Decorist

Decorist review:

Decorist connects interior designers with clients who pay a flat fee for an online room design. Their pitch to designers is that you can build your brand without finding your own clients. They’ll bring you the clients and pay you a flat fee, plus “incentive rewards.”

How it works

Specifically, designers get half of the fees that clients pay. Generally, clients pay $299 to $599 per room, except for “celebrity” design packages that run $1,299 per room. It’s unclear what the incentive rewards are or how they’re determined. But they may be based on whether clients purchase items that designers put on their shopping list. Designers say they’re paid once a month.

What’s included

All packages include two concept boards, a final room design, a detailed floor plan, set-up instructions, and a personalized shopping list. Designers say the shopping list must be made up from Decorist-approved vendors.

Celebrity packages also include a half-hour chat with a designer. If clients want to chat with non-celebrity designers, they’ll pay $35 per half-hour extra. Assuming designers get the same percentage of this chat fee, that would net the designer $35 per hour.

But, if a client is not wild about a design, you may need to revise it.

Hourly pay

Given that you’re paid per package, not per hour, you have to be facile to make a reasonable wage here. A starting-level designer would need to compete the job in less than 10 hours to earn $15 an hour, for instance.

Glassdoor estimates that the average designer earns somewhere between $16 and $21 per hour here. Poor pay is the most common complaint by interior designers who work with the site.

Recommendations:

You can find well-paid design projects at Creatively and Decorilla. Or, if you want to work independently, you can offer design packages through Fiverr. Fiverr has freelancers create work “packages,” setting their own rates and determining what’s included in the package. You simply pay a fee to the site when your work packages sell.

Want to try Decorist?

Here’s a direct link to where you can sign up to be a Decorist interior designer.

What their users say (from Glassdoor:)

“Tons of work, for embarrassingly low pay.”

“Always able to get projects, multiple ways to make additional money. But the project flat fee paid out is not worth the time spent.”

“If the client consistently rates things at 3 or below stars, you get to do endless revisions that take hours, even if that client is an utter dunce and doesn’t know how to use their words. Decorist always sides with the clients because you gotta get that money!! Just not money for the designer.”

Low pay

“The pay for the hours involved is very, very low. It may be worth the flexible schedule though for those who like or travel or have to work from home. But you can’t rely on this job for consistent income.”

I work full-time for a very well known architecture firm that has high expectations for productivity, so I am used to pumping out work fast. Decorist’s pay is not even reasonable for the fastest workers, and the designs delivered suffer as a result. Also – don’t expect any of your projects to be photographed to build your portfolio.

Pathetic pay and the bonuses are a total joke. Also, they have limited vendors to work with, which is a challenge for the designer and the client, as your design choices are limited. Yet they push and push sales, not quality design.

Might be great for a side gig but it’s not worth it if it’s something you’d want to do full-time.

1/19/2022