How to price interior design work
Interior design jobs rarely lose money on the drawings. They lose it on extra site visits, rounds of revisions nobody counted, and furniture bought at a margin you never worked out. This guide is for interior designers, decorators and small design studios, and the fee and budget sections apply just as well to architects and landscape designers. Every number comes from your own records: your time tracking, past project records, supplier trade accounts, the accounts and the client's brief. The calculators apply the figures you enter and nothing else.
1. Start from the hourly rate your studio needs
Every fee method in this guide, including flat and percentage fees, rests on an hourly rate, because hours are what you actually spend. Work it out from three figures: the income you want to take home, the overhead the studio carries, and the hours you can genuinely bill in a year. Take overhead from the accounts: rent, software, samples, insurance, professional fees, vehicle costs and marketing. Take billable hours from your time tracking, not from a full working week, because admin, sourcing trips and business development eat into it. The hourly rate calculator turns those into the rate you need to charge. Keep that rate to hand; every calculator below asks for it.
2. Build the design fee from phases and site visits
Split the job the way you work it. Concept covers the brief, mood boards and the first layouts. Development covers the chosen scheme, finishes and furniture selections. Documentation covers drawings, schedules and specifications for contractors. Estimate hours for each phase from past project records of similar size, then count site visits separately, including travel time, because they are easy to forget and slow to deliver. Add a contingency for revisions: the extra round when the client changes their mind about the kitchen. Enter it all in the design fee calculator, which returns total hours, a base fee, the contingency and the design fee to quote. If the client wants one fixed price, the hourly to fixed fee calculator shows how to carry the same hours into a single figure.
3. Hourly or percentage of project: compare on this project
Some clients expect a fee charged as a percentage of the project budget, others want hourly billing. Neither is better in general. What matters is how each one works on the job in front of you. Take the project budget from the client's brief, the percentage from your own fee proposal, and estimated hours from step 2. The hourly vs percentage fee calculator returns both fees, the difference between them, the hourly rate the percentage fee implies, and the break-even hours at which the two are equal. Add an overrun allowance from your own past jobs to see what happens when the work takes longer than planned. If the implied hourly rate falls below the rate from step 1, the percentage fee is underpricing this project.
4. Procurement: trade discount, markup and what the client sees
Procurement means buying furniture, fixtures and finishes on the client's behalf. A trade discount is the reduction a supplier gives registered trade buyers off the retail price. Your cost is the retail price less that discount, plus freight. Take the discount from your supplier trade accounts, item by item, because it differs between suppliers and product lines. Markup is profit as a share of your cost; margin is profit as a share of the price the client pays. They are not the same number, and confusing them is how studios end up with less profit than they meant. The procurement markup calculator takes retail price, trade discount, your markup or a target client price, and freight, and returns your cost, the client price, gross profit, margin and the client's saving against retail. That last figure is worth showing the client. To convert between markup and margin on any figure, use the markup and margin calculator.
5. Per-room flat fees and the minimum fee
A per-room fee is easy for clients to understand and easy for you to quote quickly, as long as it comes from hours. Take hours per room from your time tracking on past rooms of a similar kind, then add a complexity uplift for rooms with more detail, such as kitchens and bathrooms with joinery and plumbing to coordinate. Count site visit hours on top. The per-room flat fee calculator returns total hours, the computed fee, the flat fee and the fee per room. Set a minimum fee as well. A single small room still needs a consultation, a visit, a scheme and follow-up, and the minimum makes sure that work is paid. Check your minimum against the hours a small job actually took in your records, priced at the rate from the hourly rate calculator.
6. Allocate the client's budget before you design to it
Clients often give one number for everything. Split it before you start designing, so the scheme fits the money rather than the other way round. Take the total from the client's brief, then set shares for your design fee, furniture and furnishings, construction and trades, and a contingency for surprises once walls are opened. The project budget allocation calculator returns the amount in each category, the share allocated and whether anything is left over or over-allocated. If it is over, have that conversation now, not when the sofa is on order. Put the design fee from the design fee calculator into the split so the client sees your fee as part of the whole. To build a budget from line items instead, use the project budget calculator.
7. Deposits, stage payments and the change process
Design work runs for months, and procurement means large sums leave your account before the client pays you. Take a deposit before work starts, invoice at the end of each phase, and ask for payment on furniture orders before you place them with the supplier. The deposit split calculator divides the fee into a deposit and stage payments. Set clear payment dates with the invoice due date calculator, and apply any late charge your terms allow with the late fee calculator. Write down how changes are handled: what counts as a change, how it is priced, and that it is agreed in writing before you do the work. Price each change with the design fee calculator rather than absorbing it. For ongoing clients who want you on call, the retainer calculator sets a monthly fee from the hours you commit. If you want the whole routine in one file, the Interior Design Pricing Workbook keeps fees, procurement and budgets together.
The mistakes that cost the most
- Leaving site visits out of the fee. Visits and the travel to them are hours. Count them in the design fee calculator.
- Agreeing a percentage without checking the hours. A tight budget with a demanding scope can pay less than your rate. Test it in the hourly vs percentage fee calculator.
- Mixing up markup and margin. A markup on cost gives a smaller margin on price. Check both in the procurement markup calculator.
- Designing before the budget is split. A scheme the client cannot afford wastes your hours. Allocate it first in the project budget allocation calculator.