How to Cost a Furniture Package Properly
Most furniture packages are underpriced in the first draft by 15 to 30 per cent. Not because the furniture is wrong, but because the package has been priced as a shopping list rather than as a furnishing scheme.
If you are trying to work out how to cost a furniture package, the useful question is not, “What does a sofa cost?” It is, “What standard am I trying to hit, for which property, for which buyer or guest, and what has to be included for the room to read as finished?” A package that photographs well, lets well, or helps a unit sell quickly is never just the large items.
How to cost a furniture package from the brief
Start with the property brief, not the product feed. I would want to know the property type, the target market, the number of rooms, the location, the rental or sales objective, and the expected standard. A two-bed buy-to-let in Manchester, a three-bed short-let villa in the Algarve, and a London show home may all need a dining table and beds, but they should not carry the same assumptions.
The first technique is to set a cost per room by standard, then pressure-test it against the property’s commercial role. For example, a living room for a mid-market rental might support a total furniture and dressing budget of £4,500 to £7,000. A sale-driven show home living room could be £8,000 to £15,000 because the room is doing harder work in photography and viewings. A principal bedroom in a short-let aiming for premium nightly rates may need £3,500 to £6,000 once you include headboard, bedside tables, lighting, art, mirrors, rugs and window treatments.
That is the part many people miss. They price the bed, the sofa and the dining set, then forget the pieces that stop the room feeling temporary.
Build the package in layers, not lines
When I cost a furniture package, I break each room into layers. Structure first, then comfort, then visual finish. This is how you avoid a budget that looks plausible on paper and thin in reality.
The structural layer is the obvious furniture: bed, mattress, sofa, armchair, dining table, dining chairs, desk, storage. The comfort layer covers what makes the room usable: blackout curtains, table lamps, reading lights, occasional tables, bedside lighting, outdoor seating cushions, mattress protectors if the property is for letting. The visual finish is what makes the room read as intentional: rugs, art, mirrors, styling objects, planting, bed linen, cushions.
Take a simple example. A one-bedroom rental package might appear to cost £6,500 if you only count the large pieces sourced at sensible retail prices. Add the missing layers and the real figure can easily become £8,800 to £10,200. One 200 x 300 cm wool-mix rug might be £450 to £900. Proper lined curtains for a 3-metre-wide window may be £700 to £1,400. Bed linen sets, cushions and throws can add another £350 to £800 without trying very hard.
This is why the room-by-room method works better than costing by category alone. Rooms are experienced as wholes. Buyers and guests do not mentally separate furniture from dressing. They simply decide whether the place feels complete.
Use allowances before you choose exact pieces
If you are early in the process, do not pretend you know the final item cost down to the pound. Cost with allowances. Good allowances are one of the cleanest ways to stay accurate without slowing the job to a halt.
For instance, in a living room you might set an allowance of £2,200 for upholstery, £1,200 for cabinet furniture, £700 for lighting, £800 for rugs, and £600 for art and accessories. In a bedroom, you might allow £1,400 for the bed and mattress, £600 for bedside furniture, £350 for lighting, £700 for curtains, and £500 for dressing.
The allowance needs to reflect the target standard and the sourcing reality. If your scheme expects a Dedar fabric sofa and a Porta Romana lamp, your allowance must say so. If the commercial model needs durable, attractive, replaceable stock from makers such as House of, Soho Home, Neptune, Cox & Cox, or a strong local upholstery workshop, then price to that level. A package fails when the allowance is written for one market position and the specification is chosen for another.
There is also a practical reason for allowances. Lead times move, ranges discontinue, and some products are simply not available in the right quantity. A properly costed allowance keeps the budget defensible while giving you room to substitute like for like.
What to include when costing a furniture package
The blunt answer is more than most people think. If you want to know what to include when costing a furniture package, include every item required for the room to function, photograph and hand over in a finished state.
That usually means furniture, decorative lighting, rugs, window treatments, mirrors, art, cushions, throws, bedside and occasional accessories, and any outdoor furniture if terraces or balconies matter to the sale or letting value. If it is a rental or short-let, add operational items that affect reviews and wear: mattress protection, spare dining chairs where sensible, occasional tables that survive hard use, and storage pieces that help guests live in the property rather than perch in it.
Then add the non-product costs attached to buying. These may include design fee, supplier delivery, import duty where relevant, VAT, storage if timings are awkward, and a contingency. Even if your scope ends at purchase orders raised, the budget still needs to acknowledge the costs the client will meet after that point.
A useful rule is to hold 10 per cent contingency on the goods budget for a straightforward domestic project, and 12 to 15 per cent if the scheme spans several suppliers, countries or custom elements. Coastal properties often justify the upper end because materials, lead times and replacement logic need more care. In the Algarve, for example, sun, salt and high-turnover summer use can turn a cheap outdoor package into a false economy within a season or two.
Price for the property’s job, not your personal taste
A Georgian townhouse, a new-build flat and a holiday villa do not ask for the same furniture package, even at the same floor area. This is where many budgets drift. Someone prices to taste instead of purpose.
If the property is for sale, think first about breadth of appeal and photographic clarity. That usually means strong scale, fewer but better pieces, and enough dressing to make the rooms feel inhabited without turning them into a personality test. If the property is for short lets, durability and replacement logic become central. I would rather specify a well-proportioned ash veneer bedside table that can be replaced in six days than a delicate antique occasional table that looks clever and fails in August.
For a private client, the package may carry more character and more tolerance for slower lead times. For a developer, cost per unit and repeatability matter more. A show home can justify selected hero pieces because one room may lift the reading of the whole scheme. A multi-unit rollout usually needs disciplined ranges, consistent SKUs and a tighter spend per key room.
That is also why cost per square metre can be useful but dangerous. It is a good sense-check, not a pricing method. Two 120 square metre properties can have very different furnishing costs if one has three terraces, a double-height entrance hall and extensive glazing needing window treatments.
The sample budget that keeps people honest
Here is a simple example for a two-bedroom flat intended for sale, at an upper-mid-market standard in the UK. Living and dining room, £9,500. Principal bedroom, £4,800. Second bedroom, £3,200. Hallway, £1,200. Window treatments throughout, £3,600. Art, mirrors and styling, £2,400. Delivery and supplier charges, £1,500. Contingency at 10 per cent on goods, roughly £2,200.
That puts the package near £28,400 before any unusual joinery or installation complications. Could it be done for £18,000? Possibly, but not at the same standard, and not if you expect the photography to carry the sales effort. Could it become £40,000? Easily, if you move into higher-grade upholstery, larger rugs, custom curtains and more decorative lighting.
The point is not the exact number. It is that the number should match the commercial aim.
At FurnishIQ.AI powered by Tobias Oliver, this is precisely the discipline behind a good scheme: budget logic first, then specification. If the budget cannot survive scrutiny, the package is not properly costed, however attractive the moodboard may be.
If you are costing your own package, start with one room and finish it honestly. Include the things people forget. Once one room is real, the rest of the budget tends to stop lying.