Buying guides · 4 min read
10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Interior Designer
How designers charge, what's usually excluded, and the answers that should worry you.
Most unhappy design projects come down to mismatched expectations about scope and fees rather than taste. These are the questions that surface those mismatches during a first conversation, while changing your mind is still free.
In this story
- 1. What level of service is this?
- 2. How exactly do you charge?
- 3. Do you receive trade discounts, and who keeps them?
- 4. Can I see a project like mine?
- 5. Who manages the trades?
- 6. How many revisions are included?
- 7. What's a realistic timeline?
- 8. What's explicitly not included?
- 9. What does the contract cover?
- 10. Watch for these answers
Buying guides
What level of service is this?
Full-service design manages everything through installation. A design-only or e-design package hands you a scheme and a shopping list to execute yourself. A consultation is an hour of advice. These are vastly different commitments and are often all described simply as 'interior design'.
Buying guides
How exactly do you charge?
Flat fee per room, hourly, a percentage of project cost, or cost-plus on purchases. Each creates different incentives — percentage and cost-plus rise as the project gets more expensive. None is wrong, but you should know which one you're in before work starts.
Buying guides
Do you receive trade discounts, and who keeps them?
Many designers buy at trade pricing. Whether that saving passes to you, is retained as margin, or is shared varies by practice and is entirely legitimate either way — as long as it's disclosed. An evasive answer here is informative.
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Can I see a project like mine?
Portfolios show best work, not typical work, and rarely show budget. Ask for a completed project of similar size and spend to yours. A designer whose examples are all far grander may be excellent and still a poor fit for your brief.
Buying guides
Who manages the trades?
Establish whether the designer coordinates contractors, whether you do, or whether there's a separate project manager. This single ambiguity causes more friction than any other, because both parties can assume the other is handling it until something goes wrong.
Buying guides
How many revisions are included?
Design involves iteration, and unlimited revisions are rarely genuinely included. Find out how many rounds are in scope and what triggers an additional fee, so that changing your mind on a sofa doesn't become an unexpected invoice.
Buying guides
What's a realistic timeline?
Ask specifically about lead times on furniture and joinery, which are frequently months rather than weeks and sit outside anyone's control. A designer who promises fast delivery on custom pieces is either unusually well-stocked or managing your expectations poorly.
Buying guides
What's explicitly not included?
Get the exclusions in writing: structural work, electrical, window treatments, styling accessories, delivery and installation charges. Exclusions cause more disputes than inclusions, because nobody argues about what was clearly promised.
Buying guides
What does the contract cover?
Scope, fee structure, payment schedule, who owns the drawings, and how either side can exit. A short written agreement protects both of you. Reluctance to put the arrangement in writing at all is a straightforward reason to keep looking.
Buying guides
Watch for these answers
Pressure to decide immediately, large upfront payments with no schedule, no written scope, unwillingness to name previous clients, and quotes substantially below everyone else's. The last one usually means a smaller scope rather than better value — check what's been left out.
