How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Kitchen Designer?

Kitchen design by Mingle

The answer, of course, is that it depends. A designer’s fees can vary based on the scope of your kitchen remodel and the price of materials and design services in your area. To get a sense of the range, we interviewed 13 kitchen designers across the country about what they do and how they charge. Here’s what you need to know.

What Do Kitchen Designers Do?

Kitchen designers take a kitchen remodel from the seed of an idea to completion. They:

• Create design concepts. A kitchen designer will come up with a vision or design concept for a kitchen that looks, feels and functions right for you. They’ll likely ask about the problems with your existing kitchen as well as how you’d like to use your space. They may want to know who in your home cooks and how often. “If I have a client who uses an oven or a microwave a lot, I want to make sure it’s not on the outskirts of the kitchen,” says Bridgette Bennett, a kitchen designer at Signature Kitchen & Bath Design in Cupertino, Calif. They’ll also ask about the styles, colors and materials you gravitate toward.
• Create design plans. Kitchen designers can plan everything about your kitchen, from broad changes like a new layout to details such as where to place an electrical outlet on the island. They create drawings and 3D renderings to give you a realistic picture of how your new kitchen will look.
• Confirm a realistic budget. Kitchen designers know the costs of products and materials, as well as the costs to make changes to your kitchen’s layout. When you share your initial budget with them, they can help you gain a realistic sense of what that investment will cover. “The budget is helpful so I’m not overdesigning for their space,” says Rochelle Horn, kitchen designer at Estrella Cabinetry & Design Center in Goodyear, Arizona. “I take their budget very seriously.” Once a final budget is established, a kitchen designer can help the client stick with it.

Kitchen design by Plain and Posh

How Much Does a Kitchen Designer Charge?

Kitchen designers have different methods of charging for their services, and the way they structure their fees often depends on the way they structure their businesses. The main thing to know is whether your kitchen designer sells products. Many kitchen designers do, while others are independent (meaning they sell no products). Kitchen designers can be found in cabinet and kitchen showrooms, working for design-build firms or running independent businesses. Here are some terms you may hear when you meet with prospective kitchen designers and discuss their fees.

Hourly rate. Independent kitchen designers typically charge an hourly rate for their design work. It may be as low as $65 per hour or as high as $250, but often it’s around $125 to $150. This rate could apply to design time, meetings, phone calls, time your designer spends at your project site and more. “Whether it’s new construction or a remodel, my fee is such a small portion of the overall build that it doesn’t make sense to me that they not use a designer,” says Martha Murray, an independent kitchen designer at Martha Murray Design in Bend, Oregon. “What it will save you is enormous.”

Kitchen design by The Kitchen Studio of Glen Ellyn

Design retainer or flat fee. The fee that kitchen designers charge for their initial design services is often called a design retainer or a flat fee. These fees cover the time the designer spends planning your new kitchen — though often at a discounted rate. A designer might charge a flat fee of a few hundred dollars for an initial two-hour meeting to brainstorm design possibilities or a design retainer of several thousand dollars to complete a full kitchen plan. The designers we spoke with mentioned fees of $350 to $500 for the initial conceptual meeting. For the full design planning process, they mentioned fees of $500 to $10,000, though $2,500 to $3,500 was typical. Sometimes, these fees are a percentage of the total project budget.

Keep in mind that the design retainer fee may include a specific number of hours your designer will work on the project, or perhaps a specific number of design revisions. Beyond that number, your designer may charge you an hourly rate for additional time they spend on the project. Check with your prospective designer to be sure you understand these details.

Also, these fees are typically nonrefundable. However, kitchen designers who sell products may apply the fee as a credit toward product purchases. Many designers will allow you to keep the plan they create for you even if you choose not to proceed with them. Other kitchen designers don’t hand over the plan until you’ve signed a contract to proceed with them on the project. Again, check with your prospective designer.

10 Times to Hire a Kitchen Designer

Kitchen design by Capitol Design

Cost-plus or markup. This is a pretty standard way that kitchen designers cover the cost of providing their services, at least among the subset of designers who sell products or purchase them for you. Here’s how it works: A designer buys products at a trade (or wholesale) discount and then marks up those products to the client, keeping the difference as profit. This is similar to the typical retail model in which everyone from boutiques to big-box stores buys from manufacturers and then marks up the wares to their customers. Just as the wholesale price won’t be listed when you buy a pair of jeans, the trade price and cost-plus markup is not likely to show up on your kitchen design invoice.

Independent designers who operate solely on a per-hour basis don’t mark up products (since they don’t sell them), but most of the time you’ll still pay a markup — either when you buy products through a showroom or through a different pro such as a general contractor. Think of this markup as something that’s simply baked into the cost of remodeling a kitchen with professional help.

Deposit. Kitchen designers typically request a large deposit, or down payment, to order products for a kitchen remodel. Deposits may range from 25 to 65 percent of the total project cost, though around 50 percent is common. Often, another large chunk of the project cost (30 to 50 percent) is due when the cabinets are delivered to the home.

Project milestone-based fees. If you hire a kitchen designer who has a building background or one who’s employed by a general contractor or design-build company, you might run across a milestone-based fee structure. This means the cost of the total project is divided into several payments due at specific deliverables — for instance, once the permits are pulled, once the cabinets are ordered, once the kitchen is demolished, once the cabinets are installed and so on.

Everything You Need to Know About Working With a Kitchen Designer

Kitchen design by Built-Rite Kitchens

Can You Afford to Hire a Kitchen Designer?

Because kitchens are complex rooms to plan, adding a kitchen designer to your team can save you a lot of hassle. Not only will will a designer ultimately save you headaches by suggesting products and materials you might not have considered, but he or she can help you make the most of your space with strategic layout choices that your contractor might not suggest. More than likely, if you spend the money to hire a kitchen designer, you’ll be happier with your remodel in the end.

If you don’t think you can afford to add a kitchen designer as a full member of your renovation team, you might consider paying one for a limited consultation. That can be immensely valuable in terms of generating creative ideas for your kitchen remodel.

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