Interior Designers: Please Stop “Charging What You’re Worth”

Sep 22

Written September 2022 | Updated January 2025

©️ Dakota Design Company 2017-2025 | All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or used without permission. THIS ARTICLE WAS HUMAN-WRITTEN.

The phrase “Charge what you’re worth” is something that gets my blood boiling, and this might very well be the most “fluffy” article I’ve ever written.

But I am 100% against what people all over the internet are telling business owners when they say, “Charge what you’re worth.”

First, if you’ve hired someone and this is their best advice to you on how to price your services, then you need to hire someone new. LOL.
Second, there is an actual art and science to charging properly for your services. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

If you base your prices on a calculation of “what you’re worth” you’ll never have the confidence to send the $100,000 design fee proposal without sweating through your kneecaps or feeling like you’re “not good enough” if you don’t land that contract.

Ain’t nobody got time for that, and you’re definitely not for sale.

So let’s start with science behind pricing:

You have all the info on how to price your services.

In your time tracker (we love Toggl)
In your financial software (Studio or QBO are the only real ones)
In your post-project review

And, you have to remember this basic truth: The MARKET SETS THE PRICE.

Then there’s the art of pricing:

How are you protecting and maximizing your client’s time, sanity, money, and home?
What does having you involved with the project mean for your client now and in the future?
What is your unique value proposition?
Your connections to make magic happen.
Your expertise and insight to know what is possible.

“Charging what you’re worth” doesn’t fall under art or science. In my opinion, it falls under NONSENSE!!!

You are priceless. Your worth is not determined by what you can charge or what you do charge or what someone will pay you.

If someone negotiates your “this-is-the rate-I’m-worth” price, does that mean you’re worth less?

NOOOOO.

Charge so you are compensated for your time, your talent, your expertise, and the life-changing result you will provide your clients. And then tangibly, charge for the time you are saving clients, the costly mistakes you are helping them avoid, the joy they will experience every day when they live-laugh-love (haha) in their gorgeous new space, and the value you are adding to the price of their home when they later turn around and sell it.

Charge not for “your worth” but for what the project is worth to the client. (And if it’s not worth much to the client, that’s why you’ll get pushback, not because of your fee!).

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Don’t wait another day to charge appropriately, and feel confident in your prices. Check out these additional resources to nail your pricing based on facts and real-live data: