Interior design can appear to be a relatively simple business model.
- A client hires a designer.
- The designer designs the space.
- The client pays a design fee.
In reality, professional studios can generate revenue in several different ways, and the structure behind a profitable studio is often considerably more complicated.
There is no single correct model.
A solo designer working remotely will operate very differently from a twenty-person studio delivering luxury residential projects.
But most revenue tends to fall into a few categories.
1. Design fees
This is the obvious one.
A studio charges for its expertise and design work.
That fee might be structured as:
- a fixed project fee
- an hourly rate
- a rate per square metre
- a percentage of the project value
- a fee per room
- or a combination of several methods
The important distinction is that a design fee isn’t simply payment for producing drawings.
It needs to account for the enormous amount of invisible work surrounding those drawings:
meetings, sourcing, emails, research, revisions, presentations, administration, coordination and decision-making.
Underestimating that invisible time is one of the easiest ways for a project to become unprofitable.
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