You Charge $250 an Hour. Here Is Why You Might Actually Be Earning $25.

A designer told Nancy Quinn she charges $250 an hour.

She was not lying. She was not exaggerating. The number was real. It was on her rate sheet, it was in her contracts, and every client who hired her agreed to it before the work began. By every measure she had ever used to evaluate herself, $250 an hour was simply true.

Here is the part I want you to actually picture, because this is where the story stops being about her and starts being about you.

When you set a rate, you are pricing the work you can see. The consultation. The presentations. The client meetings. What you are not pricing, because you cannot see it happening in real time, is the hour you spent comparing four nearly identical fabric swatches because none of them felt quite right. The forty minutes on a vendor site looking for a better price on something you had already chosen once. The second trip back to a showroom because the sample you picked up didn’t photograph the way you remembered it. None of that feels like a discount. None of it feels like giving anything away. It feels like doing the job well.

It is the equivalent of agreeing to a thirty thousand dollar price on a car and then handing over your checkbook without ever looking at the final invoice. You agreed to the number. You never verified that the number was what actually got delivered.

Nancy ran this designer’s last completed project through her job profitability analyzer, the tool she built specifically to answer this question. Every dollar the client paid went in. Every hour actually spent on the project went in, not the hours she meant to spend, the hours that really happened.

The math did not care what was on the rate sheet.

The real number came out to $25 an hour.

Not because she lowered her price. Not because she gave the client a deal. Because the hours multiplied in places she was never tracking, slowly and without ceremony, until the fee that was supposed to cover $250 an hour was actually covering ten times the hours she had planned for.

This is the moment I want you to sit with before we go any further. The designer did not make a single decision that felt like undercharging. She made dozens of small decisions, none of which felt like anything at all, and the accumulated cost of those decisions ate ninety percent of her rate without her ever noticing it happen.

The gap between what you believe you charge and what you actually earn is not rare. It is the norm. And most business owners never find out, because they never go back and check the invoice.

Why “I Made Good Money on That Job” Is the Sentence That Keeps You Stuck

Here is something I say constantly and Nancy Quinn agrees with completely: you have to do the autopsy on every project once it is finished. Not most projects. Every project.

Most designers and window treatment professionals never do this. They finish a job, the client is happy, the check clears, and that is the end of the story. Nobody goes back and asks the only question that actually matters: did this job make the money it was supposed to make?

Nancy has heard the same sentence from clients more times than she can count. But I made $10,000 on that job anyway, so I still made good money.

Her response is direct. You made less than what you could have made pricing it properly, while still being completely fair to the client. Ten thousand dollars sounds like a win until you know what the job actually cost you in hours, in vendor mistakes, in sourcing time, in stress. A number without context is not information. It is a feeling dressed up as a fact.

This is true whether you are designing full-service interiors or installing window treatments. The mechanics are identical. Money comes in. Costs go out. The hours you spent are real, whether or not you tracked them. The only question is whether you know the truth about what happened, or whether you are guessing and calling the guess a result.

The Profitability Autopsy: What Actually Has to Be Tracked

Nancy built a tool called the job profitability analyzer specifically to answer this question for her clients, and she walks through what it requires on nearly every podcast appearance she makes, because the categories themselves are the real lesson, whether or not you ever use her exact tool.

Once a job is complete, here is what has to be accounted for to know the truth.

Every dollar the client paid you, including any paid consultation fee, your design fee, your project management fee, and any markup on furniture or product.

Any referral fees you received from contractors or vendors connected to the project, if that applies in your business and your state.

Sales tax collected and paid out, so it does not get counted as profit when it was never yours to keep.

The actual cost of goods. What you paid for the furniture, the fabric, the materials, the labor from any vendor or subcontractor involved.

Every hour you and your team spent on the project, tracked honestly, whether or not you bill hourly.

Once all of that is accounted for, two numbers emerge. Your total profit margin on the job. And, if you tracked your hours, what your actual hourly rate worked out to be, not the number on your rate sheet, the number that actually happened.

Nancy’s target for that profit margin is between 40 and 60 percent. Forty percent and she is satisfied. Fifty and she is genuinely pleased. Sixty and you have done something most people in this business never accomplish.

That range will sound familiar if you have read anything else I have written about pricing and profitability, because it is the same range Michele Williams uses when she coaches designers on their finances. Two different experts, two different specialties, the same number. That is not a coincidence. That is what actually works.

The Mistake That Hides Inside “Bigger Jobs Make More Money”

Here is something Nancy has found that surprises almost everyone the first time they hear it: larger jobs are very often less profitable as a percentage than smaller ones.

She walked a landscape designer through this exact exercise. They ran the last five completed projects through the profitability analyzer and found that the bigger the job, the lower the profit margin. Not slightly lower. Meaningfully lower.

When Nancy dug into why, the answer had nothing to do with sourcing or scheduling or vendor pricing. The designer was getting nervous when the numbers got big. The moment a project total climbed into territory that felt uncomfortable to say out loud, she would lower it without telling anyone, including herself, that this was what she was doing. Not because the cost had changed. Because her confidence had.

That single discovery changed how that designer ran every large project afterward, because now she could see the pattern instead of just feeling vaguely uneasy every time a big number came up in conversation.

This happens in window treatment businesses too, in a slightly different shape. A professional bidding a large multi-room project will sometimes shave the labor estimate or absorb extra installation time without ever writing it down as a discount, because the total feels like a lot to ask for, even when the work genuinely costs that much to deliver. The number makes them nervous, so they make the number smaller, and the only person who pays for that discomfort is them.

The fix is not a pricing formula. The fix is seeing the pattern in your own numbers clearly enough to recognize it is happening, project after project, and deciding to stop.

“Pretend You’re the Employee of the Company”

This is the line of Nancy’s I come back to more than almost any other piece of business advice I have ever heard, and I have quoted it to clients for years.

When you are pricing a job and a client pushes back, do not respond as the owner who is emotionally attached to keeping them happy. Respond as if you are an employee of a company that has fixed pricing policies you did not personally set and cannot personally waive.

The company has a policy. The policy is the price. You are not allowed to change company policy just because you are uncomfortable in the moment.

This sounds almost too simple to matter, and that is exactly why it works. The discomfort you feel when a client questions your price is not actually about the number. It is about the fact that you, personally, are the one being questioned. The moment you mentally step into the role of an employee following a policy that already exists, the personal sting disappears. You are not defending yourself. You are explaining a policy.

Nancy’s favorite response when a client questions a price is simple: that is part of what allows me to be a profitable business, which allows me to be here for you today, doing what I love to do and helping you with what you need.

Say that sentence out loud once. It does not apologize. It does not over-explain. It states a fact and moves forward.

The Story You Are Telling Yourself That Is Not Actually True

There is a sales psychology insight buried in this conversation that has nothing to do with spreadsheets and everything to do with what happens in your head the moment a client says something slightly uncomfortable.

A client says, I didn’t realize it would take twenty hours. And the designer’s brain immediately builds an entire narrative. Maybe they think I’m overcharging. Maybe they don’t want to work with me anymore. Maybe I should lower it to twelve hours so they don’t feel that way.

None of that story came from the client. The client asked a question. That is all that actually happened.

The fix Nancy teaches is direct: answer with the facts and stop narrating. I understand you might not know this, since you don’t do this for a living. In my experience, this is how long it takes. Most of the time, the client says some version of okay, and the conversation moves forward. Not because you won an argument. Because there was never actually an argument. There was a question, and you answered it.

The same dynamic shows up constantly in window treatment consultations. A client hesitates over a quote, and the natural instinct is to assume the worst and start negotiating against yourself before they have said another word. Nine times out of ten, they were simply processing a number, not preparing to walk away.

Stop telling yourself the story. Answer the actual question. Let the client respond to what you said, not to what you imagined they meant.

Why You Might Be Earning Less Than Your Employees, and What That Actually Means

Nancy makes an important distinction that most business owners never stop to consider, because it requires being honest about something uncomfortable.

There are two completely different reasons you might be earning less than the people who work for you.

The first reason is a deliberate, conscious decision. You are reinvesting what would have been your own salary back into the business, on purpose, because you are building toward a stage where the company can support everyone, including you, at the level it should. That is not a problem. That is strategy.

The second reason is that your pricing simply does not generate enough profit to pay you a living wage once everyone else is covered. That is not strategy. That is a structural problem hiding behind the appearance of generosity.

The first eighteen months that Window Works existed, Vin did not take a salary. Every available dollar went into trucks, advertising, retail space, and paying the team. That was a conscious choice, made with a clear endpoint in mind. It was not the plan for ten years. It had a horizon.

The question to ask yourself honestly is which one of these two categories you are actually in. Are you reinvesting on purpose, with a target date in mind, working toward a specific milestone? Or have you simply normalized not making enough, told yourself a story about why that is fine for now, and let “for now” turn into three or four years without ever deciding it should?

Those two situations require completely different conversations with yourself.

Three Things to Do With Your Last Five Completed Projects

You do not need a spreadsheet built today to start seeing the truth. You need five completed jobs and twenty honest minutes.

1. Calculate the real hourly rate on your last five projects.

Total what the client paid you for each one. Total the actual hours you and anyone else spent delivering it. Divide. Compare that number to the rate you believe you charge. If there is a meaningful gap, that gap is telling you something specific about where your time disappeared.

2. Look for a pattern between project size and profit margin.

Are your larger projects actually less profitable as a percentage than your smaller ones? If so, ask yourself honestly whether the cause is sourcing inefficiency, scope creep, or a loss of confidence the moment the numbers get bigger that you’ve never named out loud. The cause changes the fix.

3. Notice where you are narrating instead of answering.

The next time a client says something that makes you uncomfortable, pause before you respond. Are you answering the actual question they asked, or are you responding to a story you just built in your head about what they might be thinking? Answer only what was actually said.

What a Session With Nancy Quinn Actually Looks Like

A session with Nancy is not a pep talk about charging your worth. It is a working conversation about your actual numbers, your actual sales process, and the specific point where money is leaving your business without your permission, and probably without your knowledge.

She is going to want to look at your pricing structure and a recent project or two. She is going to ask how you handle a client who pushes back, and she is going to listen for whether you are explaining a policy or defending yourself personally. She is going to ask what your sales process looks like from first inquiry to signed contract, because the gap between a good designer and a profitable one is very often sitting somewhere in that process, not in the work itself.

If you came into the conversation believing you have a pricing problem, she may find out the real issue is your sourcing process. If you believe you have a sales problem, she may find out the real issue is the story you have been telling yourself about what your clients are thinking. Either way, you leave with the actual diagnosis instead of a guess.

The Thing I Want You to Walk Away Knowing

You can be busy, well reviewed, and still be running a money laundering operation without realizing it. Money comes in, money goes out, and at the end of the year you have worked an enormous number of hours and built very little wealth.

That is not a talent problem. It is not even, most of the time, a pricing problem in the way most people think about it. It is a visibility problem. You cannot fix what you have never actually looked at clearly.

Run the autopsy. Look at your real hourly rate. Notice where the story in your head is doing more talking than the facts deserve. And if you want someone who has spent years finding exactly where the money is leaking in businesses like yours, Nancy is the person for that conversation.

One session. Her eyes on your actual numbers and your actual sales process. A clear answer instead of a guess.

---

Nancy Quinn is the founder of Profit Insiders Coaching and a business and life coach for interior designers and window treatment professionals. She specializes in pricing strategy, sales process, and helping creative business owners run their companies like CEOs instead of just the talented person inside them. She is a co-author in the Power Talk Friday Experts book series and the author of Respond With Confidence.