Interior designer: how much does it cost?
A sense of decoration is not innate for everyone. To make your interior both cosy and functional, in chosen tones or themes, several skills are required: being able to visualise the final result, elegantly matching various decorative elements, and sourcing quality materials. An interior designer experienced in this exercise is ideal to accompany you. However, a budget must be allocated, and the reasonable amount may remain unclear in your mind. We help you with some concrete clues!
A sense of decoration is not innate for everyone. To make your interior both cosy and functional, in chosen tones or themes, several skills are required: being able to visualise the final result, elegantly matching various decorative elements, and sourcing quality materials. An interior designer experienced in this exercise is ideal to accompany you. However, a budget must be allocated, and the reasonable amount may remain unclear in your mind. We help you with some concrete clues!
Why commission an interior designer?
This is the first point to clarify: for which service exactly will you call upon an interior designer? Because they are capable of providing you with numerous services:
- Helping you visualise a property that does not appeal to you
- Drawing up new plans
- Considering home staging possibilities
- Contacting the tradespeople who will carry out the works
- Managing the tradespeople on site and guaranteeing deadlines
- Advising you on the final decoration
- Defining a shopping list for you
- Purchasing decorative elements on your behalf
- All of the above
Perhaps your own skills will allow you to part of your project, or you may know good contractors. The interior designer is à la carte: they will act according to the specific points for which you commission them. These will obviously determine the budget you will need to allocate.
How does the interior designer prepare their quote?
Depending on the commission, the professional may implement hourly billing, offer a fixed fee, or charge a percentage of the total amount of works planned.
Hourly billing generally applies for one-off services such as advice, drawing up plans, or defining a shopping list. For a more comprehensive service, a fixed fee may apply. Percentage billing is used for full renovations or new builds: the interior designer defines an overall budget including all tradespeople’s services, and adds their fee as a percentage of this budget.
Keep in mind that the quoted rate may vary depending on the complexity of the project you are planning and the input you require from the professional, from simple advice to full accompaniment. Also, depending on the level of intervention: from just decoration, refreshing paints and floors, to complete reconfiguration of the property including partition wall modifications.
Average costs observed
As with any professional, an interior designer will vary their rates according to their overheads. If they rent premises in the heart of Paris, their hourly rate will likely be higher than if they are located in a remote part of Creuse. Their experience in the field will also influence this, as will their positioning, whether high-end or budget-oriented.
To help you estimate the budget you will need, here are some figures that represent averages.
- For an initial visit, an interior designer may charge £100 per hour, or charge up to £200 if they opt for a fixed fee.
- For advice without additional services, the hourly rate can range from £70 to £200.
- During the project study, expect average billing of £55 per square metre of surface area to be transformed.
- For a home staging service, during which the interior designer will modernise your interior and decoration at lower cost, expect to spend between 1% and 5% of the estimated value of the property.
- If you commission the interior designer to monitor contractors’ work and manage the relationship with them, this supervision will cost between 7% and 9% of the amount of works undertaken.
- Finally, for a comprehensive service from preliminary study to handover, including work supervision, a percentage of 12% of the total amount will be billed.
If you have a project in mind, do not hesitate to request tariff schedules from several interior designers, as well as examples of their work that will indicate whether the professional’s artistic direction aligns with your tastes.
A telephone call can also prove useful before scheduling a visit (charged), to gauge your level of rapport with the interior designer. Mutual understanding is indeed essential to the success of the commission, which partly depends on the human element!
Living in an interior that reflects us is a source of daily happiness. No detail should be overlooked to harmonise decoration while ensuring the functional aspect of layouts. A professional can be of great help to maximise a property’s potential, include more storage, and create the “wow” effect for you and your visitors. The budget, while it may be significant, is nevertheless well spent: in the case of a new build or complete renovation of an acquired property, you would do well to include the interior designer’s budget in the overall envelope from the outset.
