A client buying furniture outside the contract is rarely a taste problem, even when the piece is wrong. It is a revenue problem with a scope problem attached, and it lands after the specification work is already done in hours you cannot bill back. The replies to this question split hard: charge the percentage and end the project, or absorb it and make the room work. What separates those two answers is not temperament, it is whether your agreement gave you anything to enforce.
Procurement revenue is not a bonus line on the invoice
Firms that bill time and sell goods are running two revenue streams that cover different costs. Design fees pay for thinking and drawing, while the procurement margin covers the part clients never see: quoting, order entry, freight claims, receiving reports, and the punch list after a damaged chair arrives. Lose the second stream mid-project and the first rarely stretches far enough to cover payroll. Designers in the Interior Design Community thread were blunt about that math.
“A client just did this to us on a whole home lighting proposal. They sourced the exact items we presented through another designer who works with the builder occasionally and purchased them. The other designer undercut our freight, receiving and delivery fee which is not profit. We cannot stay in business with time billing alone, we count on the sale of goods to cover payroll and overhead. How would you add this to a contract?”
@laura_y_smith
Her last line is the real question, and it is worth noticing what she is protecting. Freight, receiving and delivery are not margin, they are costs she fronted and cannot recover. When another designer undercuts those numbers to win the order, the client sees a cheaper invoice and never sees the service that came off the table. That is also why charging a design fee and a markup is standard practice rather than double-dipping, since each covers different work.
The split in this thread tracks almost exactly with the business model. Firms that make most of their money on goods treat an outside purchase as lost revenue. Firms working on flat fees treat it as a design inconvenience. Both are reading their own numbers correctly, which is why the advice sounds contradictory until you ask what each person actually sells.
What your agreement has to say before you can enforce anything
Most of the frustration in this thread traces back to one gap: an agreement that never named what happens when the client buys direct. Without that language, you are negotiating from scratch, mid-project, with someone who has already spent the money. With it, you are pointing at a term they signed. The difference in leverage is total.
“If your contract doesn’t address this, the first thing you do is take 15 minutes and update your contract. Next, talk to your client and explain that it really affects the design when they do that and you can’t do your job reacting to purchases rather than directing them. Apologize for it not being clear in the contract.”
@danamitchellinteriors
Two moves there, and the order matters. Fix the document first so the next client cannot do this, then have the project conversation in front of you. Most designers skip their instinct to apologize for the gap, and it is what keeps the discussion from turning into an accusation. The mechanics of that language, including how to define a direct purchase and what the firm is owed when one happens, are worth borrowing from a procurement clause written for this exact situation.
Wording is where this stops being a philosophy question and becomes a drafting one. Percentages, triggers, notice requirements and termination rights all have to point at each other, or the clause collapses the first time someone reads it closely. It is worth hearing Wendy Estela, a business attorney, on what a design agreement has to do when a client tests it before you edit your own terms, and worth paying someone licensed in your state to read the result. Educational content, not legal advice.
The conversation that keeps the clause in the drawer
Enforcement is the expensive path. Prevention is cheap, and it mostly comes down to repetition. Clients who understand why purchasing runs through the firm, and who have heard it more than once, rarely test it by accident. The designers who almost never deal with this explain the model at the agreement stage and then mention it again in every proposal.
“Yes we have a clause in@our contract that states we will charge 20% over the highest retail pricing. There is also a clause in the contract about termination and e#we enforce it. We also spend a good amount of time educating our clients on our practices and why we enforce this. We don’t want anyone saying they just didn’t know how it works, they know!”
@mandevillecanyoninteriordesign
The phrase worth stealing is at the end: we don’t want anyone saying they just didn’t know how it works. That is the entire purpose of the repetition, and it removes the only defense a client has when the clause is invoked. Notice that she pairs the education with a termination clause she is willing to use. Teaching the policy and being able to exit are one strategy, not two alternatives.
Price that education into onboarding instead of treating it as a courtesy. A ten-minute walkthrough of how goods get quoted, ordered, received and warrantied costs less than one unapproved sofa, and it gives the client a reason that is about their project rather than your commission. Say it again when you send the first proposal, because that’s when the numbers become real to them.
What to do about a client buying furniture outside the contract
Once it happens, you have three honest responses, and the choice is financial rather than moral. Bill the contracted percentage and continue. Bill it and end the project. Or absorb it, say one sentence, and carry on.
The deciding question is what the rest of the project is worth. If the remaining scope still funds the firm, invoking the term and staying is rational. If the client has effectively moved procurement in-house, the revenue that justified your rate is gone, and what remains is a time-billing engagement at a rate you never set for that kind of work.
“It’s in my contract that they owe me a percentage usually 35% if they purchase outside the contract. If they don’t pay me, I end the project. IF they approach me FIRST, and ask permission, I MAY work something out with them. But I will charge my time to do so. I hear designers talk about this and not know what to do. It’s simple, they’ve breached the contract, assuming that clause is in the contract. And I get it, sometimes one needs the work. But I guarantee you you will be working much harder to make those items look decent in the final space! It’s not worth it!”
@patricklandrumdesign
His exception is the useful part. A client who asks first is negotiating, and you can price negotiation. A client who buys first has already decided, and all that is left to settle is what it costs them. The warning at the end deserves weight too, because the labor of making unvetted pieces work in a finished room is real, substantial, and almost never billed.
The losses that never show up on the invoice
The percentage is the easiest number to name and the smallest part of what actually moved. Vendor relationships took years to build and depend on volume and clean orders. A client who shops a specification into a third party strains accounts that were never theirs to spend, and the designer quietly absorbs that cost, usually without ever mentioning it.
“Lessons learned, hey? It’s the perfect time to thank them for their previous business and remind them that when furnishings purchases are made outside of your business, they are 100% their responsibility and your full additional services rate (the top end hourly) applies should you become involved in any way. Yes, this means a 5 minute question receives a 15 minute change. It also seems that the scope has changed and while a change order would typically be required, it’s not going to work. When procurement occurs outside of the designer, that’s not just a lost line of revenue, it’s lost trusted and vetted relationships with vendors and suppliers. This change in scope (in my view) is a breach of terms and, if the revenue shortfall is severe enough that it would not be made up as the project progresses, it would be a good time to review your standard agreement purchasing terms with an attorney and reduce your risk going forward.”
@coreyklassen
The mechanism he names is what most firms miss: a rate that applies the moment the designer is pulled into a purchase they didn’t make. A five-minute question really does cost fifteen minutes, and billing it is not punitive; it is accurate. His closing advice is also the right order of operations, because reviewing purchasing terms with counsel after a loss is how the next contract gets written. It’s also worth seeing the upstream version of the same conversation, which comes up when a client asks for your vendor contacts long before anyone buys anything.
When enforcing costs more than the clause protects
Not every outside purchase is a breach worth acting on. A client who buys a lamp and a pair of pillows isn’t dismantling your procurement model, and treating it as such costs more goodwill than it recovers. Scale is the first filter: one accessory is noise, a dining set is a line item, a whole-home lighting package is a different project altogether.
“Here’s the thing, it’s the client’s home and I want them to be happy living there. If they really love something, I’m confident enough in my talent that I know I will find a way to make it work. Of course a room full of unapproved furniture can throw everything off, but a few accessories or a piece of artwork isn’t the end of the world.”
@wilsoninteriordecorating
That is proportionality, not weakness. Confidence in your own ability to make something work is a legitimate professional position, and it reads to the client as service rather than surrender. The test is whether the purchase changed the economics or only the plan: if it changed the plan, solve it, and if it changed the economics, invoke the term.
Timing is the second filter. An unapproved purchase during specification is usually recoverable, because the plan can still absorb it. The same purchase after installation starts means reordering, restocking fees, or living with a compromise, and that is when a polite absorption quietly becomes expensive.
This position cannot survive a pattern. One piece absorbed without comment teaches the client the policy is negotiable, so even a generous answer needs a sentence attached.
Your clause is worth what you are willing to enforce
A purchasing term nobody invokes is a paragraph, not a protection. The firms that rarely face this have three things in place: language that names the consequence, a client who has heard the reason more than once, and an owner who decided in advance which projects are worth ending. Make that last decision while nothing is at stake, because the one made in the moment is almost always the expensive one.
Then pick the number and write it down. Thirty-five percent, thirty percent of cost, twenty over highest retail: the figure matters far less than whether it is in the agreement and whether you will actually send the invoice.
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Who Purchases Materials: Designer or Builder, and Who Pays
