Nobody tells you the fee until the third meeting. By then you have shown someone your house, your Pinterest board and your budget, and you still do not know what a designer in India charges or what the number buys. Here is the whole of it, in one place, as of October 2026.
The three ways designers charge
A percentage of the project. The most common model for full homes and offices. The design fee is a share of what the interiors cost to build and furnish — 10 to 20 per cent is the usual range quoted in India in 2026, with the lower end for large projects and the higher end for small, detailed ones. The fee rises with the project because the drawings, the coordination and the site visits rise with it.
A rate per square foot. You will see anything from a few dozen rupees to a few hundred rupees per square foot for design alone, depending on the city, the studio and how much of the work is bespoke. It is simple to compare, which is why builders and online platforms like it, and it is poor at telling you what is included. Ask.
A lump sum, or an hourly rate. A fixed fee for a defined scope — one apartment, one office floor — or an hourly rate for consultation. Hourly rates in India run from about ₹500 for a junior designer to ₹2,500 for a senior one. Consultations are useful for a second opinion on a plan or a palette. They are not a way to get a home designed.
What the design fee actually pays for
This is the part that rarely gets written down. A proper design fee covers the brief behind the brief — how you live, what you keep, what the room has to feel like at 7 in the morning. Then the concept: moodboards, material boards, the first plans. Then the drawings that matter: furniture layouts, ceiling and lighting plans, electrical and plumbing points, elevations of every wall, joinery details, and the material and finish schedules a contractor can actually price. Then the coordination — with the architect, the structural engineer, the air-conditioning and electrical consultants — so that the duct and the beam and the pendant are not fighting for the same 300 millimetres. Then site visits through execution, and the snag list at the end.
If a fee does not include working drawings and site visits, it is a decoration fee, not a design fee. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you know which one you are buying.
The fee is not the cost
The design fee is usually the smallest line in the whole project. The money goes into the build: civil changes, false ceilings, flooring, joinery, lighting, air-conditioning, loose furniture, soft furnishings and art. For a full home in an Indian metro, the all-in interior cost in 2026 runs from a few lakh rupees for a modular one-bedroom to several crore for a large house finished in stone, lime plaster and made-to-order pieces. The honest way to read a quote is cost per square foot, all-in, with the scope listed — and then to ask what is excluded, because the exclusions are where budgets go wrong.
Design fee versus turnkey
There are two ways to get the thing built. In the first, the designer designs and you appoint the contractor; the designer supervises, the contractor bills you, and every variation is a negotiation between three parties. In the second, turnkey, one studio takes the design and the execution under one contract and one price, and hands you the keys. Turnkey costs more on paper and less in practice, because there is one accountable party and the drawings and the site are the same people. It is how we work. It is also not for everyone: if you already have a contractor you trust, the first model is fine, provided the drawings are complete before a wall is touched.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What exactly is in the fee — concept, working drawings, services coordination, site visits, snagging?
- How many design revisions, and what happens after them?
- Who buys the furniture and the materials, and does the designer earn a margin on them? (Ask it plainly. The good ones answer plainly.)
- How are site variations priced?
- Who signs the drawings for approvals, and are they registered to do so?
- How long, in weeks, from brief to handover — and what has to be decided by when?
How we do it
Every project at NYKS is scoped on its own. We share a fee proposal after a first conversation and a look at the site or the drawings — never a rate card, because a 1,200-square-foot apartment in lime plaster and a 12,000-square-foot office are not the same job at different sizes. What is always included: the drawings, the coordination, the site, the handover. If you are planning a home or a workplace, in India or from abroad, write to us with what you are planning and where, and we will tell you how we would approach it and what it would cost.
Figures are the ranges commonly quoted in India in October 2026 and will vary by city and scope; percentage and hourly ranges from Aecord’s 2026 guide. Interior design, architectural design and turnkey execution by NYKS. Studio in Jaipur; projects across India and for families overseas.