Home staging cost and home stager salary are frequently searched terms by home stagers.
Sadly, too many home stagers have no idea what to charge for their services. For some reason most training programs don’t address this even though it’s one of the most important factors in whether a home staging business is profitable.
Too many beginners assume they have to offer the lowest prices—or worse, offer free home staging— to build their home staging portfolio.
This is simply not true!
When you “give it away” instead of charging properly for your home staging services, you’ll be counting your pennies and quarters forever. You become the “go to” person for clients who only want cheap home staging.
It’s a miserable existence forcing you to find an endless stream of clients who:
- Don’t value your time and treat you accordingly.
- Argue with all your home staging recommendations.
- Refuse to make any changes to their home that might cost them extra.
- Cancel or reschedule appointments at the last minute.
- Make you jump through hoops to get paid, bounce checks, or simply refuse to pay with or without a “reason.”
If “giving it away” or being the lowest price home stager is your home staging business strategy, you might as well name your company Rock Bottom Home Staging, because that’s where you’re headed!
I used to get exasperated by competitors who were so cheap. My staging services were sometimes 5 times their price.
I never did free home staging consultations even though many competitors did, and many potential clients tried to pressure me to do so.
It’s important to note that no one “gave me permission” to charge more and not offer free consultations, I made those decisions myself. When you’re your own boss, you can do that!
It’s not how many staging clients you have, it’s how much money you make
Where my home stager competitors needed 100 home staging clients, I only needed 20 to support my family.
While their clients wanted them to stage a vacant bedroom, living room, dining room and kitchen for $1000, I made that much money in a single afternoon from my home staging advice.
Where these home stagers chased their money, I always got paid at the end of an appointment, got deposits for future work, and never had a bounced check.
I even managed to pay off my entire mortgage in only 5 years from my home staging income!
My annoyance disappeared when I realized I was watching my competitors run a race to the bottom of the market.
Most of my competitors abandoned their home staging businesses, because they couldn’t make any money.
Some of them were extremely talented (at staging and decorating). It didn’t matter because they were following a faulty pricing strategy and dead-end business model.
If you’re serious about making real money as a home stager, check out my FREE Tip Sheet on How Much Home Stagers Make.
The next time you feel like dropping your price because some other home stager is “giving it away,” consider whether you want to be valued as an “expert.”
Think about how many individual clients you’ll have to find day in and day out when you can’t make enough money on each one. Then ask yourself whether you want a home staging hobby, charity or home staging business.
What’s your experience with this? Please share in the comments below.
Hi, I am a graduate of your program. My question is on vacant homes, I see some of the top stagers don’t charge for an “estimate” when they go to a vacant home & the builder/realtor want an estimate on staging. Not a consult, an estimate how much it would cost to stage the property. What are your thoughts on this?
Thank you.
Great question Delia. If you re-listen to Course 3 of the Staging Diva Program, you’ll find a detailed answer in there. The quick answer is, you give a ball park range without visiting the home first. If they’re fine with the range and want a detailed plan, that’s what you charge for because that’s where you’ll be putting your creative energies into coming up with everything that’s needed and how you’ll do it.
Great article Debra! I am one of your graduates with five years of staging experience under my belt. I am so glad that I learned this valuable business tip early on in your course. For those stagers starting out–you must possess the confidence to tell others that what you do is “Valuable” and there is a dollar amount associated to obtaining it.
My staging business is on the wrong path. In attempting to obtain my first true client other than family, I’m faced with low balling prospects and conversations with people seeking advice for nothing. Perspective clients even hesitates in discussing their budget. How do you change these types of prospects without demonstrating your designing skills first? Any suggestions to overcome this dilemma will be appreciate?
Joyce, you can demonstrate your expertise without ever visiting the house. This is something I teach about in detail in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program and why my graduates don’t waste their time running around doing “free estimates.” You’ll also find help in the Staging Diva Sales Script: How to Avoid the Free Estimate Trap and Turn Homeowners into Home Staging Customers in One Phone Conversation. It’s the exact words I used to go from zero business to earning $10,000 a month staging homes in my 2nd year in business.
As for someone not wanting to discuss their budget – that’s either a symptom of them:
– Not having confidence in you because of how you’ve presented yourself and how you talk about what you do.
OR
– Not being “real” potential clients in the first place.
I hope this helps Joyce, thanks for commenting!
I have owned my staging business for over 9 years and I have had many instances where I have been told I didn’t win the job because my bid was not the lowest. I tell them that if their number one criteria for finding a home stager was the cheapest, then they probably made the right choice. Now when I meet with potential clients, I tell them up front that I am not the cheapest stager, but I’m not the highest priced stager either. I try to provide other services that my competitors don’t, like periodically checking on the property.
Thanks for sharing your experience Angela, really appreciated! I’m pretty upfront too with potential clients. I also tell them, “if you’re looking for the cheapest home stager, or price is your most important criteria then we’re not a good fit to work together.”
This is so true! One of the things I’ve noticed as a home stager in San Diego that has become really apparent in the past year is that there are many staging companies here that are marketing their services as “cheap” or with guaranteed prices below a certain (very low) number. I think it devalues what we do. My company has a certain niche & we are here to help sell properties by providing a quality service with great customer service at a price that we believe is reasonable for the value we provide – so far our customers have agreed. I’m grateful that there are people in the industry, like you, who help stagers understand how to make this a business & to help create a model for the industry that helps to show the value of what we add to a sale.
Thanks for that feedback Judith, much appreciated! Glad to see you’re taking the high road in San Diego. You’ll be in business for the long run, which others won’t.
Once again great advice. I am of the school of work smarter not harder, leave that other stuff to bargain basement Sally:)
Thanks for commenting Ana!
This is so, so true. I was trained by an awesome Home Stager in San Francisco last summer. I began staging on my own April/2014. It started off with a bang but I was bidding too low. Soon, with the expenses of Uhauls, helpers and the darn storage fees (haha) I double my prices and I am continuing to go up, up, up. Thanks for this article.
Glad you’re raising your rates Voni, it’s so important not to undercharge. Sounds like you’re dealing with a lot of your own inventory and all the headaches that come with that though. Make sure to check out the many articles I’ve written on that subject too. Just do a good search for inventory and “staging diva”. Or furniture and “staging diva.”
Truth be told; if you are beginning staging without a credit card…taking low bid jobs is a necessity! Soon, after buying furniture off of Clist, yard sales, giveaway furniture from friends, you can name your price and go up in price in my opinion. It happens pretty quick though. At first, be prepared to use all that money for furniture and storage. I
Voni, appreciate you sharing. I’m not a fan of buying your own furniture though. Too many stagers get into financial trouble following this route, and it’s really not necessary. I’ve staged homes since 2002 with none of my own inventory and I’ve done plenty of vacant homes too.
Debra hits it on the nail! Never under value yourself and especially your expertise. There are so many ways to market yourself without relying on real estate agents who want cheap stagers. Consultations are my bread and butter so to speak. Thanks to Debra training, I’m doing well on my first year as a professional home stager.
Jacob thanks so much for commenting and your kind words! Congratulations on your success!! Would love to write an article about you/your business. You can submit info at this link: https://stagingdiva.com/homestagingbusiness/staging-success-stories/
Thanks again!
I couldn’t agree with you more. You have to believe in your product and trust what you can do. Unfortunately, there are potential clients that have to be let go, even when business if having a slower month. Although we all want to keep our money in our pocket when time to spend, we get what we pay for in the long run. These people that want to hire a stager are trusting us to get their most precious asset sold so that they can pocket money, novel when they respect the staging company and pay for it value, yet a little disrespectful when they try to barter us down like we are supposed to do it without putting anything into our pocket, especially after hard cost.
If all home stagers would just hold their own, keep the dollar value on their work, it would definitely help us all not have to waste time sending quotes to those that respond back like we are trying to sell them the queens diamond.
Cindy –
Break A Leg Staging — Houston, TX
Very well said Cindy, thanks for commenting!