A few days ago, I found myself on the buying end of a sale, and it reminded me why it’s so important for interior designers to put prices on their website or, at the very least, to give potential clients some kind of price signaling before the proposal.

As someone who spends a lot of time teaching interior designers how to guide clients through decisions, I always find it fascinating to experience someone else’s sales process from the client side. It gives me a chance to notice what builds trust, what creates momentum, and what unintentionally creates friction.

This particular experience reminded me why I’m such an advocate not just for transparent pricing, but for helping clients understand the general investment early. Why? Because it helps them choose faster when it’s time to making the “buying decision.”

A Textbook Marketing Win

The journey started exactly the way we’d all hope it would. Someone posted something on LinkedIn that caught my attention. I looked up her website, liked what I saw, and scheduled a call.

We had a great conversation. She offered to put together a proposal, and scheduled a meeting to walk me through it.

So far, so good. A marketing win for her, momentum for me! 🙌

The problem?

I had absolutely no idea what her services cost.

The Question I Couldn’t Stop Thinking About

Since her website didn’t include any prices, at the end of our discovery call I asked if she could give me a sense of potential costs. I wasn’t looking for an exact quote. I just wanted to understand the general investment range we were talking about. You know: “How many zeros are we discussing here?”

She explained that she needed to better define the scope before discussing pricing. That’s normal. Many service providers are hesitant to discuss numbers until they have time to digest what they learned on the discovery call, and even I tell designers that it’s better to say you don’t have an answer yet than to paint yourself into a corner you can’t escape.

But over the following days, as I waited for our proposal meeting, do you know what I was thinking about?

Not her strategy.

Not her skills.

Just: “What is this going to cost?”

Even during the follow-up meeting, while she was walking me through the proposal, I kept wondering, “How much is this going to cost me, and will it be worth it?” It was like having a mosquito buzzing in my ear. She couldn’t hear it, but I could. And it made it harder to fully absorb everything she was saying.

That’s the thing about pricing conversations: When clients don’t know whether they’re about to hear $2,000 or $20,000, they’re not fully listening. They’re worrying.

Worried People Rarely Make Bold Decisions

Her lack of price signaling had put me into a heightened state of worry. Not because her service wasn’t valuable, and not because I wasn’t interested, but because uncertainty creates anxiety.

When we don’t give people the information they need to make a confident decision, they feel uncertain. When they feel uncertain, they become cautious. Instead of evaluating the opportunity, they start evaluating the risk, and instead of asking whether a solution is valuable, they begin wondering whether it’s affordable.

The lesson here isn’t that you need to give exact pricing before you’ve defined the scope. The lesson is that your clients need some sense of the investment long before they receive a proposal.

Who’s Got the Best Deal?

Designers often seek out my business coaching because they want help with pricing. They ask if they should raise their prices, lower their prices, change their services, offer more, or offer less. They wonder if they should charge hourly or flat-fee, if they should charge for consults, and if they can charge for those annoying late-night texts.

I try to help designers understand that the price itself is rarely the real problem.

If clients balk at your prices, it’s usually because you haven’t helped them understand the value, you haven’t been transparent about the investment, or both.

Without a clear way to compare what they’ll get — and what they’ll pay for it — clients end up making decisions based on assumptions. They think they’re comparing apples to apples, when they may actually be comparing apples to custom-upholstered, performance-fabric, hand-delivered heirloom pears.

And the tragedy? They might have been able to afford the pears. They just didn’t know it.

Why This Makes Sales Harder

To be clear, none of this means she’ll lose the sale. In fact, she may very well win my business. That’s not really the point.

The point is that she made the outcome less predictable than it needed to be.

By holding back key buying information until the very last moment of her sales process, she changed the emotional ending of the conversation. Instead of me being able to say, “That aligns with what I expected, let’s do it,” the meeting ended with the dreaded “let me think about it.”

And yes, people deserve time to think. I’m not anti-thinking. Big fan of thinking. Ten out of ten, would recommend. 😅

But there’s a difference between a client taking healthy time to evaluate a good decision and a client retreating into uncertainty because important information arrived too late. That’s when we risk losing the momentum that got the client (me, in this case) interested in the first place. I may second-guess the investment, set the decision on a dusty mental shelf, and intend to come back to it… but never quite get around to it.

If you really want to help your client, you have to be willing to share uncomfortable information early: prices, policies, timelines, budget expectations, and whatever else they may not want to hear but need to know. When you withhold important information until the end, you don’t just extend the decision-making process. You increase the risk that it ends with a fizzle instead of a clear, confident commitment.

But What About Soft Sales?

I’m not advocating for aggressive sales tactics. I use a very soft sales process myself, and I don’t believe clients should be pressured into making immediate decisions. As I said above, people deserve time to think and space to evaluate their options so they can make the decision that’s right for them. One of the reasons I liked this professional is that she wasn’t pushy.

The issue wasn’t that she invited me to consider my options.

The issue was what she left me considering.

When our conversation ended, the strongest thing in my mind wasn’t the value of the solution, or the transformation she could help create, or the strategy she’d presented.

It was the price.

Thanks to something behavioral scientists call “the recency effect,” the cost of her services became the main thing rolling around in my mind after the call, because it was the very last thing we went over. That’s a different emotional place from which to make a decision than if I’d already been prepared for her price, and if the last thing she’d told me was how we were going to achieve my business goals together. 💫

What Great Price Signaling Does

The goal of price signaling isn’t to provide exact quotes before you’ve defined the scope of work.

The goal is to reduce uncertainty.

Great price signaling helps clients understand the general investment range, why projects cost what they cost, what factors influence pricing, and whether they’re likely to be a good fit before they ever receive a proposal. Done well, it doesn’t scare people away. It helps the wrong people self-select out while helping the right people move forward with confidence.

And price signaling doesn’t have to mean publishing one fixed price for every possible project. Interior design is too custom for that. But you can still give people useful orientation.

Here are some examples of the kind of phrasing I teach in my Lead to Launch onboarding bootcamp:

• “Full-service kitchen design begins at $8,000, with most clients investing $150,000 or more in the full renovation.”
• “Our design fees typically range from $5,000 to $15,000, depending on the size and complexity of the project.”
• “Most furnishing projects begin with a furnishings budget of $25,000, separate from our design fee.”
• “We are usually the right fit for homeowners planning a major renovation with a construction budget starting at $150,000.”
• “Our consults are paid appointments because we use that time to evaluate your goals, priorities, budget, and next best steps.”

Notice that none of those examples require you to promise an exact final fee. They simply help the client orient themselves.

That matters because clients are not just asking, “Can I afford this?” They are also asking, “Am I in the right place? Is this designer used to projects like mine? Will I be embarrassed if my budget is too small? Am I about to waste their time? Am I about to waste my own?”

Your pricing language can answer those questions before the client ever gets on a call with you.

Where to Use Price Signaling

If you’re not ready to put full pricing on your website, start by adding price signals in a few key places.

Put investment ranges on your service pages so potential clients understand the general scope before they inquire. Add a pricing or budget question to your inquiry form so you can identify whether the project is likely to be a fit. Mention investment ranges during your discovery call so the buzzing of an unknown price doesn’t drown out the sound of you sharing how you’ll fix their problems.

You can also use your FAQ to explain the relationship between design fees, furnishings, construction costs, contractor fees, procurement, styling, and installation. Clients don’t need you to magically know every number from the beginning, but they do need you to help them understand the financial shape of the decision.

Because your clients aren’t just evaluating your talent. They’re evaluating how you’ll handle their money.

My Best Advice

Every step in your marketing and sales process should answer a simple question: Does this reduce client anxiety, or increase it?

When clients understand the investment and the value behind it, they can stop worrying about what the price might be and start evaluating whether the solution is right for them. That’s why I geek out when I teach price signaling in my Lead to Launch onboarding bootcamp. Because it’s not a sales tactic. It’s a decision-making gift.

If your clients keep hesitating, ghosting, or getting nervous when it’s time to say yes, the problem may not be your price. It may be the way you’re helping them understand the decision. Inside Lead to Launch, I help interior designers clarify their services, set better expectations, communicate value, and build an onboarding process that makes it easier for better-fit clients to move forward with confidence.

Not sure whether pricing, onboarding, or messaging is the thing you need to fix next? Take my “What to Fix Next” quiz and find out where your client experience may be creating unnecessary friction.

Because the goal is not to pressure people into saying yes.

The goal is to give the right people enough clarity to say yes with confidence.

💛 Rebecca

Hi there, I’m Rebecca West — an interior design business coach, author, and creator of The DECIDE Method. I help residential interior designers clarify their niche, onboard clients with confidence, and guide clients toward quicker, calmer, more confident design decisions. Take my “What to Fix Next?” quiz to figure out what to improve next in your design business. 💛