Rikke and I started IxDF in 2002 with nothing. We lived in a bamboo hut in Thailand with no investors, no safety net, and no plan B. We had a conviction that world-class design education should not be a privilege reserved for people who could afford a $15,000 degree.
That conviction has never changed.
We’re dramatically reducing the price of the IxDF Design League
Design League membership prices will be reduced to $99/month.
At the new price, this membership will include one hour of 1:1 coaching every month with an experienced designer, alongside the use of your very own “AI-Tutor” when doing courses.
Learn From Designers Who Choose to Give Back
Your monthly coaching hour is yours to use for the challenges that matter to you.
This may include a review of your portfolio or a piece of work, you might talk through a difficult design decision, discuss your career direction or get an experienced perspective on a challenge you're facing at work.
IxDF AI tutor is being rolled out this week
You’ve probably noticed that we’re shipping new features every week, launching new courses and master classes, and constant updates to existing ones.
This week, we've started gradually rolling out the IxDF AI Tutor in beta version. It will be live for one week for all IxDF members within the next 3-4 weeks so keep an eye on your IxDF account! After your trial week, you'll keep access with a daily message limit (unlimited if you're on Design League).
We’re increasing the price of master classes to $10
For years, master classes on IxDF cost $5 for members. The market price for comparable classes is several hundred dollars each. We were proud of that gap because we thought affordability was its own argument.
It turned out to be more complicated than that.
Every master class we produce loses money. Production costs are far higher than the $5 fee covers. We’ve accepted that for years because the IxDF mission justifies it. But the problems went beyond money.
Pricing psychology is a real thing
The price of master classes worked against us. Again and again, members and speakers told us the same thing: a $5 master class may feel like a $5 master class, regardless of being genuinely exceptional. Price signals quality, and a $5 master class signals the wrong thing. Potential members look at the price and assume the content cannot be of world-class quality.
That hurts us, and it hurts the speakers who give their time to create something genuinely exceptional. The new master class price at $10 is still a fraction of what comparable content costs elsewhere.
Our low prices hurt our ability to compensate master class speakers
Our well-intentioned, low prices have hurt our ability to pay those speakers fairly. Many of the world's best designers declined to teach for IxDF because the economics made it impossible for us to compensate them properly. The speakers who taught for us anyway did so out of generosity, accepting far less than their time is worth.
The organic internet is dying
Even at the new price, master classes still do not generate a profit. The internet used to reward good content with free traffic. That era is over. Today, whether you want to reach new people or your own existing followers, you pay. Meta, Google, and the other platforms have quietly turned the web into a toll road.
To sell a master class ticket, we often have to spend more on reaching the buyer than the ticket brings in. And then we have to pay speakers, staff, and expenses on top. The economics of the internet have become complicated and competitive within the past few years, and the pace has accelerated dramatically in the past year.
The cost of introducing IxDF to a new member has risen substantially and will keep rising. It either comes out of revenue or it comes out of the mission.
We do not say this to blame the tech platforms or to ask for your sympathy. We say it because it’s true, verifiable, and directly connected to the price you pay. We do not want to pretend that the economics are simple when they are not.
What happens next
All price changes take effect five days from today, on Tuesday, September 29. Until then, everything stays at the old prices. That includes every master class in our catalogue, still at $5 each.
If you have had your eye on a few of them, or all of them, this is the moment. You can pick up the complete catalogue for less than the market price of a single class elsewhere and save literally thousands of dollars. Consider it our thank you for reading this far.
You will find all updated pricing on your billing page at ixdf.org/my-private-profile/billing, and we will update our terms of service so everything you read here is also what the fine print says.
One last request…
If you have found real value in IxDF, tell one person. Not for our sake, but for theirs. The designers who benefit most from a membership like this are often the ones who have never heard of us.
A referral from you carries more weight than any ad we could run.
Thank you for being part of IxDF.
Mads and Rikke
Co-founders, IxDF
