ending: pay, submit the file, get real notes back.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median hourly wage of $50.00 and a median annual wage of $104,000 for web and digital interface designers in its May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release (Web Developers and Digital Designers). Unpaid Figma feedback in the DMs competes directly with billable design work valued at the BLS May 2025 median of $50.00 per hour for web and digital interface designers.

What is a Figma file teardown?

A Figma file teardown is a structured critique of one submitted file — a landing page, app screen, or onboarding flow — covering layout, hierarchy, spacing and type system, and usability. A teardown is delivered as notes, an annotated copy of the file, or a recorded walkthrough, and is scoped to the single file the follower sends. A priced custom request is not the same critique sold to every buyer: each follower submits their own Figma file, and the teardown is made around that file’s layout, hierarchy, and flow.

The audience for a paid teardown is mostly people who use Figma without sitting next to a design team: Figma's Form S-1 registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that non-designers made up two-thirds of its more than 13 million monthly active users in the three months ended March 31, 2025 (Figma S-1).

On Brillay a teardown fits a custom request, whose feature page states that a follower "can also attach their own files when they order" and that the creator delivers "a written note plus up to 5 files (video, audio, images, PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint), and/or a private link" for anything larger. You set the price and delivery time on that same offer, within a delivery window of up to 5 days per order (Custom Work and how it works).

Should a Figma review be a full teardown or a quick text answer?

Use a full teardown whenever the answer requires opening the actual file.

A question like "should I pair this display font with a serif or sans body font?" can often be answered as text alone. A request like "here's my onboarding flow, what's wrong with it?" needs the file open in front of you — that is a teardown.

What should a Figma teardown package include?

A teardown package should state exactly what file type, page count, feedback format, and price the follower is paying for before they submit anything — otherwise a five-screen check-in and a forty-screen design system land in the same undifferentiated inbox. Scope the offer into tiers by size and depth so both effort and price track file complexity.

The four price bands in the package table are illustrative worked examples derived from the BLS May 2025 median hourly wage of $50.00 for web and digital interface designers, not market averages, platform data, or an earnings promise. Brillay's Custom Work page lists declining and refunding an out-of-scope order as an explicit creator control, not an exception. How to scope a custom creator request covers writing that boundary into the listing.

Accessibility is worth naming as its own line item in the scope rather than leaving it implied: W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative states that WCAG 2.2 provides 9 additional success criteria since WCAG 2.1, and a follower cannot assume any of them were checked unless the listing says so. Several of those criteria are checkable directly against frames in a Figma file: W3C's WCAG 2.2 recommendation sets Success Criterion 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) at 24 by 24 CSS pixels for pointer targets at Level AA (WCAG 2.2).

How much should you charge for a Figma teardown?

Price a Figma teardown as focused hours multiplied by a target hourly rate, then gross the total up to cover platform and processing fees. Anchored to the BLS May 2025 median of $50.00 per hour, illustrative bands run $30-$45 for a quick gut-check and $175-$295 for a design system review.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median hourly wage of exactly $50.00 for the 113,330 web and digital interface designers counted in its May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release. BLS reports a lower median hourly wage of $30.27 for graphic designers in the same May 2025 release (Graphic Designers), so pick whichever occupation actually matches the work you do before running the numbers.

Pricing a teardown takes three steps. First, estimate the focused hours the file will take. Second, multiply those hours by your hourly rate to get the amount you want to keep. Third, gross that target up with (target net + $0.30) / 0.891 to cover Brillay's 8% platform fee on paid work (tips and goals carry 5%) plus Stripe's typical US online-card pricing of 2.9% + $0.30, then round the result up to a clean number (pricing and Stripe pricing). Dividing by 0.891 on its own covers only the two percentage fees: Stripe's fixed $0.30 has to be added to the target before the division, or absorbed by rounding the list price up.

Worked example: a teardown that takes 90 focused minutes is 1.5 hours × $50.00 = $75 of design time. Grossing up gives ($75.00 + $0.30) / 0.891 = $84.51, which rounds up to an $85 list price. At an $85 list price, Brillay's fee is $6.80; using 2.9% + $0.30 as an estimate for Stripe's fee leaves about $75.44, but the actual processing fee can vary. The table uses the same estimate and rounds each list price up; treat the amount left after fees as an illustration because Stripe's actual processing fee can vary.

Every price in the four-tier pricing table is a worked calculation from the BLS May 2025 median hourly wage of $50.00 and Brillay's published 8% platform fee on paid work like a teardown order, not a market rate. Validate the bands against demand and the market before committing to them: look at what comparable designers publicly charge for a file review, publish a single tier first, and watch whether orders actually arrive at that price. A wage-derived number tells you what an hour of your time is worth; only paying followers tell you what your teardown sells for, and a band that draws no orders is priced for a market that is not yours. Actual rates depend on your audience, positioning, specialism, and how complex the submissions turn out to be, and no page can promise what any individual designer will earn.

How many reviewers does a useful critique actually need?

A useful critique does not need a large review panel. Nielsen Norman Group recommends three to five evaluators for a heuristic evaluation because larger numbers add little additional information (NN/g heuristic evaluation theory). One experienced designer working through a single file can deliver most of the value a follower pays for.

"My recommendation is normally to use three to five evaluators since one does not gain that much additional information by using larger numbers." — Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, The Theory Behind Heuristic Evaluations

A single paid teardown does not have to compete with a full internal review panel to be worth the money. What separates a teardown a follower will pay for again from one they will not is whether it actually works through the file's hierarchy, flow, and accessibility rather than restating what is visible in the first screenshot.

How do you deliver a teardown without a live call?

Deliver a teardown as written notes, an annotated file, or a recording, sent back through the same Brillay order the follower paid for. No live call is required: Custom Work supports text, file, link, audio, and video delivery asynchronously, within a creator-set delivery time Brillay caps at up to 5 days per order.

Pick one delivery format per package rather than offering a recording and written notes on every tier. A recording earns its place when the problem is sequential or spatial — narrating a cursor moving through a four-step checkout while pointing at where the eye actually lands communicates a broken flow that a bullet reading "hierarchy is unclear on step 3" does not. Written notes are the better format for surgical, enumerable fixes: a type scale that jumps from 14px to 24px with nothing between, or 11 one-off spacing values where a 4px grid was intended.

Accessibility gives a teardown findings that are objectively checkable rather than matters of taste. The 2026 WebAIM Million report, based on home pages analyzed in February 2026, found that 95.9% of the top one million home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures, up from 94.8% in the 2025 edition (WebAIM Million). The 2026 WebAIM Million report found low contrast text below the WCAG 2 AA thresholds on 83.9% of home pages, up from 79.1% in 2025, making low contrast the most commonly detected issue. WebAIM detected an average of 56.1 accessibility errors per home page across the top one million home pages in its 2026 Million report. Contrast ratios, focus states, and touch-target sizing therefore earn a dedicated pass in every teardown, because each one is a finding a follower can verify rather than argue with.

What if the file is out of scope or the wrong type?

Decline and refund a request that falls outside what the listing describes — wrong file type, a screen count far beyond the stated cap, or a redesign request when the listing only promises critique. Brillay's Custom Work page explains that you can decline a request that falls outside the stated scope, which closes it and returns the follower's payment.

Three mismatches are worth naming in the listing itself: a follower sending a live prototype link instead of an editable Figma file, a "redesign this for me" request rather than "tell me what's wrong with this," and access permissions that block the deliverable you promised. Figma's own documentation is the source of truth on what each access permission allows.

"Can view: People with can view access can only perform certain 'read only' actions, like inspecting properties, following, and commenting." — Figma Help Center, Guide to sharing and permissions

Because Figma's documented "can view" role already permits commenting, a view-only link is sufficient for a notes-and-comments teardown and insufficient only when your package promises an edited or duplicated file. State the accepted file type and access level up front and most mismatches never reach payment.

What else can a designer sell alongside teardowns?

A teardown does not have to be the only paid offer on a designer's page. Pairing the full file review with Paid Questions, Personalized Videos, Tips, and Goals covers what else followers ask for, and gives someone who cannot justify a $175 teardown a smaller way to pay.

• Personalized Videos: a custom video — a congratulations or encouragement message for a follower's launch or first shipped project — that you record and deliver through Brillay.
• Tips: a way for someone who found a free thread or template useful to support the work without buying a deliverable.
• Goals: funding toward a defined goal, such as a public design-system template, shown with a progress bar rather than sold as a product.

More on pricing and packaging design offers for followers covers keeping Paid Questions — one private question, one written answer — distinct from the full teardown.

How do you get a Figma teardown offer live?

Set the file type and screen-count cap first, then pick the delivery format (written, annotated file, or recording), set the price as (focused hours × hourly rate + $0.30) ÷ 0.891 rounded up, and choose a delivery time you can consistently hit inside Brillay's 5-day cap before publishing the listing (Custom Work and how it works).

Write the scope boundary into the listing itself — for example, "written notes plus one annotated Figma file, up to 15 screens, delivered once for $150" — so a follower knows exactly what the price covers. How to write a custom request offer covers structuring that listing copy so the scope is unambiguous on the page, not just in your head.

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the six questions designers ask before listing a paid Figma teardown: whether a portfolio or follower count is required, which Brillay offer type fits a file review, what to charge, how to handle a file far bigger than the listing describes, what Figma access the follower must grant, and what Brillay charges when a follower pays.

Do I need a big portfolio or follower count to sell design feedback?

No. Brillay has no follower minimum, and there's nothing to apply for — a clear, bounded scope sells a teardown, not audience size.

Should a Figma teardown be a custom request or a Paid Question?

Use Custom Work when the follower attaches the actual file and you send back an annotated file, a recording, or a longer written breakdown.

What should I actually charge for a Figma teardown?

Multiply your estimated focused hours by a target hourly rate to get the amount you want to keep, add $0.30, divide by 0.891, then round up — that covers Brillay's 8% fee on paid work and Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30; tips and goals carry a lower 5%. Using the BLS May 2025 median of $50.00 per hour as an example, a 90-minute teardown would list at about $85 to leave roughly $75 after estimated fees.

What if the follower's file is much bigger than what I priced for?

Decline and refund it, or point them to a larger tier before starting, rather than absorbing the extra scope for free — Brillay documents declining and refunding an out-of-scope Custom Work order as a creator control.

Does the follower need editing access to my Figma file, or the other way around?

The reverse — the follower grants you access to their file. Figma documents that "can view" access already allows commenting (Guide to sharing and permissions), so request "can edit" only when your package promises a directly annotated or duplicated copy.

What does Brillay charge for a paid Figma teardown?

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid — the platform rate is the one already used in the pricing math above, and Stripe's published pricing lists typical US online-card processing at 2.9% + $0.30 as a separate cost.

Create your free Brillay page, put Custom Work and your other offers behind one link, and let followers order without creating an account. Each teardown is a one-time purchase, and creators in 41 payout countries can connect their bank through Stripe.