A renovation inquiry lands in your inbox. The client wants a full gut, kitchen through primary suite, maybe the powder room while they’re at it. They’re excited. They want to move fast. And somewhere in the first conversation, they ask: “What’s this going to cost?”
Not the renovation itself. Your fees.
You know the scope isn’t defined yet. You know the drawings aren’t done, the architect may or may not be involved, and the contractor hasn’t been selected. You also know that if you say a number and it’s wrong, you’ll be living inside that number for the next 18 months.
This is the pricing moment that separates designers who protect their time from designers who give it away. And it’s one Interior Design Community explored directly when a member asked: if a full renovation project came in tomorrow, how would you calculate pricing?
The community had a lot to say.
Why Renovation Pricing Is Not Like Soft Furnishing Work
A furnishing project has a relatively legible scope. You’re working room by room, sourcing products, managing procurement, and delivering and installing. There are unknowns, but the categories of work are knowable from the start.
A renovation is different. The scope lives inside walls. It evolves with architectural decisions, contractor bids, permit reviews, and client changes of heart. A project that begins as a kitchen refresh can expand to include structural work, new plumbing locations, and custom millwork, sometimes within the first few weeks.
That volatility is the core challenge of renovation pricing. Any fee structure you use has to account for what you control and what you don’t, and how to manage it when scope expands mid-project.
The methods designers use reflect this directly. Some have moved away from flat fees on renovations entirely. Others have built hybrid models. A few have introduced preliminary feasibility work to earn something meaningful before the full scope is even defined.
What Happens When You Underprice a Renovation
Underpricing a renovation doesn’t just hurt your margin on that project. It creates a compounding problem.
When fees are too low for the scope, you start cutting into your own time: skipping documentation steps, compressing site visits, absorbing project management work that should be billed separately. Then the project runs long, as renovations do, and you’re covering the gap with hours you’ll never invoice for.
The client doesn’t see this happening. They see a designer who seems stretched, less responsive, and less organized than they expected. The relationship erodes from the inside.
Getting renovation pricing right is not just about being paid fairly. It’s about having enough margin to actually do the job well.
The Fee Models Working Designers Are Using
The responses in the community thread covered a wide range of approaches. Here is how they break down in practice.
Hourly with a percentage estimate at consultation. Several designers charge hourly across all phases but provide clients with a rough percentage framework at the start, giving them some grounding for expectations. The most common benchmark mentioned: design fees run 15 to 20 percent of the construction budget, not including procurement or product markup. This approach protects the designer when scope shifts. It can be harder to sell because the total is open-ended, but a well-framed percentage provides the client with a planning figure.
Flat fee with defined deliverables. A flat fee works when the scope can be clearly bounded. Some designers use it specifically for the permit and drawing phase, where deliverables are more predictable, and then transition to hourly once construction starts and the unknowns multiply.
Hybrid model. Flat fee for the design phases you control; hourly for anything that touches the construction phase. This is where many experienced designers have landed. It gives the client a concrete number for design deliverables while protecting the designer during project management and construction administration.
Percentage of the construction budget. This approach scales fees with project complexity and keeps compensation proportional to the management load. The challenge is that construction budgets shift, sometimes dramatically, so it works best alongside a clear scope definition and a mechanism for recalibrating if the budget changes significantly.
Per-square-foot benchmarks. Some designers use square footage as a starting point and build from there. @thymeandplacedesign shared how this works in their practice:
“I have found that $10-20 per square foot, with a minimum of 1000 square feet plus product procurement, has worked for me. If there is no product procurement, then the price for the design and specification is $35.00 per sq foot, a minimum of 10000 sq ft. Those numbers vary based on the project and the location. If I am doing a kitchen where I am making the money on the products and the installation, I work at a budget development of 3500.00 per linear foot for cabinets, tops installed. Allowances for lighting, flooring, tile, and painting… I look at this as it relates to what I cost per day with my experience, knowledge, access to products.”
@thymeandplacedesign
What makes this useful isn’t the specific numbers, which will vary by market and experience level. It’s the underlying logic: know what a day of your time is worth, know how many hours different project types actually require, and work backward to a fee that holds. Whatever model you use, the principle is the same. Know your cost. Know your scope. Build in a buffer.
Why Experienced Designers Warn Against Flat Fees on Renovations
The most consistent warning in the thread came from designers who had learned this lesson directly. Flat fees on renovations carry real risk because the variables you cannot control do not respect your pricing decisions.
@lsi_workshop put it plainly:
“Unless you are REALLY experienced I would not suggest a flat fee for a renovation. There are too many unknowns that can come up and eat away your time and profit. Either charge hourly and make sure you track ALL of your hours, or do a hybrid fee where you have a flat design fee for the work you control, but as soon as you hand the drawings off to the builder it becomes hourly. That’s really where you can lose your shirt if you’re not careful.”
@lsi_workshop
The phrase “the work you control” is worth sitting with. In a renovation, the design deliverables (drawings, specifications, presentations) are in your hands. The construction administration phase, site visits, trade coordination, contractor communication, and real-time problem-solving are not. Billing those hours differently isn’t a workaround. It’s a structural acknowledgment that your exposure varies by phase.
If you’re going to use a flat fee on any portion of a renovation, define in writing exactly what is and isn’t included, and price in a contingency for what you know will go sideways.
The Phased Proposal: Building Flexibility Into Your Agreement
One of the most practical approaches in the thread was the phased proposal model, which acknowledges that you often can’t know your full scope until a portion of the design work is already complete.
@mals_w described how their firm handles renovation projects that involve close collaboration with an architect:
“Lately I’ve been doing 2 proposals. We do a ton of construction where we work hand in hand with the architect on the plans. This means scope creep (which we are fine with at this stage!) So, my first proposal is usually about 25 to 50 hours (depending on the project size) to cover our work with the architect and client in getting to the final plans. Once we have those plans in hand, I then feel comfortable providing the next estimate. At that point, I draft an addendum to the proposal to cover the design work, construction documents for the bid, procurement and project management. We charge hourly, so the proposal hosts our services + an overall design hours estimate. At this point I’m not yet comfortable doing a flat fee for any phase even though I do think it would make life easier! Even though we do give people a range sometimes there is scrutiny. At our consultation I do usually tell people we fall within 15-20% of the overall construction budget but obviously this is not a hard and fast number. But it does start to give the client an idea of what we might cost.”
@mals_w
This approach does two things well. First, it secures the client in a paid engagement before the full scope is defined, thereby protecting the designer from having to perform significant unpaid schematic work. Second, it creates a natural checkpoint where both parties can recalibrate before committing to the full project fee.
For clients, this structure can reduce anxiety. Rather than being handed a large lump-sum commitment at the start, they understand they’re paying for a defined first phase, with a clearer number to follow. It’s a structure that also connects directly to the question of how much design work belongs before a proposal is accepted.
Benchmarks From the Field
Numbers are a part of this conversation that designers most often want and least often share openly. The thread was unusually candid.
@slayton.interiors shared the framework they use to give clients a fee reference at the start of a project:
“I always charge hourly for my work, but of course the clients need to have an estimate of what that will be to plan accordingly. I tell them design fees outside of furniture and decor, procurement and markup, just purely design and project management is typically 20% of the renovation budget. That way they have a framework for my costs. I am thinking about doing an analysis of my last four mid-size to large renovations to see if that number has been accurate.”
@slayton.interiors
The 20 percent figure came up repeatedly across the thread. It aligns with what several designers reported observing across their own completed projects. It is a consultation benchmark for setting client expectations, not a contractual promise, and the actual fees may land higher or lower depending on how the project unfolds.
For full-service interior design on a substantial renovation, the absolute dollar figures can be significant. One designer noted that a 3,500-square-foot top-to-bottom remodel, including design, permit and construction drawings, and full construction administration, could run $100,000 to $125,000 in fees alone, before any procurement. Having a clear, data-backed framework for how you arrived at your number allows you to present it with confidence rather than with apology.
Price Before You Estimate: The Case for a Feasibility Phase
For renovations where the scope is especially uncertain, some designers have added a preliminary paid phase that gives them what they need to price the actual project accurately.
@nbaxter.design described how this shift has changed their process:
“These days I do a feasibility study first. Prices are out of control. I sketch out the dream and get a range to see if we’re going for it or doing a modified version, then go from there. I can’t figure out my fees until I know the scope.”
@nbaxter.design
A paid feasibility or scoping phase lets you gather enough information to accurately price the full project and screen for clients who are serious enough to invest before the main engagement begins. If the project doesn’t move forward, you’ve been compensated for the exploratory work you did rather than spending hours to lose a job. That’s the same logic behind a well-structured paid design consultation: define what you’re providing, charge for it, and use it to qualify the project before committing to a full proposal.
This approach is well-established in architecture. It’s still underused in interior design, but the designers who have adopted it tend to describe better-defined scopes, fewer pricing surprises, and clients who enter the main project with more realistic expectations.
The Structure You Set Now Is the Project You’ll Have
Renovation pricing is one area where designers consistently undercharge early in their careers and later overcorrect by adding complexity. The goal is not the most elaborate fee structure. It is a clear structure that reflects the actual scope, protects your time, and gives the client a framework they can understand.
The community’s responses point to a few principles that hold across all of these models: price what you can predict with flat fees or defined deliverables, bill hourly for what you cannot, benchmark your fees against real project data from your own history, and get the client into a paid engagement before you do significant work on their behalf.
How you price the first renovation shapes what the client expects from every subsequent conversation. Set that expectation clearly from the start, and the project is easier to manage before it even begins.