I should state my interest before anything else: I am a practising architect and I also sell furniture, so I have two reasons to tell you that architects are worth their fee. What follows tries to be useful anyway, including the section on when the answer is no.
The question people actually ask is not "what does an architect cost" — it is "what do I get for that, and could I get most of it for less". So here are the fee structures, what each one delivers, and the honest threshold at which involvement stops paying for itself.
Architect, interior designer, decorator
Three different scopes, frequently conflated, and the difference decides who you should be talking to.
| Scope | Regulated? | Right for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architect | Structure, spatial planning, services, approvals, and interiors | Yes — PCATP registration | Anything that moves a wall, changes a level, or needs approval |
| Interior designer | Space planning, finishes, joinery, furniture, lighting | No formal register | Reworking existing rooms without structural change |
| Interior decorator | Furniture, colour, textiles, styling | No | A room that works and needs to look better |
| Furniture specialist | Pieces, proportion, materials | No | A room that needs the right furniture, well specified |
The overlap is real and the boundary is fuzzy in practice. What is not fuzzy: anything touching structure, staircases, wet areas, or building approvals requires a registered architect or engineer, and PCATP registration is checkable in about a minute.
The fee structures, and their incentives
Four models are in common use in Pakistan. Each one creates a different incentive, and the incentive is worth understanding before you sign.
Percentage of construction cost
The traditional model — typically 5–12% for a full architectural service depending on project size and complexity, lower on very large projects. Simple and transparent. Its weakness is the obvious one: the fee rises with the spend, which does not align the architect with a client trying to spend less.
Fixed fee
A stated fee for a stated scope. The best model for interiors, because the scope is definable and the incentive is neutral. It requires a properly written scope document, and any change to scope is a written variation. This is the model I use.
Hourly
Rs 8,000–25,000 an hour in Lahore depending on seniority. Right for advice, reviews, and small pieces of work: a layout opinion, a second look at someone else’s drawings, a specification check. Wrong for a whole project, because nobody can budget it.
Cost-plus / procurement margin
The designer buys the furniture and materials and takes a margin. Common, and legitimate when disclosed. The problem is when it is not disclosed, because the incentive to specify expensive things becomes invisible. Ask directly whether your designer takes a margin on procurement. The answer should be immediate and unembarrassed.
What a fee actually buys, stage by stage
- Briefing and survey — measured drawings of what exists. Almost nobody has these and everything downstream depends on them
- Concept — plans and options with the reasoning stated. This is where the money is saved, because it is where mistakes are still free
- Developed design — dimensioned layouts, elevations, a lighting plan, a finishes schedule, a furniture schedule
- Technical package — joinery details, electrical layouts, and enough information for a contractor to price accurately rather than guess
- Tender and procurement — getting comparable quotes, which requires the package above to exist
- Site inspection — checking that what was drawn is what is being built, at the moments when it can still be corrected
- Handover — snagging, and the documentation you will want in ten years
A "design only" engagement usually covers the first three. Stages four to seven are where most of the value sits, and they are the ones clients most often cut. It is a false economy in a specific way: without a technical package, contractors price different things and the quotes cannot be compared, which is exactly the situation the fee was meant to prevent.
Indicative fees in Lahore
| Scope | Typical fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| One room, layout and furniture specification | Rs 60,000 – 200,000 | Fixed fee; a few weeks |
| Full house interior, design only | Rs 400,000 – 1,200,000 | Concept to schedules, no site supervision |
| Full house interior with supervision | 8–15% of the interiors budget | Includes procurement and site |
| New house, full architectural service | 5–12% of construction cost | Lower percentage on larger projects |
| Hourly consultation | Rs 8,000 – 25,000 / hour | Advice, reviews, second opinions |
| Office fit-out | 7–12% of the fit-out budget | Services coordination drives this up |
Two notes. Fees are usually staged against deliverables, not dates — pay for the concept when you have the concept. And an initial visit and conversation should be free or nominal; a firm charging for a first meeting is unusual here.
When it is genuinely worth it
- Anything structural. Not a judgement call — a wall, a beam, a staircase, a level change
- A new build or a major renovation, where the decisions being made are expensive and permanent
- Any project where the trades need coordinating. An architect’s largest single contribution is often stopping the electrician, the carpenter and the tiler from each solving their own problem separately
- A house where the plan does not work and nobody can say why. Diagnosis is a skill and it is most of what you are paying for
- Anywhere approvals, regulations or a housing authority are involved
- When your time is worth more than the fee. A full house interior is a genuine second job for six months
When it is not
This is the part most articles by architects leave out.
- A single room that needs furniture rather than planning. A good furniture specialist will do this properly, often at no fee beyond the pieces themselves
- A room where you already know what you want and simply need it executed
- A rented property. Spend on portable things and improvise the rest
- A budget under about Rs 1.5 million for an interior. At that level a 10% fee is a meaningful fraction of what you have, and it is better in the furniture
- When you enjoy it. Some people are good at this and enjoy doing it, and there is no reason to pay someone to take that away
The honest test is whether the problem is a decision problem or a selection problem. Decision problems — this room does not work and I do not know why — are worth a fee. Selection problems — I need the right sofa — are worth a good showroom.
How to work with one well
- Write a brief, however short. How many people, how the rooms are used, what you have that is staying, what you cannot live with
- State the budget honestly at the start. A designer working blind will design to the wrong number and both of you will waste a month
- Agree the scope in writing, including what is excluded and what a variation costs
- Make decisions at the point they are asked for. Late decisions are what actually cause overruns, far more often than design changes
- Do not brief the contractor directly around the architect. It is the single fastest way to lose the coordination you paid for
- Ask for the drawings and specifications at the end, and keep them. They are worth having in ten years
You are not paying for taste. You are paying for the sequence of decisions being made in the right order, by someone who has watched what happens when they are not.
The version of this that costs nothing
If a fee is not the right answer for your project, most of the value in the first two stages is available for free with a tape measure and an afternoon: measure the room properly, draw it to scale, mark the doors, windows, sockets and their swings, and set out the 90cm circulation routes before choosing a single piece of furniture.
That is genuinely most of it. A DHA drawing room, before and after is a worked example of exactly that process, with the costs of every decision listed — and the largest improvement in it cost nothing at all.
