Dear Dakota: What to Say When Interior Design Clients Push Back on Furniture Pricing
©️ Dakota Design Company 2017-2025 | All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or used without permission.
Dear Dakota,
I'm finding clients are putting up a fight when a say I charge "a 30% markup on my trade-pricing".
While this usually nets out at 1-2% above retail when all is said & done, they seem to be reacting to the word "markup" and the fact that I sell product a bit above retail.
This process used to work better before the cost of goods went up so high.
How do I improve my wording to remain competitive?
To the designer who submitted this question: You.are.onto.something.
Of course you’re getting client pushback when you tell them your markup.
If you went to Arhaus to buy a coffee table and the price was listed like this:
Coffee table, $2600 (marked up 30% from our cost of $2000) how would you feel?
Well, ONE, it wouldn’t happen and TWO, you’d be turned off.
Just the same as when you buy something on Amazon. You don’t see that your monthly subscription of garbage bags is $30 for you but only costs Amazon $20.
So what is happening here?
Your COSTS are none of your clients darn business.
The PRICE is your client’s business.
Your costs and the price are NOT THE SAME. If they are: RUNNNNNN and watch this.
💌 Want my best insights and strategies delivered weekly? Join The Weekly Install® — it’s free. Sign up here.
When you bill your clients for your design services or your hourly rate, do you tell them how much you’ve marked that up from your hourly expense rate?
When you mark up your team’s time and bill the client for it, do you tell them how much you marked it up from what you pay your team?
No, you don’t. Because those are your private, internal business costs.
Your costs are internal, confidential business information.
Clients should not be privy to that information (and if you have our contract template, we have language all around this).
So what do you do?
I’m going to say it loud and clear so you don’t miss it:
REMOVE THE WORD MARKUP FROM EVERY CLIENT FACING DOCUMENT IN YOUR COMPANY.
Now, yes, I know, that ASID and their code of ethics and you know, THE FTC, no biggie, require that you disclose the ways in which you are making money from a client project. (Just like how you have to disclose you’re an affiliate of something and may make a commission).
But you can do that WITHOUT using the word markup, without telling clients your private, internal method for calculating your price, and without telling clients your costs.
Remove the word markup from everything.
Don’t use the word markup with clients.
The price for your furnishings? Competitive with retail.
Client asks how much you mark up your furnishings? You say, We price our furnishings so they are competitive with retail and have different agreements with every vendor based on a variety of factors. This is the same as if they asked you how much you pay your team and mark up their time. None.of.their.business. And also, red flag alert.
How do you disclose that you make money on furnishings? Include in your contract that furnishings sourced through your firm are priced to be competitive with retail and you handle x, y, z, etc. and invoices for furnishings are payable to you. Just the same as you “disclose” to clients that you make money on design fees. You don’t do it by saying, I mark up my services 50% from our cost to provide those services. You say, the design fee for services is X.
Remember: your costs are confidential. How you calculate your prices is confidential. Your PRICES are what you share with clients.
Grab our Beyond Retail Training and learn how to sell to-the-trade and custom furnishings, price for profit (meaning, get higher margins on each piece you sell), and handle all those pesky client objections. Save 25% today and make the cost of this training back on the very next item you sell.
Cheers!
