Costs and Contracts

How to read an interior design contract: schedules, fee models, retainers, markups, and the three-day cancellation right

A residential interior design agreement in the United States has a recognizable anatomy: a core agreement, a set of schedules that define services, purchasing, compensation, and termination, and a fee model chosen from four common types. This article walks through each part, quotes the ranges designers publish, and explains the federal cancellation right that can apply when the contract is signed at home.

September 13, 2026 | Interior Design U.S. | 10 min read

What does a residential interior design contract contain?

A residential interior design contract in the United States, in the form the American Society of Interior Designers sells to its members, consists of an Essential Core Agreement plus eleven lettered schedules that separately define the project information, the design concept services, the selection of merchandise, the purchasing services, the project administration services, the designer's compensation, the terms and conditions of sale, the termination rights, the dispute resolution method, and any additional terms. The ASID residential package, authored by attorney Alan M. Siegel of Levy Sonet and Siegel, offers five purchasing options in Schedule D, nine compensation options in Schedule F, and two dispute resolution options in Schedule I, and sells for $349 to non-members and $249 to members under a one-year license (ASID, Interior Design Contract Package).

The schedule structure explains why two proposals from two designers can be hard to compare: each designer has chosen a different combination of purchasing, compensation, and termination options, and the choices sit in different schedules rather than on the first page. ASID's own contracts page quotes Siegel's rule that every interior designer must enter into a written agreement with a client, and that not having one is an invitation for a dispute, and it adds that ASID is not a law firm and that the forms are a starting point to review with a local attorney (ASID, Contracts).

Which fee models do residential designers use and what do they cost?

Residential interior designers in the United States charge under four base models, hourly billing, a flat project fee, a percentage of project cost, and cost-plus purchasing, and most combine two of them, typically a flat or hourly design fee plus a markup on furnishings the designer buys. ASID Minnesota's client guide defines the three classic forms: a fixed fee that covers the full range of services from concept through installation, exclusive of expense reimbursement; an hourly fee based on time actually spent; and cost plus, in which the designer buys materials, furnishings, and services at cost and resells them at cost plus an agreed percentage, with square-foot pricing reserved for larger commercial jobs (ASID Minnesota, Costs and Fees).

The designer marketplace TALD publishes the ranges designers on its platform quote: hourly rates of $150 to $500, with emerging designers near $100 and senior principals in major metros above $500; flat fees of $2,000 to $12,000 for a single room and $15,000 to $50,000 and up for a whole home; per-room fees of $500 to $1,500 for e-design and $2,000 to $7,500 for full service; square-foot fees of $5 to $17, trending to $12 to $25 in high-cost markets such as New York City; markups of 20 to 40 percent over trade cost; percentage fees of 10 to 30 percent of total spend; and monthly retainers of $1,500 to $10,000 on phased projects (TALD, How Do Interior Designers Charge?). TALD's worked examples make the arithmetic concrete: $200 an hour for 60 hours on a living room is $12,000 in design fees before furnishings; $12 per square foot on a 2,000 square foot home is $24,000; 20 percent of a $200,000 renovation is $40,000.

A client weighing those figures against what an employed designer earns can use the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2025 estimate of a $35.84 mean hourly wage and a $74,540 annual mean for interior designers, discussed in the article on interior material and labor costs by region; the gap between $35.84 and a $200 billing rate is overhead, liability, unbilled time, and profit.

How do retainers, markups, and trade pricing work?

A retainer in a residential design agreement is money paid by the client at signing, before services begin, and applied to the balance due at the end of the project, and it is distinct from the monthly retainer model in which a fixed fee of $1,500 to $10,000 a month guarantees the designer's availability whether or not work is active that month. ASID Minnesota describes the first kind and notes a shift in practice: cost plus was once the dominant residential model, and designers now more often charge an hourly rate for design services with cost plus on the products they are asked to buy, or a fixed fee for the whole project.

Markup is where TALD says most client confusion lives, and the mechanics are simple once written out: trade suppliers sell only to credentialed professionals at 20 to 60 percent below retail, the designer charges a 20 to 40 percent markup over that cost, and the client may still pay less than retail. TALD's example is $50,000 of furnishings at trade cost with a 35 percent markup, billed at $67,500. Two lines to check in Schedule G or its equivalent are whether trade discounts pass through to the client and whether freight, delivery, and installation are billed separately, because TALD reports that logistics are commonly billed on top of the markup. ASID Minnesota adds that antiques, custom furniture, load-bearing structural changes, mid-project changes, and excessive demands on the designer's time all increase the final cost.

What must the scope and administration schedules define?

The design concept, merchandise selection, and project administration schedules must state what the designer will produce, how many revisions are included, who purchases what, and how much site supervision the fee covers, because each of those items is an option in the ASID package rather than a default. TALD's list of questions for any designer maps directly onto those schedules: whether the fee structure changes across project phases, what the project minimum is, what installation oversight, vendor coordination, and logistics are included, how procurement and trade pricing are billed, what the sourcing approach is, and who the day-to-day contact will be at a firm where a principal may hand off to a junior designer.

Scope is also where dimensional promises live. A contract that says "accessible bathroom" without naming a standard promises nothing an inspector can measure, whereas one that names ICC A117.1-2017 Section 1103.11.2 promises a 60 by 56 inch water closet clearance and a 30 by 48 inch clear floor space at each fixture, as the article on accessibility clearances under the ADA Standards and ICC A117.1 sets out. The same applies to kitchens: writing the NKBA guideline numbers into the scope, for example a 42 inch work aisle under Guideline 6, gives both parties a number to check against the drawings.

When does the federal three-day cancellation right apply to a design contract?

The Federal Trade Commission's Cooling-Off Rule at 16 CFR Part 429 defines a door-to-door sale as a sale, lease, or rental of consumer goods or services in which the seller personally solicits the sale and the buyer's agreement is made somewhere other than the seller's place of business, such as the buyer's residence, with a purchase price of $25 or more at the residence or $130 or more at other locations, and it gives the buyer the right to cancel until midnight of the third business day after the transaction. The seller must furnish a completed notice of cancellation form, tell the buyer orally of the right at signing, and, after a valid cancellation, refund all payments and return any trade-in within 10 business days (eCFR, 16 CFR Part 429, Cooling-Off Period for Sales Made at Homes or at Certain Other Locations).

The rule lists transactions it does not cover, including sales conducted entirely by mail or telephone with no other contact before delivery, sales where the buyer initiated the contact to meet a bona fide immediate personal emergency and waives the right in a signed handwritten statement, and transactions already covered by the rescission right in the Consumer Credit Protection Act. A design agreement signed at the designer's studio is outside the rule; one signed at the client's dining table during a first consultation is the case to examine. Section 429.2 preserves state laws and municipal ordinances that give buyers more protection, so a state's own home solicitation statute may lengthen the period. A contract that includes a confession of judgment or a waiver of the cancellation right violates the rule's Section 429.1(d).

What does a designer's certification tell the client?

NCIDQ certification, administered by the Council for Interior Design Qualification, tells a client that the designer passed a three-section examination, IDFX, IDPX, and IDIX (formerly the Practicum), built from a job task analysis and scored to a passing point set for independent, safe practice, and CIDQ reports pass rates of 53 percent for IDFX, 60 percent for IDPX, and 61 percent for IDIX in spring 2026, against 55, 65, and 67 percent in fall 2025 and 53, 61, and 63 percent in spring 2025 (CIDQ, About the Exams). Candidates apply under Route 1, all three sections together for those meeting both education and work experience requirements, or Route 2, IDFX alone for candidates still accumulating experience, followed by a second application for IDPX and IDIX (CIDQ, Applying for NCIDQ Exams).

Certification and licensure are different things, and a contract should name the one that applies. Whether a state regulates the title or the practice of interior design is a state-by-state question outside the scope of this article, so a client should ask the designer which state credential, if any, the contract relies on and check it with the relevant state board. ASID membership, by contrast, is a professional association membership, and the ASID contract package is available to members at the discounted price noted above; membership itself is not a license.

What should a client check before signing?

A client should read a residential design contract schedule by schedule and confirm seven things before signing: the fee model and its rate, whether the rate changes between design and procurement phases, the markup basis and whether trade discounts pass through, the retainer amount and how it is applied, the number of revisions and site visits included, the termination and dispute resolution options chosen, and whether the agreement was signed at home in a way that brings the Cooling-Off Rule into play. Each of those items corresponds to a schedule in the ASID package or to a question on TALD's list, so a designer using either framework can point to the page.

Two final habits reduce disputes. Write the dimensional standards the design must meet, by document and section number, into the scope schedule, so that the drawings can be checked against a number rather than an adjective. And attach the budget as a schedule of its own, with the design fee, the furnishings allowance at trade cost plus markup, and the construction estimate shown separately, because the regional cost figures in the article on interior material and labor costs by region are only useful against an estimate that shows the same three lines. The clearances the scope should name for kitchens and baths are listed in the article on NKBA kitchen and bath planning guidelines.