If you've typed "how much does an interior designer cost" into Google more than once, you're not alone—it's the question we get asked first, before style, before timeline, before almost anything else.
By 2026, Melbourne homeowners are more design-savvy than ever. We’re renovating with intention, furnishing more consciously, and expecting our homes to work harder for the way we live…but understanding can still feel unclear.
The honest answer is that there isn't one figure. What you pay depends on scope, the level of service you actually need, how much procurement we're managing on your behalf, and the complexity of the renovation or build itself. Below is how we think about the real cost of interior design in Melbourne, and what it tends to look like in practice.
Here’s Why Interior Design Pricing Varies So Much
We get it—"it depends" isn't a satisfying answer when you're trying to budget. But a single consultation and a full renovation involving joinery, trades and procurement are genuinely different jobs, priced differently for good reason. Here's how we break it down.
Design Consultations—from $750-$1,000
This is a one-off, in-home session (60–90 minutes) for clients who want direction but plan to execute themselves. You'll walk away with style guidance, a spatial layout opinion, colour direction and furniture suggestions.
One thing worth being upfront about: a consultation is not a fully resolved design solution delivered on the spot. We can point you toward furniture that suits your style and colour preferences, but before we'd put our name to a specific selection, we'd want to mock up the space against real dimensions, scale and clearances—a two-hour visit isn't enough time to do that properly. If you're hands-on, enjoy sourcing yourself, and mainly want a second opinion and some guardrails, this is the right entry point.
From here, the full service splits into two quite different offers—and which one is right for you depends on whether you're furnishing to sell or lease, or furnishing a home you're going to live in.
Furniture Packages—for Investors, Developers & Short-Stay
This is built around a fixed budget and floor plan, structured to achieve a cohesive, market-ready look efficiently rather than a deeply personalised one. It's the right fit for developers furnishing a display suite, investors furnishing for lease, or clients kitting out a holiday let—where consistency, turnaround and product cost per square metre matter more than a highly bespoke brief.
- Single room: from ~$10K in product investment
- Open-plan living/dining/kitchen: from ~$20K
- Whole home: typically $70K+
These figures are product investment, not a design fee, and reflect what it actually costs to furnish a space properly right now given current freight and lead times (more on that below). Final spend moves with the size of the property and the calibre of the selections, but the process itself is intentionally streamlined—we're not spending months workshopping a brief with you room by room.
Interior Decoration Service—for Homeowners
This is our fixed-fee service for people actually living in the home—families who've just bought, or homeowners who've moved in and want the space to finally feel resolved. It's a more personal, collaborative process than the furniture package: we work through spatial planning, a design direction guide and digital moodboards with you, with two rounds of revisions built in, before we move to procurement.
The design fee is fixed and separate from what you spend on product:
- Single space (living room, bedroom, home office, nursery, etc.): $1,250
- Open-plan living/dining/kitchen: $2,500
- Whole home: $4,850
What that fee covers: a personalised furnishing layout, design direction guide, digital moodboards, curated furniture/rug/lighting selections, two rounds of revisions, and full procurement and delivery coordination through our network of vetted suppliers—which typically comes with trade pricing up to 40% off retail, so the design fee is often offset by what you save on the product spend itself.
Product investment on top of the design fee will depend on your space and selections, but this is the tier we recommend most often for residential clients, because the process is built around how you'll actually live in the room, not just how it needs to look for a listing.
Full Interior Design (Renovations & New Builds)
This is where we're working alongside architects and builders on layout, finishes and joinery detailing from the ground up. Because every renovation has a different scope, we don't publish a flat figure here—but as a guide, expect design fees to sit well beyond the decoration-only tiers once you factor in documentation, site visits, and coordination across trades. We'll always give you a proper quote once we understand the brief.
What You’re Really Paying For
It's worth reframing the question, because "cost of an interior designer" makes it sound like you're paying for taste. You're not. You're paying for:
- Years of training in spatial planning, not just styling
- Trade and supplier relationships that get you pricing and stock you can't access at retail
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Avoidance of expensive mistakes
- Time—sourcing, comparing, and managing procurement is a part-time job in itself
- A second set of eyes before you commit to something that's hard to undo, like custom joinery
In 2026, more clients understand that good design protects their investment. A poorly resolved layout or a rushed furniture purchase routinely costs more to fix than the design fee would have been in the first place. That's not a sales line—it's the pattern we see on almost every project that comes to us after a DIY attempt has stalled.
What Impacts Pricing for Interior Designers in 2026?
A few real shifts are behind this year's numbers, not just inflation in general:
- Freight and trade costs are still elevated compared to previous baselines
- Lead times on custom joinery and made-to-order furniture have stretched—we're building that into project timelines up front now, not as a caveat later
- Clients are asking for more bespoke, less off-the-shelf outcomes, which takes more design hours to resolve properly
- Sustainability and build quality expectations have gone up, and better materials cost more
A Transparent Approach to Interior Design Costs
At Furnishd Studio, we’ve built our reputation around clarity and structure–rather than leaving clients guessing. Our services are thoughtfully packaged with defined deliverables.
Our Furniture Package and Interior Decoration Service are both fixed-fee, so you know the number upfront before we start. For renovation and new build projects, our Full-scope Interior Design Services start with an estimate based on your brief, then work in design hour blocks from there—scope like this shifts as drawings and decisions evolve, so a single flat fee upfront wouldn't be an honest number. Either way, you'll always know what you're paying and what you're getting for it before you commit.
Designing With Confidence
Every engagement starts with a discovery call—not a sales pitch, but a genuine conversation about how you actually live in the space, not just how you want it to photograph. That's where we help you work out which service is the right fit: a one-off consultation, the Furniture Package, the Interior Decoration Service, or a full renovation scope. If you're not sure where your project sits, that's exactly the conversation worth having before you spend anything. Get in touch, and we'll talk it through.
