Flat Fee vs Percentage: How Interior Design Pricing Works in Malaysia

Ask five interior designers in Malaysia how they charge, and you'll likely get five different answers — a percentage of your renovation budget, an hourly rate, a price per square foot, or a flat fee. They're not equally good for you as the client, even though they're all common.

The percentage model, and why it's worth questioning

Charging a percentage of your total renovation budget — commonly somewhere around 8–15% — sounds proportionate. In practice, it means your design fee rises every time your furniture or construction budget does, even when the actual design work hasn't changed. Choose a more expensive sofa, and the designer's fee goes up too, for a decision that took the same amount of design time either way. It's not a dishonest model. It's just one where your interests and your designer's fee aren't quite pointed the same direction.

Hourly and per-square-foot rates have their own quirks

An hourly rate rewards time spent, not results — a slower process costs you more, even if the outcome is the same. A per-square-foot rate treats a large simple room the same as a small, detail-heavy one, which rarely reflects where the actual design effort goes.

What a flat fee per room actually does

We charge one fee, agreed before any work starts, based on the room — not your budget, not the hours we spend, not the square footage. Interior Styling is RM1,715 per standard room, RM2,635 for an open-plan living-dining space. Full Interior Design — concept through move-in — is RM3,565 per standard room, RM5,485 open-plan. Three finish levels — Essential, Curated and Bespoke — change what the materials and furniture cost, never the design fee. Essential is high-street and local retail: Ikea, SSF Home, Harvey Norman, Fortytwo.my, Heesz, Kinsen Home, Neo Livin, Ruma Home, Joy Studio, Mumu Living. Curated is our own term for the considered middle, and where most of our projects sit: Commune, Cellini, Fella Design, Dezign District, Poet Living, Big Brain, Gudang, Crown Livin, Dadswood. Bespoke is imported and made to order: Space Furniture, Tekni, BoConcept, King Living, Roche Bobois, Molteni&C, Flexform, XTRA and similar. If your taste shifts toward a pricier sofa halfway through, our fee doesn't move. Only the sofa does.

Why this matters more than it sounds like it should

When your design fee isn't tied to how much you spend, the incentive changes completely. We're no better off if you choose the expensive option — so the conversation stays about what actually makes the room work for how you live in it, not what pads the number. That's the real reason we price this way: it lets every decision be about comfort and fit, not about what moves a percentage.

The part a flat fee doesn't cover

To be clear about what this number is and isn't: it's the design fee, not the construction cost. Contractor works — painting, flooring, carpentry, electrical — are estimated separately, based on your finish level and square footage, since that part of the cost is genuinely tied to scope and materials. Our cost calculator breaks down both halves for your own home in under a minute.

If you're weighing styling instead

The same flat-fee logic applies to styling, with a different confusion attached to it — see our guide to interior styling pricing if that's the service you're actually considering.

See it for your own home

Try the two-minute style quiz for a personalised estimate, or go straight to Pricing for the full breakdown.

Where to see this in practice

If you are comparing real quotes rather than pricing models, here is where our own work sits:

• Our Portfolio — homes priced exactly this way, with the scope visible in the result
• Our Services — what the flat fee covers across design, styling, concierge and remote design
• Interior Styling — the same flat-fee logic at styling’s smaller scope, if that is what you are weighing

About Angelica Lee

Chief Home Maker and founder of Sundays in Bed, award-winning interior designer. Learn more about Angelica →