How Much Does an Interior Designer Cost?

Most studios answer this question with "it depends on the scope". That is true and useless. Here is the version with numbers in it.

Our rates are per square metre, published, and the same for everyone:

A 110 m² apartment is therefore about €3,850 for a basic project, €5,500 for a full one. You can check that arithmetic yourself, which is the point.

The four ways designers charge, and what each one hides

Before comparing numbers, it helps to know that quotes are not built the same way. There are four common models.

Per square metre. One rate times the area. You can calculate the fee before you call anyone, and it cannot drift. The catch is that a rate only means something together with a list of what is included — €30/m² for renders alone and €30/m² for a full documented project are different trades with the same number on them.

Hourly. Honest for small advisory work, hard to budget for a whole apartment, because nobody can tell you in advance how many hours your indecision will cost.

A percentage of the construction and furnishing budget. Widely used, and structurally awkward: the designer's fee rises when your spending rises. The incentive points the wrong way, and you are the one holding it.

A flat fee per project. Predictable, but only after a scoping stage, so you rarely get the number on the first call.

We use the first one, with the list of contents published next to the rate. That combination is what makes a quote comparable at all.

What is actually inside each rate

The difference between €35 and €50 per square metre is not "more detail". It is a different deliverable.

Basic — €35/m². Measurements or a 3D scan of the space, a written brief, two to three layout options, and visualizations of every room — not a few photogenic angles. Enough to know exactly what you are going to live in.

Full — €50/m². Everything above, plus the documents a construction crew works from: demolition and assembly plans, furniture layout, radiator and utility routing, flooring and underfloor heating, ceiling plans and ceiling details, lighting and lighting control, sockets, ventilation, wall finishes, and elevations for every wall — flat and in 3D. Plus a specification in which every item on the render carries a manufacturer, an article number and a link: sanitary ware, tiling and paint, off-the-shelf furniture, custom furniture with materials and dimensions, lighting, doors and partitions, appliances, decor.

That specification is the part people underestimate. It means the renovation budget can be calculated before the work starts, not discovered during it, and it means nothing on site is chosen by guess.

Turnkey — €80/m². The full project plus the first two months of supervision: we brief the site manager and contractors, review weekly photo and video from site, issue a work plan every Monday and a report every Friday, check what was built against the drawings, approve paint samples and material samples before they go in, and run the purchasing paperwork. Your presence on site is not required. Neither is ours.

What the same apartment costs, on real areas

These are real projects from our portfolio, with the published rates applied to their actual floor areas.

The median project in our published portfolio is about 98 m², so the middle row is the realistic centre of this table.

What the fee does not include

The design fee buys drawings, renders and documents. It does not buy the apartment's contents. Furniture, appliances, materials, sanitary ware, lighting and the construction crew are a separate budget, paid by you to suppliers and builders directly — we do not mark them up, and with the turnkey option we track them for you.

This is worth stating plainly because the percentage-of-budget model blurs exactly this line.

The cheapest useful thing you can buy

You do not have to commit to a whole project to get value out of a designer. A layout alone — two to three options for how the space is divided, with revisions — costs about 10% of the project, from €250 for a 50 m² apartment, and takes one to two weeks.

If you continue to a full project later, that sum counts toward it. If you do not, the layouts are still yours. For anyone deciding whether to buy a particular apartment at all, this is usually the highest-value €250 in the process.

Architecture and commercial spaces are priced differently

Architecture is not priced per square metre, because the work does not scale with area the same way: a concept starts at €2,000 and takes one to two months, and a single additional visualization starts at €500.

Restaurants, hotels and retail are €30/m² basic, €45/m² full and €80/m² turnkey — the base rates are lower than for homes because commercial areas are larger and more repetitive, while the turnkey rate matches, because site supervision does not get easier.

When you pay

Payment follows approvals, not the calendar: 30% at the start, 50% once you have approved the layout, 20% once you have approved the visualizations. Architectural concepts are two equal halves; standalone visualizations are paid before work starts; supervision is monthly.

You never pay for a stage you have not seen and signed off.

Does working remotely make it cheaper?

It makes it predictable, which matters more. There is no travel to bill, no site visits to schedule, and the rate does not change with the distance between us — we have run 1,172 projects in 48 countries this way since 2018, and a client in Lisbon pays exactly what a client in Warsaw pays.

The measuring still gets done: in most countries we do it ourselves, or you use as-built drawings from the developer, or we point you to a checked local surveyor. That is the only part of the process that needs anyone to be in the room.

What actually makes a quote go up

Four things, in rough order of impact:

1. Area. It is the multiplier. Everything else is smaller than this. 2. The number of separate rooms. Every room is visualized, so a 100 m² apartment split into seven spaces is more work than a 100 m² loft. 3. Custom joinery. Off-the-shelf furniture carries an article number. Custom furniture needs drawing, dimensioning and specifying. 4. Changing your mind after the layout is signed off. Moving a wall at the layout stage is a line on a screen. Moving it after the drawings exist is a redraw. Moving it on site costs money and weeks.

Note what is not on that list: your taste, your style, how expensive your furniture is. Those change the renovation budget, not the design fee.

Frequently asked

Is there a minimum? Small spaces are quoted per project rather than per square metre, because the fixed work — brief, measurements, drawings set — does not shrink below a certain point no matter how small the apartment is.

Can I get just the visualizations? Yes, they are priced separately, from €500 each.

Can I hand the project to my own builders? Yes. That is what the album is for. It is a document, not a subscription — print it and any competent crew can build from it.

How firm is the price? The fee and the deadline are written into the contract before work starts. If you later change the scope, the contract changes with it, in writing, with your signature. Nothing drifts quietly.

What if there is an error in the drawings? If it is ours, we redraw it and align it with the crew at no extra charge.