NY UX Agencies

Enterprise and B2B SaaS UX agencies in New York

Nobody chooses enterprise software. It arrives, and people use it because their job requires it, which removes the usual feedback loop and lets bad interfaces survive for a decade.

See the agencies Read the FAQ

The enterprise design problem

Multiple user roles with conflicting needs, permissions logic that can't be simplified, twenty years of accumulated features nobody will let you remove, and a buyer who is not the user.

New York's concentration of financial, legal, and media institutions means most of the studios below have modernised something genuinely old.

At a glance

Seven studios, side by side

Facts only, no scores or rankings. What each team is built for, and where it sits.

Studio Enterprise focus Presence
Clay GlobalDense B2B SaaS and design systemsSoHo, Manhattan; remote-first, SF HQ
Work & CoPlatform scale and reliabilityDumbo, Brooklyn; global
ustwoService design, regulated organisationsBrooklyn; London HQ
DOOR3Legacy internal software modernisationNYC HQ, global team
Cake & ArrowAgent, underwriter, and broker toolingManhattan, ~47 people
XXIXReporting and analytics dashboardsNYC HQ, ~30 people
AREA 17Content-heavy platforms, information architectureNew York and Paris

The agencies

Seven built for complex software

The read, signature strengths, work to know, presence, and who each one suits.

Clay Global logo

Enterprise and SaaS UX is where this studio started.

The read:
Clay Global built its practice on enterprise and SaaS interfaces before adding brand and web, so complex B2B software is the home discipline rather than a vertical it expanded into. Its strongest work is on products with dense functionality and multiple user types, where the design job is deciding what each role sees. Design systems are a core service, which matters when the deliverable has to survive years of feature additions by an in-house team.
Signature strengths:
Enterprise and SaaS UX, design systems, UX research, UI design, product strategy.
Work to know:
Product and interface work for Google, Amazon, Slack, Stripe, Coinbase, and Sony.
Presence:
148 Lafayette St, SoHo, Manhattan. Remote-first, San Francisco HQ.
Suits you if:
You have a functionally dense B2B product and want UX and a durable design system from the same team.
Website:
clay.global
Work & Co logo

Platform-scale work where reliability is a design constraint.

The read:
Work & Co's enterprise work involves systems that cannot go down and interfaces that get used at volume, which changes what design decisions are permitted. Senior designers stay on projects through delivery, and they work next to engineers rather than throwing specifications over a wall. That structure suits large organisations where the failure mode is a beautiful design that turns out to be unimplementable.
Signature strengths:
Product UX, information architecture, usability research, design systems, interaction design.
Work to know:
The MTA's live New York subway map, plus digital products for Apple, Google, Nike, IKEA, and Mailchimp.
Presence:
Dumbo, Brooklyn headquarters, with global offices.
Suits you if:
You're a large organisation with a platform that has to work reliably for a very large number of people.
Website:
work.co
ustwo logo

Research depth applied to organisations, not just users.

The read:
ustwo's enterprise practice benefits from its work in regulated environments, where the constraints are fixed and the design has to accommodate them. Its service design capability is the useful part for enterprise buyers, because a lot of business software problems turn out to be process problems wearing an interface. Genuinely staffed research rather than a discovery phase bolted onto a design project.
Signature strengths:
UX research, service design, interaction design, UI, product strategy.
Work to know:
Enterprise and platform work for Google DeepMind, HSBC, Samsung, and Peloton.
Presence:
Brooklyn studio at 20 Jay St, London headquarters, plus Malmö, Lisbon, Tokyo.
Suits you if:
Your software problem is partly an organisational problem and you need someone who will say so.
Website:
ustwo.com
DOOR3 logo

Modernising business software that has been running too long.

The read:
An independent technology consultancy founded in 2002, DOOR3 works on the kind of internal applications that rarely make it into design portfolios: pharmacy management systems, law firm platforms, insurance broker tools. Its UX practice runs audits, research, and design systems alongside the build, and the audit offering is a sensible entry point if you have a working product that users complain about but nobody can explain why.
Signature strengths:
Enterprise application UX, UX audits, design systems, data visualization, user research.
Work to know:
Cadwalader's Connect platform, DAA Enterprises pharmacy management software, Surex Direct, Aptivio, and a digital overhaul for NJIT.
Presence:
New York City headquarters with a global team.
Suits you if:
You have mission-critical internal software built years ago and need it made usable without a rewrite.
Website:
door3.com
Cake & Arrow logo

The internal user as the actual customer.

The read:
Cake & Arrow works exclusively in insurance and financial services, and its enterprise credentials come from the employee-facing side: agent quoting applications, underwriter workflows, broker portals. That's a narrow specialism, and it means the team treats agents and underwriters as users with their own research needs rather than as an afterthought to the consumer experience.
Signature strengths:
Enterprise software UX, UX research, service design, product strategy, insurance and financial services.
Work to know:
Chubb, Travelers, Aflac, MetLife, Northwestern Mutual, Unqork, Citi, and EY.
Presence:
Manhattan, roughly 47 people.
Suits you if:
Your enterprise software is used by agents, brokers, or underwriters and nobody has designed for them properly.
XXIX logo

For the screen carrying too much information.

The read:
XXIX's data-visualization practice makes it a fit for enterprise reporting, analytics, and operational dashboards, which fail in a consistent way by treating completeness as clarity. It works from New York with founders, growth-stage startups, and technology companies, with design and brand from the same team of roughly 30 people.
Signature strengths:
Product UX, data visualization, interface design, brand.
Work to know:
Product and brand work spanning startups to large technology companies, including data-visualization projects.
Presence:
New York City headquarters, operating globally.
Suits you if:
Your analytics or reporting interface is comprehensive and unreadable.
Website:
xxix.co
AREA 17 logo

Structure first, for organisations with a lot to organise.

The read:
AREA 17's enterprise fit is with institutions managing large volumes of content and complex taxonomies, where navigation and information architecture carry more weight than interaction polish. It builds and maintains Twill, an open-source CMS, and that sustained technical investment explains why it handles platforms other studios decline.
Signature strengths:
Information architecture, platform UX, design systems, editorial and content system design.
Work to know:
Platforms for the Art Institute of Chicago and the International Energy Agency, plus a replatform for Pentagram. Twill is used by Nike and The New York Times.
Presence:
New York and Paris teams.
Suits you if:
Your enterprise problem is thousands of items and no coherent way to find them.
Website:
area17.com

FAQ

Enterprise UX, answered

How is enterprise UX different from consumer UX?+

The user didn't pick the product and can't leave it, so satisfaction metrics that work in consumer software tell you almost nothing. Success is usually measured in task completion time, error rates, and support ticket volume instead. The other difference is political. Consumer UX answers to users, enterprise UX answers to users, their managers, a procurement process, and whoever owns the roadmap, and agencies that can't navigate that produce work that never ships.

Do we need a design system, or is that an upsell?+

If more than one team touches the interface, or in-house designers will keep building after the agency leaves, it pays for itself. If you're designing a single focused product with one small team, it's often premature and the money is better spent on research. Ask any agency proposing one what happens to it after handover, because an unmaintained design system becomes a source of inconsistency rather than a cure for it.

How do agencies handle stakeholders who disagree with each other?+

Ask exactly this in the pitch. The good answer involves research as arbitration, using evidence about actual user behaviour to settle disputes that would otherwise be settled by seniority. The bad answer is a process diagram. Enterprise projects fail on alignment more often than on craft.

What does enterprise UX cost in New York?+

A defined product or a focused module commonly starts in the tens of thousands. Multi-role platforms with research, a design system, and phased delivery run into six figures and often past it. Consultancies that also develop quote higher but absorb the build. Budget separately for the discovery work, because on enterprise projects it is genuinely where the value is.

How long does it take?+

Research and design on a defined enterprise product typically runs twelve to twenty weeks, with stakeholder review rather than design time accounting for most of the difference from consumer work. Full platform modernisation is a multi-quarter programme delivered in phases. Treat a promise of a redesigned enterprise platform in six weeks as a promise to skip the research.

How do I choose between two strong agencies here?+

Start from what's actually broken. Legacy internal software that people struggle with points to DOOR3. A dense multi-role SaaS product points to Clay Global. Platform scale and reliability points to Work & Co. A process problem masquerading as a UI problem points to ustwo. Agent and broker tooling points to Cake & Arrow. An unreadable dashboard points to XXIX. A content and taxonomy problem points to AREA 17.