How interior design fees work

How interior design fees work matters more than the headline number, because each method is measured against something different. A percentage follows the cost of the project, a rate follows the floor area, a flat fee follows the written scope and an hourly fee follows the clock. Two proposals for one villa can use two different methods, and until you know which, their totals cannot be set side by side.

What is a percentage fee measured against?

AI Designs words its range as 10 to 20 percent of the total project cost, and the phrase to pin down is total project cost. Ask what goes into that total before agreeing the rate: the build, the joinery, the loose furniture, the appliances, the art. Every item added to the base raises the fee along with the budget. On Ray Fitout's mid-range villa band of AED 250,000 to 600,000, a 10 percent fee works out at AED 25,000 to 60,000 and a 20 percent fee at AED 50,000 to 120,000.

The method ties the designer's income to the size of the job. That cuts both ways: the studio shares the risk of a smaller project and the reward of a larger one. Fix the base in writing, either an estimated budget agreed at the start or the final account at the end, and add a cap if the budget is still moving.

Rates per square metre, worked through

Multiply the rate by the floor area in the same unit, and check the unit first. Couture's card steps down as homes grow: AED 140 a square metre for homes of 500 to 750 square metres, AED 130 up to 1,000 and AED 120 beyond, with anything under 500 quoted on request. Amitis Design publishes AED 150 to 200 a square metre for projects over 800 square metres. On a 1,200 square metre villa those cards give AED 144,000 at Couture's rate and AED 180,000 to 240,000 at Amitis's.

A rate is set by size, so upgrading a finish leaves it where it was, but a change to the area moves it. Agree which area it is measured on, gross or internal, and whether balconies, terraces, a basement or a roof room count, before the rate is signed.

Flat fees and hourly rates

A flat fee holds exactly as long as the scope written beside it, which makes the scope, not the figure, the page to read. AI Designs sets its flat fees by size and scope at AED 20,000 to 150,000 and above. Anything outside that scope, from an extra room to another revision round or an added site visit, is priced separately, and the proposal should say at what rate.

Hourly rates suit advice more than a full design. Dehleez Studio lists AED 150 to 300 an hour for a junior designer and AED 300 to 600 for a mid-level one, and AI Designs quotes AED 500 to 1,000 an hour at firm level. At that firm rate, six hours of layout advice comes to AED 3,000 to 6,000, inside Algedra's published range for a one-off consultation, AED 2,000 to 6,000.

Ask three studios to quote one scope

Which method costs less on your project?

Find the point where two methods meet. Take a 700 square metre villa: at Couture's AED 140 a square metre, the design fee is AED 98,000. A 10 percent fee reaches the same sum only on a project costing AED 980,000, and a 20 percent fee on one costing AED 490,000. Below those budgets the percentage is cheaper; above them, the rate. The same test works for a flat fee: divide it by the percentage to find the project cost at which the two are equal.

Those crossing points hold only when the scope is identical under each method, and it seldom is. A rate or a flat fee may leave out site visits or procurement that a percentage includes, so line up the deliverables before the numbers.

When is the fee invoiced?

No authority publishes a standard split for design fees, and none of the studios on our fee page publishes one either, so each contract sets its own. What you can fix is what each payment is tied to. Tie it to something delivered and checkable:

The same principle runs through the hub's staged payments guide for the build itself, and the hub covers VAT on fees separately.

What the fee leaves out

A design fee pays for design. Three kinds of cost sit outside it unless the contract says otherwise: the build and the furniture, priced by the contractor and the suppliers; the developer's and authority's charges, such as Emaar's NOC at AED 1,000 for minor or AED 2,000 for major works in total, including the AED 500 review fee paid first; and work beyond the agreed scope, from an extra revision round to a site visit the contract did not count.

We ask every studio to state its method, its base and its stages in one format, which is how we compare fee proposals before any of them reach you. The same figures sit, dated and credited, among the published bands.