I know I’m not the only one who has deliberated over the price of their interior design services.
Do you spend far too much time calculating how many hours the design work will take, add a bit of buffer, calculate the total, and then slash it in half for fear you’ve over-priced?
Or are you just curious about what other Interior Designers charging for their services?
Without doubt, pricing is the number one question I am asked about by Interior Designers. Whether you’re just setting up, in the early stages, or long established, it’s likely something that you spend a lot of time on. And you’re definitely not alone.
Mindset and pricing your services
When it comes to money, it seems we are highly influenced by our current circumstances – your current bank balance, how you’re feeling, how much you really want THAT job.
You know those times when you’re riding high? You’ve just finished a really successful client project, had a feature in a magazine, or received some amazing feedback. You. Are. Smashing. It. A new project comes in, and you just feel so confident about the value that you offer your clients, that pricing the new job doesn’t seem such a big problem.
But, a lot of the time, you deliberate. Maybe you wait for your partner to come home and check the numbers (do they even know how long it takes you to deliver a design)?!! You question yourself, go back and forth.
Finally, you send your design fee to your potential client with a wing and a prayer, convinced even as you hit send, that you went in too high.
When they come back and say yes, you’re pleased, but immediately start questioning if you charged too little?
Or if the client says no, even without asking them why, you assume it was because you are too expensive?
You’re not charging enough
You’re probably under-pricing your services. Most of us do. Worst of all, you could be operating without making a profit. It’s time to get business savvy.
It’s never too late to get your pricing sorted – and it is something you should continually review. Putting your prices up each year should be the norm.
Pricing Structure
Developing a solid pricing structure for your Interior Design Business is crucial. Once in place, a pricing structure will help you ride out the days when your confidence is low.
You’ll have a simple process that you can run through for each client project. This allows you to easily pull a package price together. It will:
- Give you a confidence boost.
- Save you time and angst.
- Allow you to speak to clients about costs, and money, with confidence and clarity.
- Help you identify your money mindset, and how this could be holding you back.
I’ve done my research, taken my experience of trying out different pricing methods, and with over 14 years as a practising Interior Designer, I’ve developed a pricing methodology for Interior Designers.
How to price your interior design services:
- Figure out what you NEED to earn annually and use this to calculate your hourly rate.
- Decide on a pricing structure. My recommendation is a package price linked to the value you offer – and an hourly rate for additional out of scope work.
- Price up each of your service offerings based on the time they take and your hourly rate. You may need to do some additional work here to determine how long each offering takes you to deliver. This is your BASE rate. You can’t charge below this or you won’t cover your costs.
- Now add in some profit. How much depends on your level of expertise, qualifications, your target market and lifestyle aspirations.
Why pricing can feel hard even when you have a formula
I wrote about why deciding what to charge for your interior design services can feel hard even when you have a formula or spreadsheet in place.
If you want to get on top of your finances you might also like Managing your finances as an Interior Designer or Smarter ways to manage your time (because time is money!)
