Interior Design Questionnaire for Clients, With Consult Fees.

An interior design questionnaire for clients should be split into two parts: a short inquiry form on your website that qualifies the project, and a fuller questionnaire the client completes before or during a paid consultation. The form decides whether a call is worth having. The questionnaire gives you what you need to scope, price and design the work.

This piece gives you both as lists you can copy, grouped by topic, and explains which questions belong on the web form, which wait for the consult, and which belong in the contract. It also covers how to present an interior design consultation fee and credit it toward the project, and how to connect the form to Dubsado, HoneyBook, Houzz Pro or Studio Designer so every answer and every lead source lands where you work.

What an interior design client intake form is for.

An interior design client intake form is the structured set of questions a studio uses to learn a prospective client's project, home, household, taste, timeline and budget. It has to be short enough that a busy homeowner finishes it, and thorough enough to tell a whole-home project from a paint color question.

That is why the best studios use stages. The inquiry form on the website is five to eight questions. The consultation questionnaire is sent after the consultation is booked and paid, and it goes deep. The contract captures the decisions that become obligations: scope, fees, procurement terms, photography permission and payment schedule. Asking a question at the wrong stage either scares off a good client or wastes your time with a poor fit.

The website inquiry form: questions that qualify.

Keep the web form to what decides fit and routing. Every extra field lowers completion, so each one has to earn its place. This is the version we recommend as a starting point:

• Name, email and mobile phone.
• What kind of project is this? New build, renovation, furnishing a new home, refresh of existing rooms, or e-design.
• Which rooms or how much of the home? One room, several rooms, or the whole home.
• Where is the home? Town or neighborhood, and ZIP code.
• Is a builder, architect or contractor involved? Yes, not yet, or no.
• When would you like the project finished? Within 3 months, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 12 months, or later.
• What investment range are you planning for the full project? A set of ranges you choose, plus not sure yet.
• How did you hear about us?
• Anything else we should know? One optional open text box.

Two details matter more than they look. Use ranges instead of an open budget box, because people answer a range honestly and leave an open box blank. And ask for the town, not the street address: you need the location to judge travel and fit, and homeowners are cautious about giving an address to a studio they have not met. If you plan to text leads, add clear consent language next to the phone field, as covered in our guide to TCPA consent language for web forms.

The full client questionnaire, grouped for the consultation.

Send this once the consultation is booked and paid, and ask for photos and a rough floor plan with it. If a client asks for an interior design questionnaire for clients as a PDF, you can paste these lists into a document, but an online form is better because the answers land in your software instead of an inbox attachment.

Project scope and rooms

• Which rooms are included, and which are you considering later?
• Is this new construction, a renovation, or furnishing and styling existing rooms?
• What is staying: furniture, art, rugs, lighting or heirlooms you want to keep?
• Are there structural, lighting, cabinetry or finish changes, or furnishings only?
• Is there a room that matters most, or a date it has to be ready?

Style and inspiration

• Share three to ten images of rooms you love, from Houzz, Pinterest or Instagram, and say what you love about each.
• What do you not want to see in your home?
• Which words describe how you want the home to feel?
• Are there colors, materials or patterns you are drawn to or avoid?

How the household lives

• Who lives in the home, including children and pets?
• How do you use each room on a typical weekday and on weekends?
• Do you entertain, and how many guests at a time?
• Does anyone work from home, and where?
• Any accessibility, allergy or durability needs?

Timeline

• When would you like design to start, and when do you need it finished?
• Are there fixed dates: a move, a closing, a holiday, a family event?
• How available are you for meetings and decisions during the project?

Budget and investment range

• What total investment are you planning, including furnishings, and is that range firm or flexible?
• Is the budget for the whole home at once, or phased over time?
• Have you worked with a designer before, and how was the fee structured?
• Are you comfortable with a design fee plus furnishings purchased through the studio?

Decision makers

• Who will make the final decisions, and will they attend the consultation?
• How do you prefer to review options: in person, by presentation, or through an online dashboard?

The house itself

• Address and town of the project.
• Is the home new build, recently purchased, or long owned?
• Who is the builder, architect or contractor, if any, and at what stage is their work?
• Do you have floor plans, elevations or measurements?

Where each question lives: form, consult or contract.

How to present the interior design consultation fee.

An interior design consultation fee is a flat fee for a first working session, often in the home, where the designer walks the space, hears the goals and gives real direction. Charging for it does two things: it filters for clients who are serious, and it positions the meeting as expertise, not a free sales call. Fees vary widely by market and experience, so we will not suggest a number. How you present it matters more than the amount.

Wiring the form so answers and lead source land in your software.

The questions are half the system. The other half is getting every answer and its source into the tool you work from, with a fast reply.

What usually goes wrong.

• The form asks for everything. Twenty fields on the website form means fewer inquiries, and the answers you most need get skipped.
• No investment range. Without it, every inquiry looks the same until the call, and whole-home projects wait behind paint color questions.
• Answers land in an inbox. A form that emails the studio instead of creating a lead means lost context, no source and no follow-up reminder.
• The source is never recorded, so the studio cannot tell whether Houzz, Google, Instagram or referrals produced its best clients.
• A day passes before anyone replies. Homeowners who contacted several designers often book with whoever answered first.

Where the form stops and the work begins.

A questionnaire is easy to write and harder to run. The real work is making the website sell the paid consultation, building a form that qualifies without scaring people off, mapping every field and lead source into Dubsado, HoneyBook, Houzz Pro or your CRM, setting up the reply sequence with proper consent, and reporting from first click to signed client each week. If you are weighing where those inquiries come from, our look at whether Houzz Pro is worth it covers the math. Building and tracking that system is the work Theory Road does for interior designers.