You have two or three quotations in front of you for the same space. The space has not changed. The early messages described what sounded like the same work. Yet the numbers sit far enough apart that comparing them feels almost improper. The lowest looks too light to be serious, the highest looks inflated, and the one in the middle offers no explanation for why it is in the middle. Read on its own, each of the three seems reasonable.
The quick conclusion is that someone is overcharging and someone else is doing weaker work. In most cases that is not what is happening. What is happening is that the three quotations are not pricing the same thing at all. “Interior design” carries no fixed definition in this market. Each practice places a different set of deliverables under the term, a different span of responsibility, and a different end point. The question that settles the comparison is therefore not how much, but what this particular fee covers, and where it stops.
This article is written to be used with the quotations in hand. It sets out why the numbers diverge, which items normally sit inside a design fee and which are excluded without ever being mentioned, which costs surface after signature because nobody defined them before it, and a list of questions to put to every office in identical wording so that the comparison becomes fair. It closes with why we publish our consultation prices before anyone contacts us.
Why two quotations for the same space diverge
The gap between one fee and another is rarely a difference in margin. It is usually a difference in hours, in how many decisions the office commits to resolving on paper, and in how long it stays responsible for the project. Those are the variables that create the spread, and most of them are invisible in the first line of the quotation.
“Design” describes entirely different deliverables
At one end of the market, the deliverable is a mood board, an indicative furniture layout, and a set of 3D visuals. That is a genuine deliverable with real value: it lets you see the space before it is built and settles the visual language and the broad material palette. It is not enough to build from. A contractor cannot build from an image.
At the other end, the deliverable is a set of drawings a contractor can work from directly: furniture layout, reflected ceiling plans, flooring, lighting, electrical, wall sections, joinery details, and an approved furniture list. The difference between the two is not a difference in beauty. It is a difference in how many decisions have been closed. An executable drawing forces the designer to fix every ceiling level, every lighting position, every cabinet depth, and the way every two materials meet. Those decisions consume a great deal of time, and that time is one of the largest single causes of the price gap.
A decision left open on paper does not disappear. It gets made later, on site, in a hurry, by whoever happens to be standing there. Deferring a decision is not a saving; it moves the cost of that decision from the design stage to the execution stage, where correcting it is far more expensive because correction usually means undoing what was built and building it again. That alone accounts for a good part of the spread in front of you.
One stage priced, or the whole route
Work on a space normally runs through three stages. Pre-design, which covers the site visit and, where no accurate drawings exist, architectural surveying. Then design, which covers the mood board, the realistic visuals, the executable drawings, and the furniture list. Then post-design and supervision, which covers reading the drawings with the contractor, approving materials and samples, periodic site visits, coordination with suppliers, and support after handover.
Some quotations price the middle stage only. Some add the first. Some extend into the third. Three very different numbers for three very different scopes, and in the opening message all of them are called a quotation for interior design. If you have not decided which stage you are comparing, you are comparing things that are not comparable and then reading the result as a price difference. Aligning the stage is the first thing to do, before looking at any figure.
The starting point: whether accurate drawings exist
Many quotations rest on a silent assumption: that you hold an architectural drawing that is accurate and matches what was actually built. In a large number of spaces that assumption is false, either because no drawing exists or because what was built departed from what was drawn. The project then needs architectural surveying: measuring the space as it stands and turning it into a drawing that can be relied on.
Surveying is field work, it takes time, and it cannot be skipped, because every executable drawing that follows will be built on it. The office that included it will look more expensive than the office that assumed the drawings exist. The second office will arrive at the same figure eventually, but after signature, presented as an additional item. Before you compare, find out which assumption each number was built on.
How many spaces, and how they are counted
Two offices pricing the same villa may be counting a different number of spaces. One counts the majlis as a single space; the other separates the men’s majlis, the women’s majlis, the connecting corridor and the guest bath attached to it. One includes stairs, entrances and the roof; the other excludes them by implication. One includes garden design; the other treats it as a separate scope.
That difference alone can double a figure without a single word changing in the service description. Ask each office for the list of spaces by name, not by count. A list of names exposes the gap in a minute; a count conceals it.
Who carries the period after handover
One quotation ends when the files are delivered. Another treats file delivery as the point where its real commitment begins. The distinction matters, because most of the damage in a project does not occur during design; it occurs after the design is approved. A material is substituted because the specified one is unavailable. A joinery detail is simplified in the workshop. A lighting point moves half a metre. A ceiling level is raised because someone found that easier. Each is small on its own. Together they produce a space that does not resemble what was approved.
Supervision through periodic visits is what prevents that accumulation. It is an expensive item because it is recurring time spread over months, not a deliverable handed over once. A quotation that includes it will necessarily look higher, and that height is reasonable once you know what it buys. One point deserves attention here: the party reviewing build quality should not be the party doing the building. Review and execution are opposing interests, and placing both in one pair of hands strips the review of its meaning. We design and supervise; we do not execute. That is a decision about how we work, not an administrative detail.
“Free design with execution”
You will almost certainly encounter an offer of design at no charge on condition that execution is awarded to the same party. It is worth understanding the mechanism rather than judging it quickly. The design is not free; its cost is generally distributed across execution line items you never see itemised. You are not saving the amount, you are moving it somewhere harder to audit.
There is a second effect that matters more than the money. When the designer is also the executor, the drawings tend to be simplified at the first construction difficulty, because simplifying them saves the executor’s own effort. This does not make every such offer a bad one. It does mean that setting it beside an independent design fee is not a price comparison; it is a comparison of two different business models. Be clear about that before you put the two numbers in the same table.
What an interior design fee usually covers — and what is quietly left out
To read a quotation properly, separate its contents into three groups: items that are near-constant across every offer, items that differ materially between offices and are the true source of the gap, and items that are usually excluded without being written down.
Items present in nearly every quotation
- An introductory meeting or visit to understand the brief and how the space is used.
- A general concept and mood board fixing the visual language and materials.
- An indicative furniture layout.
- A limited number of realistic 3D visuals.
- A limited number of revision rounds.
This group does not explain the gap between the numbers, because almost everyone offers it. Building your comparison on it is a mistake: it is the most visible part of a quotation and the least differentiating. The gap lives in the next group.
Items that differ materially between offices
- The depth of the executable drawing set: is it a layout plan only, or a complete set covering reflected ceiling plans, flooring, lighting, electrical, wall sections and joinery details? This item alone may account for much of the difference.
- Lighting and electrical plans: frequently omitted, and the consequence of omitting them shows up directly in the built space — switches in the wrong places, outlets behind furniture, general lighting that serves nothing in particular.
- Joinery details: the difference between a cabinet drawn as a single line and a cabinet drawn with a section, dimensions, materials and levels is the difference between what you imagine and what will actually leave the workshop.
- An approved furniture list: specifications, dimensions and defined positions, rather than a set of suggested images you are left to match yourself.
- Quantity estimation: an estimate of the material quantities required. Having it changes how you deal with contractor pricing, because you know what you are buying before anyone tells you what it costs.
- Plan modification and internal architectural replanning: moving a wall or redistributing the spaces is entirely different work from furnishing a layout as it stands.
- Garden design and external extensions.
- Reading the drawings with the contractor: a technical handover session that resolves misreadings before they turn into built errors.
- Supervision through periodic visits: whether it exists, at what frequency, and what is issued after each visit.
- Material and sample approval and coordination with suppliers.
- Support after handover.
Set two widely separated quotations against this list and you will usually find that the difference in the figure corresponds to a difference in the number of items included, and that the “expensive” quotation may in fact be the cheaper one per item. You may also find the opposite, which is just as useful to know.
Items usually excluded without being stated
- The cost of execution itself: the design fee is not the project price. Materials, labour and the contractor are an entirely separate line.
- Supply of furniture, lighting and accessories: specifying a piece in the drawings is one thing; supplying it is another. We specify pieces in the drawings and supply them on request through our product catalogue, but that is an agreement separate from the design fee — we are not a shop or a warehouse.
- Specialist structural and mechanical drawings where the project requires them.
- Permits, official approvals and their fees.
- Redesign following a fundamental change of brief after a stage has been approved.
- Professional photography after execution.
These items are not excluded to mislead you. They are genuinely outside the service. The problem arises when the quotation does not say so plainly, so you assume they are inside it, and each party builds a different expectation on the same text.
The items that appear later as additional cost
What irritates most in projects is not a high price; it is a price that rises after signature. The cause is usually not bad faith but an item nobody defined at the outset because nobody asked about it. These are the ones that surface most often:
- Architectural surveying. It appears once it becomes clear that the available drawings do not match reality. One question before signature avoids it: does this price assume accurate drawings exist, and what changes if they do not?
- Modification of the internal plan. Moving one wall is not an isolated decision. It redraws the electrical, lighting, ceiling and flooring layouts across the whole affected area. That is why it is priced separately, and why it deserves to be settled as early as possible — which is also why plan modification exists as a standalone consultation among our published consultations.
- Additional revision rounds. Every quotation includes a number, and exceeding it is charged. More important than the number is the definition: what counts as a revision round? A single comment, or a consolidated set of comments sent at once?
- Additional 3D visuals. The quotation fixes a number and specific viewpoints. Each extra visual is additional work with its own hours.
- Furniture re-selection. A piece goes out of stock, its price changes, or its delivery slips. The alternative requires research, dimensional matching, and a review of its effect on the rest of the space.
- Quantity estimation. Not included in many quotations, and requested later once dealings with contractors turn serious.
- Additional site visits. If supervision is priced by a fixed number of visits, delay in execution means visits beyond that number. Ask how they are counted, and who carries them when the delay is the contractor’s.
- Supplier follow-up and sample approval. Recurring daily work, not a token line added at no charge.
- Revisions caused by site decisions. When something is built differently from the drawing and the outcome is accepted, amending the rest of the drawings to match it is new work.
The existence of these items does not make a quotation deficient. Open items are normal in work whose inputs change while it is being carried out. What matters is that they are named and priced in advance rather than sprung on you. A quotation that states plainly “this is out of scope, and here is what it costs if you need it” is clearer and safer than a silent one that appears to be all-inclusive.
How to compare two quotations fairly
A fair comparison does not start from the figure. It starts by aligning scope — making the quotations describe the same thing — and only then looking at prices. In practice that takes three steps.
Step one: write your own scope
Before requesting any quotation, write a single page setting out: the list of spaces by name; whether you hold accurate drawings; whether internal partitions will change; whether you need supervision during execution; when you want to start; and what is not working in the space as it stands. Send the identical text to everyone.
This step looks redundant and is the most important one. When every office receives the same inputs, any difference in price becomes a real difference in scope or in method rather than a difference in understanding. You cannot judge different answers to different questions.
Step two: put these questions to every office in identical wording
- What is the list of final deliverables by name, and in what format are they issued?
- Do the deliverables include reflected ceiling plans, flooring, lighting, electrical, wall sections and joinery details?
- Which spaces are included, by name, and which are excluded?
- Does the price assume accurate drawings matching the built reality? What changes if they do not exist?
- How many revision rounds are included, and how do you define a revision round?
- How many 3D visuals, for which spaces and from which viewpoints?
- Does the quotation include quantity estimation?
- Does it include reading the drawings with the contractor before execution begins?
- Does it include supervision? How many visits, at what frequency, and what is issued after each visit?
- Who approves materials and samples, and who coordinates with suppliers?
- Is the furniture list tied to a specific supplier, or open to equivalent alternatives?
- What is expressly out of scope, and what does each of those items cost if needed later?
- What is the payment schedule, and which deliverable is tied to each payment?
- What is the expected duration, and what stops the clock?
- What happens if I change my mind after a stage has been approved?
Notice that most of these ask about definition rather than price. Price is a result; definition is the cause. Notice too that how an office answers tells you as much as the answer itself. An office that replies quickly and in detail has already defined its service. An office that is evasive about defining it now will be evasive about it later.
Step three: convert the answers into a table
Build a simple table: a row for each item above, a column for each quotation. In every cell write included, not included, or at additional cost. The blank and ambiguous cells are the most important part of the table, because each one is a cost that is coming and has not been priced yet.
Once the table is complete, read each price against the number of items behind it. The result is not a precise formula, but it reverses the ranking often enough to be worth doing: the highest total becomes the lowest cost per item, and the lowest turns out to be the price of a first stage only for a project that will need the remaining stages. The difference is not that you will pay less. It is that you will pay later, and possibly to a different party.
Signals worth pausing on
- A single lump sum with no itemisation.
- Reluctance to write out the list of final deliverables.
- The phrase “everything is included” with no definition of everything.
- A price per square metre with no stated deliverables; the metre tells you nothing if you do not know what is being delivered against it.
- Supervision mentioned with no visit frequency and no issue after each visit.
- Deliverables that stop at images, with no buildable file.
- A payment schedule not tied to specific deliverables you can receive and inspect.
Why we publish our consultation prices
We have worked since 2019 in Riyadh, and in Dubai as well, on villas, apartments and commercial interiors. We publish our consultation prices on the site before anyone contacts us. That is uncommon here, so it warrants an explanation.
The reason is that a question about price is, at bottom, a question about scope, and a price cannot be published unless its scope is fixed in advance. Publishing forced us — before it forced you — to define each consultation precisely: what it covers, how many spaces, how it is delivered, and where it ends. The effect is that you know what you are buying before starting a conversation, and you do not have to move through a long sales process to reach a number.
We offer six consultations with fixed, published scopes, ranging from 950 to 6,700 SAR, the figure varying within that range according to the type of consultation, the number of spaces, and the delivery mode — remote or on site. You can review all of them on the consultations page. Some address a specific situation: the interior finishes consultation where materials and finishes are the decision being deferred, and the decor design consultation where the direction of the space itself is still open.
A consultation is also a small point of entry instead of a full commitment. If you are standing between two quotations and cannot tell which one actually suits your space, a session with a defined scope costs far less than a wrong decision on a whole project on which everything afterwards is built. You can start from the consultation request form.
Full projects are different: we publish no price for them and give no rate per square metre. The reason is the one this article has been making. Price follows scope, and scope is not knowable before reading the space — its condition, the accuracy of its drawings, the number of its rooms, whether the internal partitions will change, and whether the project needs extended supervision and for how long. We read the space first, then give a figure we can stand behind. A figure given before reading is either inflated as a precaution or set low to be raised later. Neither means anything.
Before you sign anything
If you take one thing from this article, take this: do not compare prices before you have aligned scopes. Then add four practical steps.
- Ask for the list of final deliverables written by name, not described with adjectives.
- Ask explicitly what is out of scope, and what it costs if you need it later.
- Confirm the end point: does the commitment finish at file delivery, or does it extend to the site?
- Tie every payment to a specific deliverable you can receive and inspect before paying.
A good quotation is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. A good quotation is one that leaves you able to describe precisely what you will receive, when, from whom, and what you will not receive. If the quotation in your hands allows that, you are comparing fairly and you can choose. If it does not, the problem is not the number. Our contact page is open if you would like the space read before a figure is put to it.