How Do Interior Designers Charge, and What Are You Actually Paying For?

FIELD NOTES

August 21, 2026

I’ve been fielding quite a few inquiries from potential new clients over the past few months, and there’s one conversation I’ve found myself having a lot lately: how, exactly, do interior designers charge for their work?

There is no universal answer. Interior design fees can be structured in several ways. Some designers bill entirely by the hour, others work on a flat fee, some charge a percentage of the overall project budget, and many use some combination of these approaches.

After twenty years of doing this work, I’ve landed on a blended pricing structure that uses all three.

Not because three fees are somehow better than one, but because the work itself falls into three very different categories. I’ve found that trying to force all of them into the same billing structure doesn’t necessarily make things simpler or more transparent. More importantly, it doesn’t always result in a fee structure that’s fair for all parties involved.

On paper, three different methods of billing can seem more complicated than one. But once you look at the nature of the work behind each fee, the logic becomes much clearer.

1. Design & Development: Flat Fee

The first part of our work is design and development: understanding the client, establishing the direction of the project, designing the spaces, developing the drawings, selecting materials and furnishings, and resolving the hundreds of interconnected decisions that eventually become a home.

We charge a flat fee for this work based on the scope of the project.

Years of historical data allow me to predict with a high degree of confidence what it takes my team to design and develop a project of a particular size and complexity. It’s also work performed primarily by my in-house design team, which means I have considerably more control over the process.

When the scope and the work are predictable, the fee should be too.

If something takes my team longer than anticipated, the client isn’t watching a meter run simply because we needed more time to solve a design problem. Conversely, the efficiencies we’ve developed over time don’t diminish the value of the work simply because we may arrive at a solution more quickly.

For me, that’s a more equitable arrangement for everyone involved.

2. Production, Procurement & Installation: Hourly

Once a project moves from design into execution, the nature of the work changes considerably.

Now there are contractors, fabricators, workrooms, vendors, receivers, freight companies, installers and other collaborators involved. There are schedules, lead times, damages, backorders, substitutions and countless variables that neither the client nor I can completely control.

Experience allows me to provide a reasonable range for this work, but it isn’t possible to predict exactly how many hours it will require before we’ve done it.

That’s why these phases are billed hourly, in 15-minute increments.

Rather than building a substantial contingency into a flat fee for every complication that might occur, the client pays for the work the project actually requires. At the same time, my business is fairly compensated when circumstances require considerably more involvement than anyone could reasonably have anticipated.

Predictable work is priced predictably. Unpredictable work is billed according to what it actually requires.

3. Purchasing: Cost Plus and Designer Markup

This is the part of the fee structure that tends to generate the most questions.

When we purchase furnishings, fixtures and materials on behalf of a client, we purchase many of those items at designer or wholesale pricing and add a disclosed percentage to our cost.

In other words, it’s a cost-plus model.

A client may reasonably ask: If I’m already paying a design fee and paying for procurement time, why is there also a markup on what I’m buying?

The answer is that these fees pay for different things.

The design fee pays for the expertise required to determine what should be purchased and how those decisions work together.

Hourly procurement and production fees pay for the time required to execute and manage those decisions.

The margin on merchandise helps support the business infrastructure that makes purchasing those goods possible in the first place.

That distinction isn’t unique to interior design.

If a mechanic repairs your car, you pay for labor and you pay for parts. The mechanic didn’t purchase those parts for the same amount they’re charging you. The same is true when an HVAC technician replaces a component in your home, when a general contractor purchases materials for a project, or when you buy a piece of furniture from a retailer.

The difference is that you generally have no idea what any of those businesses paid for the item they’re selling you.

You simply see the price.

With our cost-plus structure, you see both.

There’s a certain irony in that. The transparency intended to make the pricing clearer can sometimes make the margin itself more conspicuous. But the markup isn’t unusual. What’s unusual is being able to see it.

And there’s another important distinction: our designer and wholesale pricing is typically well below retail. Even after our disclosed markup is applied, our clients generally pay less than they would purchasing the same item through a retail source and, on average, no more than retail. The margin isn’t simply an additional fee layered onto a retail price. It exists within the difference between our purchasing cost and the price the consumer would ordinarily pay.

Why Do Interior Designers Mark Up Furniture and Materials?

This is also where the economics of running a design project become less visible.

There are invoices to reconcile, sales taxes to administer on the client’s behalf, quantities to double-check, payments to process, local travel to a litany of vendors, fabricators and job sites, and conversations and texts with vendors and contractors. Some of this work is appropriately captured in our hourly billing. But surrounding it are dozens of microscopic administrative touchpoints happening behind the scenes every day: the 30-second email, the quick confirmation, the accounting detail, the small follow-up. Each is necessary to keep a project moving, but impractical to track and itemize individually.

There is also a less tangible part of this work that is nearly impossible to put on a timesheet. Interior design has never been a profession that neatly begins and ends with the workday. I think about projects while I’m falling asleep, while I’m brushing my teeth, while I’m traveling, and, yes, occasionally while I’m supposed to be on vacation. I don’t bill my clients for those moments, nor would I want to.

Most designers I know live their work in much the same way. We notice things constantly. We’re turning over a problem in the back of our minds, remembering a material we saw six months ago, reconsidering a detail, or suddenly realizing how two seemingly unrelated ideas might solve something we’ve been working through. Interior design may be our profession, but it is also, in many ways, a lifestyle. We eat, sleep and breathe it.

Not every bit of thought, experience or attention that ultimately benefits a project can, or should, become billable time.

The margin on purchased goods is one part of a larger fee structure that recognizes that reality. It helps support the less visible infrastructure, both professional and personal, required to give a project the level of attention it deserves without attempting to monetize every microscopic interaction along the way.

For me, that’s another part of keeping the relationship fair for all parties. My business is compensated for the full responsibility of taking on the project, while my clients aren’t made to feel as though a meter is running every time I think about their home.

Why Not Just Charge One Fee?

Of course, we could.

I could charge everything hourly. I could build anticipated procurement and administrative costs into a much larger flat design fee. I could base my compensation on a percentage of the overall project budget.

Other designers use those models successfully, and there is nothing inherently right or wrong about any one of them.

This is simply the structure I’ve found works best for my practice and my clients.

It allows each phase to be priced according to the kind of work it actually is. Predictable work carries a predictable cost. Unpredictable work reflects the actual time it requires. And the infrastructure surrounding purchasing can be supported without trying to account for every small action along the way.

Ultimately, a good fee structure should reflect the reality of the work being performed, be transparent about where the money is going, and create an arrangement that is fair for everyone involved.

This is the structure experience has taught me does exactly that.