You’re mid-project, selections are rolling, and then it happens. The GC pulls you aside, or maybe sends a casual text, and says, “We’ll handle all the purchasing.” Sometimes it’s framed as streamlining the process. Sometimes it sounds more like a decision that’s already been made.
And immediately your brain goes to a familiar place: if the GC buys everything, do I just lose my revenue? Should it be the designer purchasing?
That’s the question the Interior Design Community raised, and the thread got specific fast. Because this isn’t a new situation, but it still catches designers off guard, partly because it sounds like a logistics conversation when it’s actually a business model conversation.
This post is about how to respond: what to say to the GC, what to clarify in your agreement, and how to structure purchasing so you’re not carrying risk without compensation.
The Real Issue Isn’t “Who Clicks Buy”
Before you push back or capitulate, get clear on what’s actually at stake. When a contractor wants to take over purchasing, four things shift simultaneously.
Scope is the first one. Specifying an item and purchasing it are not the same task. If you’ve specified tile, you also know the layout, the grout joint, the trim details, and what happens when the pattern doesn’t center the way you drew it. The GC purchasing that tile doesn’t transfer that knowledge. It transfers liability, sometimes yours.
Risk is the second. If the wrong item arrives, who owns the problem? Who has the authority to approve a substitution or initiate a return? Who is calling the vendor at 7 a.m. because the fabricator needs a re-cut to stay on schedule? When purchasing moves without that clarity, those calls still come to you, they just come without the revenue attached.
Quality control is the third. Procurement isn’t filing. It’s verifying specs before ordering, checking confirmations against your documents, flagging lead times before they blow a schedule, and inspecting on receipt. That labor belongs somewhere. If you release purchasing, be honest about whether you’re actually releasing that labor or just the profit.
Compensation is the fourth. If your revenue model includes product profit, losing procurement doesn’t just reduce revenue, it restructures your project economics. That has to be addressed directly, not hoped away.
The designers who handle this well reframe it early: this is not a commission conversation. It’s a conversation about scope and structure.
Keep It, Split It, or Release It: A Decision Framework
There’s no universal right answer to contractor purchasing. The right answer depends on the GC, the project scope, the client relationship, and your own business model. Here’s a practical way to decide.
Option 1: You Keep Purchasing
This is the right call when you’re delivering a full-service experience, and you’ll be managing substitutions, lead times, and damage resolutions regardless. If you’re doing the work, you need the control.
Script to the GC: “Totally understand you want things streamlined. For design-specified finish and decorative items, purchasing runs through our office so we can control specs, lead times, and substitutions. You’ll still get clean documentation and install coordination on your schedule.”
Script to the client: “To protect the design intent and reduce delays, our firm handles procurement for the items we specify. If the contractor purchases them instead, we need to shift responsibility and adjust our scope and fees accordingly.”
Mia Johnson’s episode on To-The-Trade, Redefining Boundaries in Interior Design, is worth a listen if this kind of conversation consistently feels harder than it should. The framework she walks through for protecting your creative scope maps directly onto procurement decisions.
Option 2: You Split Purchasing
This is often the most functional arrangement on larger projects. The GC buys what the GC should warranty and manage. You buy what requires your sourcing relationships, your design knowledge, and your QC.
A common split that holds up well in practice: the GC purchases rough materials, with trade-specific line items tightly tied to their warranty and schedule (e.g., certain plumbing rough, sometimes cabinetry if they’re managing install and warranty end-to-end). The designer purchases decorative lighting, tile and stone sourced through trade accounts, specialty hardware, wallcovering, rugs, furniture, and any custom fabrication you’re detailing.
Script to the GC: “Let’s divide procurement by responsibility. If you’re warranting it and managing the end-to-end install, it’s in your scope. If I’m sourcing it, detailing it, and managing the design intent, it stays in mine.”
This split works because it ties profit to accountability. The GC isn’t being asked to give something up, they’re being asked to own what they’re already responsible for.
Option 3: You Release Purchasing
You can choose to let the GC purchase. But do it as a deliberate business decision, not a default.
That means updating your agreement to reflect that you are not responsible for pricing, availability, freight, damage, returns, or substitutions unless contracted. It means requiring written approval for all substitutions, with cut sheets and photos, before anything is ordered. And it means charging for the additional hours generated by substitution reviews, re-spec work, or ordering windows you didn’t cause.
What you’re not doing is providing design intent documents, showing up to installations, reviewing shop drawings, and managing client expectations for free while someone else captures the margin.
Community member @damngooddesigner put it in clear terms: “It is not a commission so start there. But it is all about the end net profit. We base our fees on a combination of product profit, design fee and hour design oversight. It needs to be a certain minimum number under contract for us to engage.”
That framing matters. If you release purchasing, your contract minimum doesn’t disappear; it just needs to come from somewhere else.
Build a Procurement Responsibility Matrix
One of the most practical tools for preventing “mine vs. not mine” chaos is a one-page procurement matrix. Create it before a project starts, review it during the kickoff meeting, and include it in your standard project documentation.
Columns: Category / Who Specifies / Who Purchases / Who Receives and Checks / Who Warrants / Who Handles Issues / Notes.
Rows to cover: cabinetry, countertops, tile and stone, plumbing fixtures, decorative lighting, hardware, wallcovering, furniture and rugs, custom millwork or specialty fabrication.
Two things this matrix does. It prevents scope creep by making lanes visible before anyone crosses them. And it makes it very difficult for someone to quietly shift profit to their side of the project while leaving work on yours.
Community member @lsi_workshop put this dynamic plainly: “So clearly this is a GC who doesn’t value the relationship with you. A meeting with the GC at the beginning to discuss who is responsible for, and therefore profits from, which elements of the project is really important. You can also have a code of conduct doc for GCs.”
A code of conduct document for GCs is worth building if you work with multiple contractors across projects. It sets the tone before any individual project gets complicated. For more on building the GC relationship structure from the start, see Designer + GC Partnership: Roles, Money, and Risk Before You Team Up.
Talking About Money Without Apologizing
If your revenue model includes product profit, don’t try to reclaim it with emotional arguments. Tie it to labor, responsibility, and project minimums.
Three structures that work cleanly: design fee plus product profit, where you procure, you own the problems, and you earn margin. Design fee plus a fixed procurement fee, which works well when you want transparency and stable cash flow. Design fee only in a spec-and-consult role, where you deliver documentation, and you don’t manage ordering or installation issues.
If the GC insists on purchasing items you specified, you have two professional choices. You increase your design and oversight fees to cover the labor you’re still doing. Or you reduce your involvement so you’re not carrying risk without compensation.
If the markup question comes up directly, How to Confidently Answer “What Is Your Markup?” gives you the language to handle it without underselling.
@sevda_javandideh put her version of this in the most satisfying terms possible: “I object! Then I pull out my agreement stating all purchases go through the designer and clients can’t shop. No further questions, Your Honor. Case dismissed.”
The contract is the move. Your agreement should already state who handles purchasing and under what conditions that changes. If it doesn’t, now is the time to add it.
What to Say When It Comes Up Mid-Project
Sometimes this conversation arrives before the project begins, and you can handle it at kickoff. Sometimes it lands in the middle of a build, and you need language that’s firm without being combative.
A few phrases that hold up in both situations: “Happy to collaborate, but we need to align responsibility with scope and compensation first.” “If you purchase it, you manage it. That includes substitutions, lead times, damages, and installation coordination.” “To avoid delays down the road, let’s decide procurement lanes now and put them in writing.” “Our agreement covers purchasing structure and client shopping. Let’s refer to that so we’re working from the same expectations.”
@lisawallaceinteriors captured why timing matters on these conversations: “This can be a hard situation and usually arises after construction has begun. They are hearing ‘mine’ from both sides. They are also hearing ‘not my liability’ from both sides. It’s best to have the conversation as early as possible.”
Early is always better. But if you’re already mid-project, the matrix and the contract are still your clearest tools for getting things back on track.
@brennamorganinteriors offered a perspective on one clean way to handle it structurally: “We go completely hands off during construction. You want the profit, you get the problems.”
That’s a legitimate model when your scope and fees are set up for it. The keyword is “completely.” Partial handoffs, where the GC captures margin, but the designer still fields client calls about damaged tile, are where things go sideways.
For a deeper look at how to set up the GC working relationship before procurement becomes a sticking point, Working With a New GC: Who Buys What and Who Warrants What covers the foundational structure.
@collectedid described a clean natural split: “I don’t want to purchase material so have at it. At the beginning I say that I order decorative lighting, rugs, hardware, mirrors and all furniture. I don’t want liability of tile, cabinets and counters.”
That’s a defined split, communicated at the start, tied to liability. That’s the move.
The Bottom Line About Contactor vs Designer Purchasing
When a contractor wants to do all the purchasing, your job is to slow the conversation down and reframe it, not as a commission debate, but as a scope and structure decision.
Who controls the design outcome? Who carries liability if something goes wrong? Who is doing the labor? How does your firm get compensated for the responsibility it holds?
Get it decided early. Get it in writing. Use a matrix so everyone stays in their lane.