I've only designed two t-shirts and they were both for teams and not for indiv. sale or profit so 1 time pay was appropriate and worked out.

I'm beginning to work with a company on several designs for apparel. It's a new company still in it's beginning phases and I have the opportunity to help structure business contracts in terms of pay.

My question is, if you have the choice which do you take. An hourly rate, a monthly retainer, a flat rate per design or a small residual income off each item purchased for the lifetime of that product.

As a start up company worried about front end costs, residual payments seem more cost effective and are still easy to keep track of with few designers. I think this is the way we are leaning but I wanted to get some opinions from you.

Pros/ Cons

keep in mind that this is a company you can trust.