Grant Ultimate is a new premium tier I designed end-to-end.
It expanded Grant from a cash-advance product into a more differentiated subscription experience with stronger rewards, credit-building value, and upgrade pathways.

Background

The challenge


Grant originally focused on cash advance utility, but the product needed a stronger premium tier that could both justify a higher subscription price and create clearer differentiation from Plus. The challenge was not only to add more features, but to make Ultimate feel like a meaningfully more powerful membership—both functionally and emotionally.

What did I do?


To make Ultimate feel like a true premium tier, I had to solve three connected problems:

1. Differentiate the plan clearly from Plus
2. Turn benefits into repeatable motivation
3. Expand Grant into a stronger credit-building experience

Rather than designing isolated screens, I focused on making Ultimate feel like a coherent premium membership across the full user journey—from plan selection, to benefit understanding, to ongoing engagement.



Define a plan worth upgrading to

The challenge


Grant Ultimate needed to feel like more than a higher-priced version of Plus. If the new tier was going to justify a premium price, users had to understand both what was different and why it mattered.


What did I do?


I designed that differentiation across three layers:

  • a clearer plan comparison that highlighted why Ultimate was worth the higher price
  • a more distinct visual language that gave the tier stronger premium presence
  • ongoing subscription and upgrade surfaces that reinforced Ultimate’s value beyond the initial signup moment


Create a stronger premium visual language


To make Ultimate feel meaningfully different from Plus, I created a more distinct visual language for the new tier. Rather than relying on price or copy alone, I used color, iconography, and surface styling to give each plan a clearer identity.

Plus was designed to feel more utility-driven and accessible, while Ultimate needed a stronger sense of premium value and momentum. I used more elevated visual treatment to help Ultimate feel like a step up in both product value and membership status.

I also redesigned the plan selection and upgrade surfaces to make Ultimate’s value easier to evaluate. Instead of treating the new tier as a longer list of extra features, I focused the comparison on the differences most likely to drive upgrade decisions: faster boosts, stronger credit-building value, and broader membership utility.







Design a flagship reward system around milestone boosts


The challenge


Ultimate’s biggest differentiator could not live only on the pricing page.

It needed a core benefit that felt tangible after upgrade—something users could understand, anticipate, and stay engaged with over time.

What did I do?


I designed milestone boosts to play that role. The challenge was not just introducing a new perk, but turning it into a system that worked across the full member lifecycle: explaining how boosts worked, showing progress clearly, helping users redeem them in context, and handling the many edge cases that came with repayment behavior, eligibility, and different plan tiers.

This turned boosts from an abstract subscription benefit into a visible reward loop that reinforced why Ultimate was worth having.

Set up the milestone system


Because cash advance boosts were a new core benefit, the first challenge was making the system easy to understand. Users needed to know what the reward was, how to unlock it, and why it mattered before it could become a motivating reason to stay engaged. I created a lightweight “How it works” layer and defined key milestone states—such as empty, repayment pending, repayment finished, and redeemable—so the system remained legible as users moved through it.




Bring the reward into the advance flow


Once a boost became redeemable, the system needed to translate progress into immediate, usable value. I designed boost redemption directly into the advance flow so users could apply it in context, see the advance amount update immediately, and carry that value through method selection and final confirmation. I also reflected the redeemed state back on the dashboard, so the system closed the loop after use. This helped turn milestone boosts from an abstract reward into something users could actually use when it mattered most.







Bring credit-building value into Grant Ultimate


The challenge


Grant Ultimate needed to feel useful beyond moments of immediate cash need. To de-risk the premium tier and make it feel more valuable over time, the product needed a stronger long-term financial story.
Since Grant lives within the larger Kikoff ecosystem, there was a natural opportunity to bring credit-building value into the experience—but the challenge was making those features feel native to Grant rather than simply reused from Kikoff.

What did I do?


I created a new Credit tab inside Grant and migrated Bill Reporting and Rent Reporting from Kikoff into the product.
Rather than porting them over as-is, I refreshed the visual language to better fit Grant and refined parts of the experience—especially Rent Reporting—so they felt more intuitive, integrated, and relevant to Ultimate users.

Build a credit home inside Grant


I designed a dedicated Credit tab to give Grant users a clearer home for credit-building progress. The tab combined three layers of value:

* a prominent credit score overview
* a more educational view into how credit factors affect the score
* entry points into additional credit-building actions such as Bill Reporting and Rent Reporting

This helped position Ultimate as more than a cash-access tier. It introduced a second layer of product value: helping users understand and improve their credit over time.



Adapt Bill Reporting to fit Grant


Bill Reporting already existed in Kikoff, but bringing it into Grant required more than reusing the same feature. I adapted the experience so it felt connected to Grant’s product structure and more relevant to Ultimate users. This included creating clearer entry points from Grant surfaces, reframing the benefit in Grant’s voice, and designing a set of status cards that made reporting state more legible over time.

You can also check out my detailed Bill Reporting case study here.


Refine Rent Reporting for the Grant context


I also migrated Rent Reporting into Grant, but treated it as an opportunity to refine the experience rather than simply port it over. Because Rent Reporting involved more setup complexity, I focused on making the flow feel clearer and more guided for Grant users.

I updated the visual language to better match Grant and simplified the journey from entry to document upload, rent confirmation, payment verification, and reporting setup. I also designed supporting states such as rent management, all-set confirmation, and follow-up payment handling so the experience felt more complete after activation.

Compared to a straight migration, this made Rent Reporting feel more integrated, easier to understand, and more aligned with the Grant product ecosystem.






In the end

Impact


This work established the foundation for Grant Ultimate as a more differentiated premium tier. By defining its premium identity, designing milestone boosts as a flagship perk, and bringing credit-building value into the experience, I helped transform Ultimate from a higher-priced subscription into a more complete membership.
More broadly, this project helped position Grant as more than a cash advance product. It created a stronger premium offering that could support upgrade motivation, ongoing engagement, and longer-term retention. 

Reflection


As one of Kikoff’s primary designers focused on growth, this project shaped how I think about premium product design. I was not only designing screens, but helping define how a new tier should create value for the business and for users over time.

Designing Grant Ultimate required me to think across multiple layers at once—tier differentiation, premium visual language, reward systems, and ecosystem integration. It pushed me to work more holistically, connecting monetization strategy with user motivation and long-term member value. More than anything, it reinforced that strong premium design is not about adding more features—it is about making the added value feel tangible, coherent, and worth upgrading to.
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Ⓒ 2024 Yao Yao aka YY