Reviewed October 2026. Prices are Bait Al Ebdaa's published starting prices, in AED and excluding 5% VAT. Your own quotation follows a site survey.
Ask three Dubai interior designers for a fee and you can get three answers that are hard to compare: one quotes a package, one a rate per square foot, and one folds design into a build contract. This guide explains how interior design fees in Dubai are usually structured, what Bait Al Ebdaa's own design packages cost, and which parts of a project change the fee.
How interior designers in Dubai charge
Most fees follow one of three models, and knowing which one a quote uses is the first step to comparing it.
A fixed package per room or property
The fee is set by what is being designed: one room, an apartment, a townhouse or a villa. It is easy to budget and suits homes, where the number and type of rooms tell the designer most of what they need to know.
A rate per square foot
Common for offices and larger commercial spaces, where floor area measures the work better than the number of rooms. The same model is often used for technical documents such as working drawings.
Design folded into a design-and-build contract
Some firms that also build show little or no separate design fee and recover it in the construction price. That is not necessarily poor value, but it makes the design harder to compare and harder to take to another contractor.
What our interior design packages cost
We use fixed packages for homes and a per-square-foot rate for offices and drawings. A single room with a photorealistic 3D concept starts at AED 2,500, which suits a majlis or master bedroom on its own. An apartment package starts at AED 12,000, a townhouse at AED 20,000 and a villa at AED 30,000. Offices are priced by area, from AED 20 per sq ft.
The initial consultation is free, and so is the site survey, which we offer anywhere in the UAE, subject to project suitability.
What the design fee pays for
Our design service takes a project from brief to approved design: concept and mood boards, space planning and furniture layouts, material and finish selection, lighting design, and photorealistic 3D renders that you review and approve before any work starts on site.
Working drawings and a material specification schedule sit outside the packages. Drawings are charged by area, from AED 12 per sq ft, because a bigger floor plan means more sheets of dimensions, sections and details; the schedule, from AED 3,500, lists every finish by product and location. Whether your budget needs them depends on who builds the design, which is the next question to settle.
What makes a design fee go up or down
- Size and number of rooms. More rooms means more layouts, more material decisions and more renders to approve, which is why a villa package starts higher than an apartment.
- How much is custom-made. A scheme built around bespoke joinery, such as wardrobes, media walls and wall panelling, needs more design detail than one furnished from stock pieces.
- Technical documents. Working drawings are priced per square foot, so they add more to a large villa or office than to a small apartment.
- Changing the layout. Moving walls or relocating a kitchen means coordinating structure and MEP services, and often a permit. A finishes-only refresh needs none of that design work.
What a design fee does not include
A design fee pays for the design, not for building it. Construction is quoted separately; as a guide, our villa fit-out bands start at AED 300–450 per sq ft for a standard finish and AED 500–750 per sq ft for a luxury specification. Our published prices also exclude 5% VAT, authority fees, specialist access and third-party charges unless the quotation specifically includes them. For the build side of the budget, see our villa renovation cost guide.
Design only, or design and build?
If you plan to tender the build, budget for the drawings and schedule on top of the package. Two contractors pricing from 3D renders alone will each assume their own dimensions and materials, and their prices will not be comparable; pricing from the same drawings and schedule makes the comparison fair.
With design and build, one team is accountable from the first sketch to the installed result, and there is a financial reason to consider it: when Bait Al Ebdaa is appointed for the complete fit-out, eligible design fees may be credited toward the project, subject to contract value and agreed terms.
How to compare interior design quotes
Put the quotes side by side and ask the same six questions of each:
- Is it a package, a per-square-foot rate, or bundled into a build price?
- Exactly which rooms, or how much floor area, does it cover?
- Are the 3D renders photorealistic, or indicative sketches?
- How many rounds of changes are included?
- Are working drawings and a material schedule included, or extra?
- Who builds it, and what happens to the fee if the same firm does?
Where the design hours go: an example
A design fee buys decisions. On our Palm Jumeirah penthouse project (5,400 sq ft), those decisions ran from the colour palette to motorized curtain tracks, wall panelling and custom joinery fitted around an existing structure. Each of those is a drawing, a specification and an approval round, which is why a whole-home package costs more than the sum of a few room concepts.
When to ask for a design quote
Ask once you know the property, the rooms in scope and roughly what you want to spend on the whole project. Bring a floor plan if you have one, photos of the space and a few interiors you like. The first consultation is free, and the quotation follows a visit to the space. Our interior design service in Dubai explains how we work, and the full price list shows every published price.