A client emails a photo from a magazine and asks whether you could build something like it, but eight inches wider, in white oak, with two drawers instead of three. You sketch it. You price it. You revise it twice. Then they go quiet, or they take your drawing to someone cheaper.
That was six hours. Nobody paid for them, and they came directly out of the hours you had available to sell.
The answer isn't to stop designing. It's to stop giving it away.
Unpaid design isn't free — it's a discount you can't see
Here's the part that makes design time expensive in a way that isn't obvious: unpaid design doesn't just cost you those hours. It lowers the share of your week that's billable, which raises the rate every other job has to carry.
Say you need $68,000 of revenue a year, you're in the shop 40 hours a week, and you take two weeks off.
At 75% billable efficiency:
- 40 × 50 × 0.75 = 1,500 billable hours
- $68,000 ÷ 1,500 = $45.33/hour
Add six hours a week of unpaid design, dropping you to 60%:
- 40 × 50 × 0.60 = 1,200 billable hours
- $68,000 ÷ 1,200 = $56.67/hour
Eleven dollars an hour, on every hour you bill, forever — because you were being generous with drawings. The clients who do hire you are paying for the ones who didn't. Run your own version in the free Pay Yourself Calculator; the billable efficiency slider is exactly this lever.
What design time actually includes
Worth listing, because "design" sounds like sketching and is mostly not:
- The consultation and the questions that establish what they actually want
- Sketches or CAD, and the revisions after each round of feedback
- Material selection, and sourcing calls for anything unusual
- Joinery decisions and structural problem-solving
- The take-off and the quote itself
- Site measure, for anything built in
For a straightforward piece that's two to four hours. For a complex commission with a picky client, it's a full day or more before a single board is cut.
The model that works: a credited design deposit
The cleanest structure most shops land on, because it removes the client's objection entirely:
A design deposit, credited in full against the build.
Say design is five hours. At a $70 design rate that's a $350 deposit. If they proceed, the $350 comes off the final invoice. If they don't, you were paid for your work.
Why it works:
- The client isn't paying "extra." They're pre-paying part of the job.
- It costs a serious client nothing, and it costs a tire-kicker $350.
- You get paid for the drawings that don't convert — which is the whole problem.
- It changes the conversation from "will you do this for free" to "shall we start."
A design rate can reasonably sit above your bench rate. Design is skilled, it's the part that can't be delegated, and mistakes made there are expensive downstream. Charging your shop rate is fine too — just charge something.
Cap the revisions
Unlimited revisions is how a paid design job becomes an unpaid one. Say the number out loud in the quote:
Design includes two rounds of revisions. Additional revisions are billed at $95 each.
Two rounds is generous and enough for any reasonable project. What the cap really does is force decisions — a client with unlimited free revisions will keep exploring, because exploring costs them nothing. A client with two rounds arrives at the third conversation having actually made up their mind.
Charge for revisions after a design is approved and the build has started, too. That's not a revision, that's a change order, and it has real cost: material already bought, parts already cut, hours already spent. Reprice it in writing before you touch anything, and get an acknowledgment. An approval link with a versioned quote makes that a click instead of an argument — it's what QuoteItRight does with change requests.
How to say it without losing the job
Most woodworkers know they should charge for design and don't, because the conversation feels awkward. It's awkward when it sounds like a surcharge and it's easy when it sounds like a process. Lead with what they get:
"The next step is the design phase — I'll do measured drawings, pick the material with you, and give you a firm price. That's a $350 design deposit, and it comes straight off the build cost when we go ahead. It usually takes about a week."
Then stop talking. You've described a professional service with a deliverable and a timeline, which is what an architect, a kitchen designer, and a builder all do. Clients who've done any kind of renovation find this completely normal.
The ones who push back are giving you information. A client unwilling to commit $350 to a $6,000 commission is telling you something about how the rest of the project will go.
When to skip it
Not every job needs a design phase. Skip the deposit when:
- It's a repeat piece you've built before and can quote from a template
- The client already has drawings or a spec sheet
- It's a small item or a product from your existing line
- It's an existing client with a track record of buying
The deposit is for custom work that requires real design effort before a number exists. Applying it universally makes you look procedural about jobs that should take five minutes to quote.
A structure you can copy
- Free: initial call or email exchange, ballpark range based on similar work, 20 minutes.
- Design deposit: measured drawings, material selection, firm quote, two revisions. Credited to the build.
- Build deposit: on approval, enough to cover materials before you buy anything.
- Progress payment: at a defined milestone on longer jobs.
- Balance: on completion or delivery.
The ballpark range in step one matters. It costs you almost nothing and it filters out the person who thought a dining table was $800 before either of you invests real time.
FAQ
What if a competitor offers free design? They're doing the same work and recovering it somewhere — usually in higher prices for the clients who buy, or out of their own unpaid hours. You can compete on that basis if you choose, but do it knowingly. Free design is a marketing expense; give it a budget like any other and watch what it returns.
Should the design deposit be refundable? No — it's payment for work delivered. Be explicit that it's non-refundable but fully credited against the build if they proceed, and make sure they get something tangible for it: the drawings, the material spec, and a firm quote. Paid work with a deliverable is easy to defend.
Who owns the drawings if they don't go ahead? Say so in writing, because it will come up. A common position: the client is paying for the design service and receives the drawings for their project, and you retain the right to build the design again. If you're worried about a drawing walking to a cheaper shop, deliver dimensioned drawings rather than full construction details.