A common reason many designers undercharge isn’t a lack of skill but the absence of carefully tracked data. Rather than guessing how long each task takes, they must be carefully measured.
Interior design work is a combination of visible and invisible labour. Invisible labour, which many don’t take seriously, includes:
- Sourcing and comparing products of different vendors.
- Concept development, sketching, and re-sketching tasks.
- Creating and refining mood boards.
- Site assessment, meetings, visits, and measurement-taking.
- Administrative and follow-up communication.
- Supplier calls and shop/store visits.
- Preparation of quotations.
- Client updates and revisions.
These tasks add up (time and money), but without tracking, they are overlooked. They feel small, inconsequential, but they do add up. Time is money, but designers end up charging far below the actual workload.
How to solve this?
Use a daily project tracker. When you record your time for each task, even for one week, a pattern becomes clear:
- You see where your hours truly go.
- You recognise tasks that quietly consume half your day.
- You understand your project pacing.
- You catch the unpaid labour you’ve been doing without noticing.
Once you have all this information, it will become your foundation for confident pricing.
Instead of saying, “I think this project should cost…,” you should say, “This project requires X hours, with Y deliverables, based on real data.” When you know this, pricing stops being emotional and becomes structured, defensible, and aligned with the value of the work you deliver.
Designers who track their time don’t just charge better; they also communicate boundaries better, plan better, and negotiate from a place of clarity, not fear.
Guide: Designing Interior Spaces