Know what a client is really worth
Client Lifetime Value & Marketing ROI Calculator
Built for interior designers. Start with what a client is really worth — fees, repeat projects and referrals, not just the first invoice — then see what a single inquiry is worth, and what a rational marketing budget and return look like with your own numbers. It is the studio-economics case for treating marketing as an investment, made in your figures.
Studio Economics Benchmarks
| Metric | Healthy range | What it tells you |
|---|
| Marketing as % of revenue | 5–15% | 5–10% to maintain, 10–15%+ in a deliberate growth phase |
| LTV : CAC ratio | 3:1 or better | Below 1:1 you lose money per client; 3–5:1 is the sweet spot |
| Inquiry → client rate | 8–20% | Varies by lead quality; referrals close far higher than cold clicks |
| Repeat + referral share | 40–70% of work | The strongest studios earn most of their pipeline from past clients |
These are planning benchmarks, not laws — your market, positioning and lead sources move them. The point of the exercise is not the exact figure but the shift in thinking: once you count the repeat work and referrals a good client brings, what you can afford to spend to win one changes completely.
Why the First Fee Is the Wrong Number
Most designers price marketing against a single project fee, decide it is too expensive, and never build a pipeline. That is a math error. The client who paid you [$15,000] once is not a $15,000 client — they are the repeat kitchen two years later, the guest-house phase, and the two friends they send who never even shopped around. Count that, and the amount you can rationally invest to win a client multiplies. The studios that grow are not braver spenders; they are counting a bigger, truer number.
The same logic runs the other way. If an inquiry is worth a known fraction of that lifetime value, you can spend up to that fraction to earn one and still profit — which is exactly how you decide whether an ad, a shoot, an SEO retainer or a referral incentive is worth it. Marketing stops being a leap of faith and becomes arithmetic.
This Is the Conversation We Have With Every Studio
The numbers you just ran are the numbers behind our proposals. Nakada Design builds the marketing system — SEO, content, advertising and AI automation — that keeps qualified, high-budget inquiries arriving, and we justify it in exactly this language: your client lifetime value, your close rate, your allowable cost per inquiry, your return. When the LTV is real, the budget is obvious. See our
digital marketing service for interior designers, read
how to get high-end interior design clients and
20 proven strategies to get more clients, or
inquire.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you calculate the lifetime value of a design client?
Average profit per project (fee × the margin you keep) × the projects a client does over the relationship, plus the value of the clients they refer. A one-fee client looks small; the same client with a repeat project and a good referral is often worth three to five times more.
What is an interior design inquiry worth?
Client lifetime profit × the odds an inquiry becomes a client. A 40% inquiry-to-consult and 35% consult-to-signed rate means about one in seven inquiries signs — so an inquiry is worth roughly a seventh of a client's lifetime profit, and that is your ceiling on cost per lead.
How much should a designer spend on marketing?
Commonly 5–10% of revenue to maintain and 10–15%+ to grow. Better still, work bottom-up: clients wanted ÷ close rate = inquiries needed, × what you can afford per inquiry (a fraction of lifetime value).
What is a healthy LTV:CAC ratio?
About 3:1 or better — at least three dollars of lifetime profit per dollar spent acquiring a client. Below 1:1 you lose money; far above 5:1 usually means you are under-investing in growth.
Are these numbers exact?
They are planning estimates from your inputs, meant to guide decisions, not to book. Use your real averages, revisit them as you gather data, and treat the ratios as the signal.
