Dear Dakota: Should I Charge a Different Flat Fee for Interior Design Projects My Junior Designer Completes?
Dear Dakota,
Should I charge clients a different flat fee for projects my junior designer completes versus ones I complete?
This is a great question, and one many designers are faced with when they expand their staff to include a junior designer. This designer is asking if she should charge a lower flat fee rate than what she charges for projects her junior designer completes from start to finish. For example, like when you go to a hair salon, you can choose a “senior stylist” at $500+ or a “junior stylist” at $250+.
In a flat fee billing situation, I believe projects the principal designer completes and projects a junior designer completes should be billed at the same rate.
It’s a goal of many interior designers to be able to hand a project over to a junior designer and walk away. But the truth is, it takes some time to get to that point. SO, I wouldn’t run two prices against each other: your price for Service A vs. your junior designer’s price for Service A.
Here’s why.
The owner or principal designer will certainly oversee the junior designer’s work before it’s presented to the client.
The owner is likely handling (or at least paying for) the work surrounding getting those projects booked in: overseeing the marketing, paying for the website, managing incoming project inquiries, creating scopes of work and preparing design fees, being involved in the initial kickoff meeting, etc.
The junior designer will use all the owner’s resources, software, processes, and assets in order to provide the client with an experience and result that is consistent with other projects completed by the firm. (This means: the owner is still investing in and paying for all the overhead: marketing, software subscriptions, process design, design contract, any materials that go out at the inquiry phase and onboarding phase, gifting, photography, website, insurance, professional development, etc.).
If something goes wrong, the owner is the one who will eat the cost or deal with the problem. It’s their reputation on the line, not the junior designer’s.
If a lower rate is offered for the junior designer and the owner is still involved in the outcome (even if it just means going to kickoff or setting the high level look and feel with your team before the junior designer starts designing) then why would anyone pay the higher principal designer fee if they can get the same result and experience with a junior designer, knowing you’ll still be involved and accessible anyway? You’ll have created a competitor WITHIN your own company! EEEEK!
I want you to remember: there is a cost for you to have someone else do the designs and your company should be compensated for it. The work produced by a member of your team is STILL work produced by your company, and your company takes all the responsibility and expense for obtaining that project.
When to have a junior designer handle their own projects
If you want to offer a “junior rate” for design services, the better idea is to have your junior designer handle all bookings for a more simplistic service offering.
For instance, if you want to offer a service that is only available to book with your junior designer (like a paint consult or a Design Day service), then that makes sense. I would market it as that. For example, “Book a design day with our newest designer, So-and-So.”
If you feel uncomfortable with charging a higher fee for a service your junior designer handles, you can certainly pay your junior designer a commission or a flat rate bonus for each project they manage from A to Z without your involvement. But that’s a whole other topic to be covered at a later date.
When to bill projects at a different rate for your team
However, if you are billing hourly for a larger project that includes contributions from your entire team, and each person on the team is responsible for a distinct aspect of project execution (i.e.: owner manages the project and provides high level design direction, junior designer sources and handles order management, CAD operator completes plans and renderings), then YES, you could bill hourly at a different rate for each member of the design team, commensurate with the complexity of their assigned tasks. This is a tiered approach, where the deliverables of each team member are distinct from one another. It is not so much a collaboration, as it is a specific distribution of tasks.
However, many designers we have worked with prefer to keep it simple and remove ALL friction from the hourly billing process. They do this by billing the same rate for all staff and all tasks.
And side note: Here’s something to never ever ever do: bill yourself at multiple rates. NOOOOOOOOOO. One rate for design and then a lower rate for project management. NOOOOOOOO. Your rate is your rate is your rate. It is always the same.
Just like with all interior design fee billing questions we get, there isn’t one prescribed correct method for every scenario. You have to decide what is best for your company, your team, and your clientele AND what makes the most sense based on the service being offered.
Interior design projects should be billed in a way that is simple for you to invoice and easy for your clients to understand. And it should not create competition within the company.
Thinking about hiring for your interior design firm?
Definitely do this first. Then, set up something like this.
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How to Create an Internship Program for Your Interior Design Company
Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring For Your Interior Design Business
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