Cost & Budgeting

What's Included in an Interior Designer's Fee?

4 June 2026 · 5 min read

The word "fee" in interior design can mean very different things depending on who you're talking to. For full context, also read our guide on how much an interior designer costs in Pune. Let me break down exactly what you should expect — and how we structure it at Aura Foundry.

Three Fee Structures You'll Encounter

Fixed Design Fee — You pay a flat amount for a defined set of deliverables. Clear, predictable, scope-bound. This is my preferred model because the risk of effort is on the designer, not you.

Percentage of Project — The designer charges 8-15% of total execution cost. The problem here is structural: the designer benefits financially if your execution cost goes up. It's a misaligned incentive, and you should know it exists when evaluating this model. Some designers are completely ethical within this structure, but the incentive is worth being aware of.

Turnkey — One bill covers everything — design, execution, materials, management. Convenient, but least transparent. You're trusting the package price entirely.

What Aura Foundry's Full Design Package Includes

I'm being specific here because vague scope is how disputes start.

AutoCAD floor plan (furniture layout, spatial planning)
Electrical and lighting layout plan
False ceiling layout with lighting positions
3D photorealistic renders for all rooms
Detailed Bill of Quantities (BOQ) — room by room
Material specifications and finish schedule
Vendor recommendations with contact information
One revision round across all deliverables

That's what you get. With these documents, you can walk into any competent contractor's office and get an accurate execution quote.

What's NOT Included in a Design-Only Package

This is equally important to understand:

Not included: contractor supervision, site visits during execution, material sourcing and procurement, coordination between vendors, on-site problem solving.

If you want any of those, you're looking at our Execution Package, which involves us managing the project end-to-end. That's a different scope and a different fee.

I see clients get frustrated when they've hired a design-only service and then expect the designer to solve on-site problems. That's not what was contracted. It's not the designer's fault, and it's not the client's fault — it's a scope communication failure that should have been addressed at the beginning.

Red Flags in a Design Contract

Vague scope language — "Design services as required" is not a scope. It's an invitation to argue later. Every deliverable should be named and described.

Verbal agreements — I don't care how much you trust the designer or how pleasant the first meeting was. Get the scope in writing. Every time. No exceptions.

No revision policy — How many revisions are included? What counts as a revision versus a new direction? This should be explicit. Without it, you have no framework for managing scope creep.

Material markup not disclosed — Some designers add 10-15% on vendor prices and don't disclose it. This is legal but ethically murky. Ask directly: "Do you add a markup on materials you recommend?" You deserve an honest answer.

For what it's worth: we don't add material markups. Our fee is our fee.

Ali's Advice

Get an itemised scope in every engagement. Not a paragraph description — a bullet-point list of what you will receive and when. If a designer can't produce one, that's a signal about how the project will run. View our services for a full picture of what each package covers.

Get our full scope document before you decide — book a call →