The True Cost of a Junior Designer vs a Monthly Ask For Dex Subscription

HIGHLIGHTS:

• How to compare a junior hire and a subscription
  
• What payroll rules change the hire-side total
  
• How workflow and approvals shape the choice
  

Comparing a junior designer to a monthly design subscription can feel simple until you try to write down everything that changes hands each month.

What does it really cost, month by month, to keep design work moving: a junior hire, or a subscription where you work with “Dex”?

A useful answer starts with side-by-side totals. One is the fully loaded employment total based on current payroll rules and time-off rules, and the other is the subscription invoice plus anything you still need to buy to get work finished (Government of Canada, 2025, Canada Revenue Agency).

Begin with pay, because that is the base that most other payroll items attach to. In Ontario, Job Bank reports hourly wages for “Graphic designers and illustrators” with a low of 21.00 and a median of 32.69, which can help you check whether your junior designer offer is in a realistic band (Government of Canada, 2025, Job Bank).

Next, add statutory employer contributions that are easy to miss when you compare only salary versus a monthly fee. In 2025, the employer CPP contribution rate is 5.95% and a second additional CPP contribution (CPP2) applies at 4.00% on an additional earnings slice, so employer contributions can change as annual pay rises (Government of Canada, 2025, Canada Revenue Agency).

Josh Bersin, global industry analyst, argues that recruiting and hiring impose meaningful time and process overhead beyond wages, including screening, interviewing, and onboarding work that organizations often fail to fully account for (Bersin, 2018, Josh Bersin Blog).

CPP2 has its own rate and maximums table that sits alongside the base CPP rules (Government of Canada, 2025, Canada Revenue Agency).

Employment Insurance also adds an employer portion. For 2025, the employee premium rate is 1.64 per 100 of insurable earnings and most employers pay 1.4 times the employee premium (Government of Canada, 2025, Employment and Social Development Canada).

Then look at time off. In Ontario, vacation pay must be at least 4% of wages for less than 5 years of employment and at least 6% after 5 years (CLEO, 2025, Rights at Work).

Benefits can matter even when you do not attach a precise dollar figure on day one. Job Bank reports that 89.4% of workers in this occupation group receive non-wage benefits (Government of Canada, 2025, Job Bank).

Now zoom out from payroll. Recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and managing work quality can create real effort beyond the wage line, especially when the role is new or the manager is already overloaded (Bersin, 2018, Josh Bersin Blog).

Monthly subscriptions are often positioned as a way to keep some of that overhead predictable, by letting you route recurring design and related marketing tasks through a named point person and a defined monthly scope (Ask For Dex, 2025, Product page).

One example is a service called Ask For Dex, priced at 1,990.00 CAD per month on its product page, and described as an “Exclusive Service” where Dex supports ongoing tasks like website updates, social posts, and email work (Ask For Dex, 2025, Product page).

To compare the options without guessing, write the same questions above both columns. What work volume do you need covered each month, and what quality bar must be met for the output to be usable (Ask For Dex, 2025, Product page).

Then build the hire-side total with your actual numbers. Use the wage you would pay, add employer CPP and EI under the current rates, add the vacation pay rule you fall under, and add any benefits you plan to fund (Government of Canada, 2025, Canada Revenue Agency), (Government of Canada, 2025, Employment and Social Development Canada), (CLEO, 2025, Rights at Work).

Build the subscription-side total the same way. Start with the monthly fee, then add any separate software seats or extra freelance you still buy when the subscription scope or capacity runs out (Ask For Dex, 2025, Product page).

After the arithmetic, do a quick workflow check using recent work, not hopes. Think back to the last request that came in late Friday, needed quick edits, and bounced between approvals, and ask what slowed you down most.

Benjamin Enke, economist at Harvard University, describes how simple decision rules can lead people to overweight the most salient information and underweight harder-to-observe factors, which can distort comparisons that focus only on visible line items (Enke, 2020, The Quarterly Journal of Economics).

Context changes the decision. If you have steady weekly demand, note whether in-house context would shorten briefing and revision cycles.

If your demand arrives in bursts, write down how you will handle quiet weeks and peak weeks, and which option gives you a clearer plan for both.

If approvals are complex, map the steps from request to final and note where files stall, because that is often where delivery slows down.

A simple mental check can keep the comparison honest: people tend to focus on what is easiest to see and measure, and ignore what is harder to observe (Enke, 2020, The Quarterly Journal of Economics).

A practical way to reduce surprises is to run a small trial in the same workflow you expect long term. Keep the work types realistic, keep the feedback loops the same, and note what you had to change to get acceptable output.

If you lean toward hiring, plan how the junior role will get direction. A junior designer can do great work, but clear briefs, consistent feedback, and a path for approvals usually decide whether the role feels smooth or chaotic.

If you lean toward a subscription, set expectations in writing on turnaround, how revisions are handled, and what happens when the monthly scope is used up. Subscriptions tend to work best when the work intake is tidy and the definition of done is not vague.

If you treat this as a systems choice instead of a personality choice, the decision becomes clearer. You are choosing the most reliable way to produce graphic design work at the level you need, while keeping the true cost of hiring a junior designer visible enough that you do not get surprised later (Government of Canada, 2025, Job Bank).

FAQ:

What should go into a fully loaded employment total for a junior designer?
Include wages plus employer CPP, CPP2 if applicable, employer EI, and the applicable vacation pay rule, then add any benefits and tools you fund (Government of Canada, 2025, Canada Revenue Agency) (Government of Canada, 2025, Employment and Social Development Canada) (CLEO, 2025, Rights at Work).

Where can I find a public wage range to sanity-check an offer?
Job Bank publishes wage ranges by occupation and region, including Ontario wage data for graphic designers and illustrators (Government of Canada, 2025, Job Bank).

Do CPP and EI rates change?
Yes, published payroll rates and maximums can change by year, so use the current Government of Canada pages when you run your worksheet (Government of Canada, 2025, Employment and Social Development Canada).

How should I treat vacation pay in the comparison?
If the role is in Ontario, account for at least the minimum vacation pay percentage that applies to the employee’s length of service (CLEO, 2025, Rights at Work).

What should I verify on a subscription before comparing it to hiring?
Confirm what task types are included, how scope is defined, how revisions are handled, and what the monthly price is on the provider’s published terms (Ask For Dex, 2025).

How do I avoid undercounting the “invisible” parts of the work?
Treat the decision as a systems choice and deliberately write down what is hard to measure, because research on heuristics shows people tend to overweight what is easiest to observe (Enke, 2020, The Quarterly Journal of Economics).