How Often to Bill for Interior Design Services

Consistency in business is important for morale, cash flow, and professionalism. Yet, so many designers aren’t sure how often they should be billing for interior design services. And because of this uncertainty - I see designers struggling with confidence and cash flow.

A while back we had an electrician over to do some work on the house. We didn’t receive the bill that month or the next. Admittedly, I half hoped maybe he forgot about the invoice altogether. But finally, 3 months later we received the invoice. And even though it was a bill that I anticipated I was still a bit frustrated that it took so long.

My expectation was that billing would be done in a timely manner - which at 3 months I didn’t think fit that description.

Billing and sending invoices to clients can make designers a little on edge - are they going to pay? Are they going to ask why the bill is the amount it is? Are they going to question everything? Will they complain? Designers need to have a better relationship with their billing processes. And a big part of that is consistency.

Designers must have solid, repeatable, and clear processes around billing. And stick to the process.

So how often to bill for interior design services?

For me, it’s billing every two weeks for time billing. This made sense for my hourly pricing model and was literally clockwork. However, maybe you have clients that don’t take up much of your time in a month and it makes sense to bill monthly. Or maybe you have clients who want to track your time a little more closely and so you bill them by 20-hour chunks. If your pricing model is a flat fee, maybe you get it all up-front or in pre-planned installments.

My point is, there isn’t a rule for how often to bill for interior design services - the rule is to be consistent. When you engage a client - whether it is a designer-for-a-day, e-design, full-service, staging, styling, reno, etc - they should know exactly when they’ll receive a bill. There should be no surprises, no questions, no wondering.

So how often do you bill for interior design services?