We know what works best for certain clients may not work well for others, therefore we offer two options as to how we charge for our design fees.
Depending on the project, we will either charge a flat design fee or an hourly fee. There are many factors involved in making this decision – here’s a brief summary of each.
The flat design fee: Most of our existing clients prefer this method. The way we arrive at the flat fee depends on three criteria:
1. The scope of the project – What is the size of the project and what services are needed? We create a check list and compare your project against similar recent projects.
2. The intended budget for design services as well as product and project management. For example, is the client requesting custom drawings? Or do they need to see all furnishings in person? If so, we’ll need to account for additional time in our fee. Again, based on past projects, we are able to estimate a budget so that there are no surprises from the start!
3. The expected duration of the project. Do we have six months to complete the project from start to finish or Is there a deadline looming that we have to meet? This is important as we need to know if we will need to increase our support staff.
Hourly fee: If we feel that an hourly will work best for the project, we will present an estimate for the number of hours we believe the overall project will take. We’re able to arrive at this number by looking at similar past projects that we’ve tracked (as we do with all of our projects) (just as aside…from the start of every full project, each week our clients are given an update outlining what we’ve accomplished as well as what we anticipate we will work on the following week) Should we find that we are exceeding our estimate, the project is reviewed and evaluated with the client and a plan is implemented.
So there you have it. A basic explanation to very involved question! Have additional questions? Please call us…we’d love to talk design!