How to Price Your Interior Design Projects

You guys asked for it! I get questions all the time, how do I know how to price my projects? It's a great question. I am going to do a micro course on this walking it through but let's break it down a bit today. Before I jump into that, I have just uploaded the proprietary calculator we created for Charles Interior...for you. I am posting it for a ridiculously low price considering the time that went into it, but, I want you guys to be able to use it. It will save you hours & give you the confidence you need to present your proposals. I'll get more into it soon, & am connecting a TikTok I did explaining it a bit.

How to price?

Well, first we need to understand the factors. Here are some examples:

• How long do you estimate the project will take? How many months? How many hours? (*Don't take the clients word for this & whatever you come up with...add at least 20%. Trust me.)

• How difficult or easy do you think the client will be to work with? Yes, I price accordingly. If I will likely get more grey hairs...you will pay that premium. No, I don't share that information with them.

• Will there be a project manager? Or will that fall to you?

• How many rooms/areas are there to design?

• Will there be more than one "cook in the kitchen"? Often when you have more than one individual that you need to please, you will spend more time reworking, convincing & playing therapist.

• What design level is it? High end? Low end?

• Will there be a reasonable budget? Or will budget be tight? Generally, the tighter the budget, the longer you spend on spec research. When you can spend what you need to, you tend to find things faster. Rather than hours spent trying to find the right thing in budget.

• Do you have confidence that this could be a repeat client? If so, you may lower your price for the chance to develop this relationship & gain projects.

• Will this project get you great exposure? Similar thought to above. If you'll get work from it, it may be worth lowering your price to secure it. (You may not always need to do that...so don't jump, simply consider & decide.)

• Are you doing purchasing? If you are, you'll profit there too so keep that in mind. That isn't a reason alone to change how you price, rather another factor to consider. Especially on a large project.

• Is it already a repeat client?

• How much travel will be involved?

• Is the design complex or simpler?

• Will this be really good for your portfolio? Or in an industry you're looking to get into?

• How many hours of the day/week/month will it take from your team?

• Will you need to outsource?

• Will the client be very involved, or let you do your thing?

• Do they have a contractor or accountant already? How do you feel working with that contractor?

Essentially, I always consider factors like these & then come up with pricing based on my base prices for each kind of individual space. For example, if hired to design a lobby alone, I have a minimum I would charge, it raises based on the different factors. If it's a large project with a lot of spaces, I almost never charge even my base number per room - I give a project fee which while large, amounts to less than my per area fee.

In order to make things easier to estimate my design fee for, we created this calculator which wraps it all in. You simple fill it out, make the appropriate selections & it tells you suggested pricing- based on your rules & base pricing. So you can customize & update it whenever! This also makes it easier to share the task. At first, only I could send proposals. With this tools, I/you can train another teammate which is a scaling must.

So, how you going to spend all your free time now? ;)

Good luck on your Interior Design journey!

XOXO

Shira