There is no honest single number, and anyone who gives you one without seeing your project is guessing. As a planning range in Los Angeles in 2026: a full-home interior design package typically lands between $75,000 and $400,000+; full design (architect plus interiors) on ground-up new construction commonly runs 8–15% of construction cost; a single-room or kitchen scope usually starts around $25,000–$60,000. The spread is enormous because square footage, finish level, how much architecture is involved, and how much FF&E you buy move the number more than anything else. The only way to narrow it is a conversation about your actual project.
Why the range is so wide
Most firms will not publish numbers at all. We understand why: a design fee is a function of scope, and scope on a luxury project is genuinely unknowable until someone has walked the house and understood what the owner wants. Quoting a number before that is either a guess or a sales tactic.
But refusing to say anything is not useful either. Owners planning a project need a planning range, early, so they can decide whether to start at all. So here is the honest version: wide ranges, clearly caveated, with the factors that move you within them. Treat the figures below as a way to size your thinking, not as a quote.
Three things should be said plainly before any number appears:
- Design fee and construction cost are different budgets. The fee below buys drawings, decisions and documentation. It does not build anything. For construction cost, use our cost calculator, which publishes its own ranges and a 28-city index.
- Furniture is usually its own budget again. An FF&E package on a luxury home can rival the design fee, or exceed it several times over, depending entirely on what you buy.
- These are Los Angeles figures. Our Texas work runs meaningfully lower; coastal and trophy markets run higher.
Planning ranges by scope
Ranges for a 2026 Los Angeles project. The low end assumes a straightforward property, restrained finish level and a decisive owner; the high end assumes complexity, bespoke detailing and a long design development phase.
| Scope | Typical planning range | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Single room — kitchen, primary suite, living room | $25,000 – $60,000 | Millwork complexity, whether structure moves |
| Whole-home interior design — existing house | $75,000 – $250,000 | Square footage, number of rooms, custom millwork |
| Whole-home interior — large estate | $250,000 – $400,000+ | Scale, bespoke everything, long schedule |
| Full remodel — architecture + interiors | 8% – 15% of construction cost | How much of the structure changes |
| Ground-up new construction — architecture + interiors | 8% – 15% of construction cost | Site difficulty, entitlement, finish level |
| ADU or guest house | $30,000 – $90,000 | Whether it is a stock plan or bespoke |
| Commercial interior — office, retail, restaurant | $40,000 – $250,000+ | Square footage, brand program, TI complexity |
| Visualization only — renderings, 360, VR | $6,000 – $95,000 | Number of views, animation, true VR build |
These are planning ranges published to help you budget, not an offer. Every project is quoted on its own scope after a conversation.
What actually moves the number
In rough order of impact:
- Square footage — the single biggest lever, though not linearly; the second 5,000 SF costs less to design than the first.
- How much architecture is involved. Moving walls, changing the roof, adding square footage or touching the structure moves a project from interiors into architecture, with the drawing set and consultant coordination that implies.
- Finish and detail level. A house with fully bespoke millwork in every room is a fundamentally different drawing effort from one with excellent specified product.
- Jurisdiction. A Calabasas hillside lot with protected oaks, or a Hidden Hills project needing Community Association review alongside the permit, carries approval work that a flat lot in a permissive jurisdiction does not.
- Decision speed. The least discussed and one of the most expensive. Projects that revisit settled decisions cost more because design time is the product.
- Visualization depth. Renderings of every room, a 360 tour and a full VR walkthrough cost more than a handful of views — and typically pay for themselves in avoided change orders.
What a design fee usually includes
Scope varies by firm, which is part of why comparing quotes is hard. A full-service engagement with us generally covers:
- Space planning and layout
- Home design and elevations where the scope includes them
- Material, finish and fixture selection across the whole project
- Custom millwork, ceiling and detail design
- Lighting design and circuiting
- Photoreal 3D renderings of every principal space
- A 360° virtual walkthrough, and VR sign-off on larger projects
- FF&E specification
- Drawing sets coordinated for permit and for the builder
What it does not include: construction, furniture purchase, consultant fees carried directly by the owner (structural, civil, geotechnical, arborist, surveyor), permit and plan-check fees, or the cost of changes requested after documentation is complete.
Design fee versus construction cost
Owners frequently conflate these. A useful way to hold them apart: if your Los Angeles construction budget is $3M, a design fee at 10% is roughly $300,000, and FF&E is a third number on top that you control by what you buy. Soft costs — consultants, permits, surveys, testing — are a fourth, and are covered in our guide to construction soft costs.
For the construction figure itself, our cost calculator publishes baseline per-square-foot ranges by tier and a city index, so you can sanity-check any number by hand.
How to narrow your range in one conversation
Bring four things and almost any competent firm can give you a real number rather than a range:
- The address, or at least the jurisdiction and whether the lot is flat or sloped.
- Square footage, existing and intended.
- Whether structure moves. Even roughly — walls, roof, additions, or purely finishes and furniture.
- Your construction budget, honestly. Firms quote faster and more accurately against a real number, and it is the fastest way to find out early whether a fit exists.
If you would rather see how the fee structures themselves differ — hourly, fixed fee, percentage, cost-plus and markup — we cover that separately in how luxury interior designers charge.
Common follow-up questions
Why will most luxury design firms not publish their prices?
Because a design fee is a function of scope, and scope on a luxury project is not knowable until someone has understood the property and the owner's intent. A published flat price would be either inaccurate or so hedged as to be meaningless. The useful middle ground, which is what this page is, is to publish wide planning ranges with the factors that move you within them.
Is the design fee a percentage of construction cost or a fixed number?
Both are common, and which fits depends on the project. Percentage-of-construction tends to suit ground-up and full remodels where scope genuinely tracks the build. Fixed fee suits defined scopes such as a whole-home interior or a single room, and gives the owner more certainty. Hourly is usually reserved for early feasibility or open-ended consulting. We cover the trade-offs in detail in how luxury interior designers charge.
Does the fee include furniture?
No. Specifying furniture is design work and is included; buying it is a separate budget that you control. On a luxury home an FF&E purchase budget can match the design fee or exceed it many times over depending on what you select, so we keep the two explicitly apart from the first conversation.
What is the minimum project you take on?
It varies with the type of work. Single-room interior scopes generally start around $25,000 in design fee; whole-home engagements are considerably larger. Visualization-only work - renderings, a 360 tour, a VR build for a builder or developer - starts much lower and is quoted per deliverable.
Does designing in 3D first cost more?
It is included rather than added, and in our experience it reduces total project cost rather than increasing it. The reason is that decisions resolved in a model are free to change, while the same decision discovered during construction becomes a change order with labor, material and schedule attached. Owners signing off in a 360 or VR walkthrough before the build is the mechanism.
Are these figures the same outside Los Angeles?
No. These are 2026 Los Angeles planning ranges. Our Texas work - Austin, the Hill Country, Dallas and Houston - runs meaningfully lower, broadly in line with the construction cost index published on our cost calculator, where Austin sits around 0.82x and Dallas-Fort Worth around 0.80x against Los Angeles at 1.00. Trophy coastal markets run higher.
How accurate are these ranges for my project?
Treat them as a way to size your thinking, not as a quote. They are wide deliberately. Give us an address, a square footage, whether structure moves and a construction budget, and we will replace the range with a real number.
Sources
- Summary: B101–2017, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect — AIA Contract DocumentsDesign fee structures and phase scope
- About Interior Design — American Society of Interior Designers (ASID)What an interior design engagement covers
- Publication 35, Interior Designers and Decorators — California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA)Tax treatment of FF&E procured by designers
- Interior Designers: Occupational Outlook Handbook — U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsInterior design profession context
Sources support the regulations, programs and public data discussed. Cost, fee and timeline ranges are Vividly Built's own planning estimates from our project work.