Garden designer - what is the usual fee?

How long is that likely to take them? Is there VAT on top? Are they paying a lab to do the analysis? How much time and money do you think they spend promoting their services?  If you were doing that job, what sort of annual income world you think was reasonable?

I find that when I look at fees like this, it shows that my expectation that 'it shouldn't cost very much' were pretty unreasonable.

It's a 'day rate' job - 'not big' in garden terms could be anything.

1/2 day to come and visit you, measure, take photos, understand what you're looking for (which depending on travel might be a full day)
A few days to design/draw/research, get feedback from you and make changes, Write up a planting/materials plan.
add on some time for quoting and billing admin (and follow up questions/support).

Surely 4-5 days minimum. Day rate likely depends on where you are in the country and how good they are/reputation. What do you earn for a weeks work?

1500-2500?

What I earn has nothing to do with it unless I am a garden designer, I'm asking what is usual for garden design. I can see how it could be upwards of a weeks work. Though I was expecting a decent designer would have a catalogue of base designs that they can then modify to suit. Bit like kitchen design there a basic designs and best practise that a good designer knows and can quickly apply

Garden is maybe 30m x 30m city garden and flat.

Don't know about lab analysis

No idea about them promoting their services, and not something I care about bit asking how much their mortgage is because its an overhead. I've approached them via word of mouth.... from my understanding is they are semi-retired, so this is their hobby and passion they have turned into a company over the last 5 or so years

I've been offered a discount, but even so with that its up there with the cost of a professional architect

Mother in law was quoted "budget for 10% of the property value", she lives in a terraced house in the south east so the quote was a years (good) salary for a garden that must be 7m x 7m if I'm being generous! And that didn't include the actual materials or gardening!

Are they paying a lab to do the analysis

Mk1 eyeball and a pH strip, or a pH meter if you want to look fancy?

Just cover the whole lot in decking and plastic grass. If you can’t be arsed to lay out a few flower beds then you probably want something low maintenance.

I have asked my pal who does this for a living and awaiting to hear from him

I would expect some thousands.

A mate of a mate popped round 2 years to quote on some work and it equated to £350/day. Apparently he's exceptional at what he does, but I'd only consider that if the scope and resulting transformation was genuinely worth it.

FTR a mate and I did it ourselves.

I should add that another mate of a mate was roughly a third of that, but his quote was so vague that I had no idea what he was really going to deliver on. Other quotes were in the middle, including one from a guy who was only prepared to cost it up once I'd committed to him doing the job. I told it doesn't work like that.

Ex garden designer here and tbh the question is like "how much for a new kitchen". You can go to IKEA and just replace the existing cupboards with new doors, you can get a man with a van to get something from howdens and install it, or you can gut the whole room, move the plumbing and electrics and install some fancy pants bespoke kitchen. Same with gardens - someone will quote you a few K, someone will quote 20K or more but you're getting a very different thing from each.

My last quote was over a decade ago so expext my pricing charts won't be much help but site survey and initial design is a couple of days work, refining to an agreed plan another day or two, planting design and setting out plans another day or two. All depends on stuff like the levels on site, any bespoke elements (storage?), arbours, pergolas, water, fences, walls etc etc

Though I was expecting a decent designer would have a catalogue of base designs that they can then modify to suit. Bit like kitchen design there a basic designs and best practise that a good designer knows and can quickly apply

In the decade or so I was working the only time I got close to a standard design book was when I did a design for a new build that was under construction and after seeing the plans the developer asked me to do the one next door for him. Even then his requirements were different and the garden layout was mirrored so the design ended up quite different.

Rule of thumb I’ve been advised on when looking into this is you should look to spend 10% of the property price on the garden and 10% of that would go on design.

Appreciate it Varys slightly on location and size but this was what many people advised

It depends. A friend used to do this for a living - he was quite good and had a Chelsea gold medal.

One house had a large (think multiple tennis court sized) walled garden and wanted everything done to a very high level. My friend did the design and sourced the plants and trees. Some had to come from Italy and Greece. That was expensive and took a long time. Other jobs were more normal e.g. large 6 bed detached newbuild with large garden. Smaller jobs just weren't worth it - too much time putting in quotes that wouldn't be accepted.

He got fed up with it as not a lot of people wanted to pay for the time it took to do a good design and make sure it was implemented correctly and even those that did often didn't pay the relatively small amount of money to have it maintained.

He ended up doing environmental impact studies and planting plans for property developers. The developer he mainly worked with would email him a proper electronic plan of the site plus tests etc, he'd produce his study and planting plan and email it back. Sometimes he didn't even have to go to the site.

Big lesson is unless you're already a really keen gardener, budget for upkeep as well as build.

I'd say that for what you asked for architect rates would be about right. You're asking for a fair bit of someones time and also need to account for value of knowledge/experience they have

If you think the design cost is expensive I think you might be in for a bit of real shock when you see how much the actual garden landscaping/planting etc is going to cost. And as above budget for the upkeep even low maintenance will cost more than you think unless you go plastic everything.
I'm a gardener so get to hear a lot of peoples ideas/dreams and very few have a clue what it really costs and soon reel back what they had planned.

Thanks all, I'm only really after a design, plan is to do the work myself as fully expecting the price to by sky high, hence not approaching actually landscapers yet as they are unlikley to get the work

I'm surprised it is so much, given architects and people like structrual engineers are in a similar price bracket and they need to have professional qualifications / study for a long time to qualify. Not saying you can't do this for garden design but its not a pre-requist

10% of the house value is never going to happen!!!

Thnaks for the tip on upkeep. I'm surrounded by leyandi hedges so have experienced the fun that is trying to keep them under control. (budget allowing they are going....)

Though I was expecting a decent designer would have a catalogue of base designs that they can then modify to suit.

No, a basic designer will have copy and paste designs, a decent designer will produce bespoke, they should be taking feedback from the client to refine the design.

plan is to do the work myself as fully expecting the price to by sky high

You're removing a route that they may have been able to generate additional work from so they're going to be looking for all the profit from the design as opposed to splitting across multiple work elements. It's not unreasonable on your behalf but it does mean you're not offering any incentive to go low on price.

My mate who does this for a living and is towards the top end in Scotland says 500 - 1000 for a concept drawing and 5 - 7000 for a full design for a garden your size depending on what you want.  Concept drawing is just a basic outline ie flower bed here this shape and flagstones here.  The full design includes all the details with what plants where, specs for hard landscaping including all details of methods, drainage,soil samples lights etc

He says he often gets folk who think it should be 10% of that cost.  Just the outline will be 1-2 days of his time. Full design is a week or two.

Pro-horticulturalist here; I’ve worked with everyone from Chelsea gold medal winners to just starting out newly-qualified garden designers.

Essentially you’ll get what you pay for: you might be able to get a basic plan for a reasonable rate but the money you save will get eaten up veeeery quickly paying non-trade prices for the actual materials/ plants themselves.

There’s any number of factors that go into this; the designer’s qualifications and experience are a major one.
I would argue that design/hort qualifications are a very important pre-requisite to actually be a garden designer (and not just calling yourself one). It shows a commitment to the craft and a desire to be taken seriously. What sort of level are they working at?
Round about Architect’s rates is usually about right; they should be surveying/analysing/drawing to a similar standard if they’re worth their salt.

Feel free to PM any initial ideas they’ve had and I’ll see if they know what they’re on about.

Though I was expecting a decent designer would have a catalogue of base designs that they can then modify to suit. Bit like kitchen design there a basic designs and best practise that a good designer knows and can quickly apply

Your paying for the years they took to build up that portfolio ....

But tbh sounds like you would be better served by some of the garden design software packages out there.

I used to knock these out for my dads landscape business on 3d landscape pro in the mid 90s on a pentium 3 333mhz ..... He couldn't work computers he did the thinking I did the drawing.

We had ours done a good few years ago. £ 50 k for the back garden and £ 30 k for the front. Neither is that big but both needed a lot of work. From what I remember the designs were £ 2-3 k for each and then the designer also did the project management for which we paid separately

£80k a few years ago for gardens which aren't '...that big'.
Gulp!

Loads of conifers removed, a lot of stonework done and the back garden has no vehicle access so everything was done by hand......

So how much did they quote? I'm in horticulture and a constant bug bare on the hort fb group I'm in is that our trade is not respected as other trades are. There have been many posts in the past from garden designers in particular coming up against customers unwilling to pay a decent living for a design or time wasting and stealing ideas before paying for anything. It seems to have left a lot of garden designers very wary and having to be very careful about who they give their time to and no longer offering free initial sketches etc.

You've two basic choices; either pay design fees or buy BBC Gardeners World mag (usually the April edition) where you'll find a 2 for 1 ticket to 400 gardens
Enjoy some days out and see what other people have done in similar spaces (larger gardens are often split into smaller areas)
The owners and staff will often chat about what and why. Lots of photos and google satellite views and away you go. The option to pay a designer is still there

We had it done in two goes a couple of years apart. For the first job we approached two designers. Each did a site visit and produced some freebie sketches for two or three different options, and we chose one designer on the basis of those. For the second job, we went back to the firm who'd done the first job but they were no longer operating and referred us to someone else they knew and trusted, who we used.

We then paid for a more detailed design which included designs for groundwork, stonework, planting plan, indicative cost and schedule and those were about £ 2500-£ 3500 for each job. It is a difficult site, 200 m altitude, steeply sloping, roughly triangular and no vehicle access to the rear.

Once we decided to go ahead, we signed a contract and the designer acted as project manager- finding and coordinating contractors, sourcing materials and plants and keeping the whole job on track. I can't remember what the designer charged for this part of the work but I am sure it would have been significant (guess another few £ k in each job). There were a few variations along the way, like the wall that didn't have any foundations so needed some because it was keeping much of the hillside from moving into the back of the house. From memory the first job had 3 people on site for about 10 weeks and the second had 3 people on site for about 6 weeks.

The landscape architects definitely did as much as a 'normal' architect would in a building job and I have no regrets about what we paid them. We also love the end result. But I get your point about not being valued- someone across the road approached the guys on site and asked if they could do a bit of stonework for her. Her idea of a fair rate for the job was a fiver!

TLDR: a good professional designer will cost but is well worth it especially for jobs like ours which had a lot of heavy groundwork and hard engineering

I'm a Somerset based garden designer and builder. I charge £70 for a one hour site visit, £700 for a 3d render based upon a budget given to me by the client. I don't bother with budgets under £30k and anything over £80k becomes too large for me to build with my one labourer.
Being the guy that designs and builds/plants the project works really well for me, we're booked up all year and designing builds for next year now. I love my job!
I would imagine costs are far more in the south East though! Good luck.

I did mine myself but it's not that complicated, garden center recommended the planting scheme based on what I'd drawn, the aspect and what I was trying to achieve.

I'd probably design and build an extension myself though, just don't have the time to do that in one go where as a garden can be done gradually.

If I was going to buy a house on a complicated plot I wanted to change, I'd budget for that up front, much like a new kitchen.