Understanding Design Fees, Labor Times & Labor Costs
- floralmathworks
- Jan 20
- 5 min read
Gross Profit Margin (GPM) helps florists quickly see whether their pricing is actually working. This is especially critical when pricing custom floral designs for weddings and events. However, if your Gross Profit Margin does not include your labor cost for designing a floral arrangement, an important question remains: What exactly are you missing?
A Common Overlooked Question in Floral Pricing - What Are You Actually Charging Per Hour for Design Labor?
How do you know whether you are charging a client $5, $25, $50, or $100 per hour for design labor? This is often an overlooked aspect of floral pricing. Many florists charge a Design Fee (using the industry standard pricing formula) without ever stopping to ask:
Does my Design Fee actually cover the labor cost it takes to design an arrangement or installation? Am I generating a labor profit on my design fee? And, am I very efficient (time wise) at designing a particular arrangement?
First, you should determine what you are truly charging a client per hour to design each specific arrangement.
What Is the Design Fee?
The Design Fee is the dollar amount you charge your customer for designing an arrangement — regardless of how long it takes or how much you pay your designer.
On paper, your numbers may look great. You might even show a strong Gross Profit Margin when design labor is NOT included. But that does not necessarily mean your design fee pricing is healthy — or that you are designing arrangements efficiently.
The real question is: Is your Design Fee and your actual design labor time appropriate?
To be both profitable and competitive, your Design Fee should not be too high or too low, and your design labor time should be appropiate for the arrangement. It's expected that a skilled and more experienced floral designer will take less time to desgn an arrangement. As one famous artist once said: “I am not asking this price for a brief amount of work. I ask it for the knowledge and expertise gained during the efforts of my lifetime.”
This is where Floral Math Works helps bring clarity.
Why Labor Hours Vary
Design labor hours are not necessarily fixed. The time required to design a bridal bouquet, ceremony installation, or large-scale arrangement can vary based on:
Style and complexity
Flower types
Mechanics and structure
Experience of the designer
The design fee should be higher for larger and more complex arrangements. The design fee can also be higher for more experienced and skilled designers. True skill is often measured by years of experience, not simply by how long it takes to complete an arrangement.
However, without measuring your design fee and design labor time (from time to time), it's easy to overestimate profitability.
How Floral Math Works Helps
The Event Pricing Tool helps you evaluate:
Your labor charges (design fee)
Your labor time (estimated labor hours )
Your labor cost (estimated labor cost)
Your labor cost percent of revenue (labor cost % of sales)
Your gross labor profit
So you can protect both profitability and efficiency.
Hourly Bill Rate vs. Hourly Labor Cost
Floral Math Works uses two distinct hourly labor numbers, and understanding the difference is critical.
Hourly Bill Rate
This is the hourly rate you charge your customer for floral design labor for a particular arrangement.
Hourly Labor Cost
This is the hourly rate you actually pay your florist, designer, or freelancer to design an arrangement. It's not uncommon for a home-studio florist to essentially work for free which would result in no labor cost.
Your Hourly Bill Rate should always be higher than your Hourly Labor Cost — typically 2 to 3 times higher.
Examples:
Standard labor cost of $25/hour → Hourly Bill Rate (charging clients) $50 to $75/hour
Pay a freelancer (Hourly Labor Cost) $50/hour → Hourly Bill Rate (charging clients) $100 to $150/hour
Hourly Bill Rate - (minus) Hourly Labor Cost = Gross Labor Profit
This difference between your Hourly Bill Rate and your Hourly Labor Cost is not simply profit markup (especially for weddings and events). Your Gross Labor Profit covers your non-billable time such as consultations, mood boards, revisions, and general business overhead — all of which are necessary to keep your business sustainable.
How Floral Math Works Calculates Estimated Labor Hours
Floral Math Works uses your Hourly Bill Rate to estimate how much design time is built into your pricing.
Estimated Labor Hours =Total Design Fee ÷ Hourly Bill Rate
You will find the following values at the bottom of the Flower & Financial Summary form in the Event Pricing Tool:
Total Design Fee (dollar amount you charge the customer for designing)
Estimated Labor Hours (estimated time to design the floral product or products)
Hourly Bill Rate (hourly rate you charge your client)
Hourly Labor Cost (hourly rate you pay your florist)
Estimated Labor Cost (actual cost to design the floral product or products)
Gross Labor Profit (Total Design Fee - Estimated Labor Cost)
How to Check Your Hourly Bill Rate for an Arrangement
Go to the Event Pricing Tool
Go to the Events Product form and choose one floral product (for example, a bridal bouquet)
Go to the Flower & Financial Summary form and enter a Hourly Bill Rate (start around $50/hour).
Observe the Estimated Labor Hours and adjust your Hourly Bill Rate until the Estimated Labor Hours match the actual time it takes to design that product.
Once your Estimated Labor Hours equals your real-world design time, this Hourly Bill Rate is what you are actually charging the customer per hour for that particular design. You can now clearly see whether your Hourly Bill Rate and your Estimated Labor Hours makes sense.
What Your Results Are Telling You
If the Hourly Bill Rate is less than $50/hour or less than 2× your Hourly Labor Cost:
Your Estimated Labor Hours may be too long, improve efficiency and reduce design time.
Your Estimated Labor Hours seem appropriate, consider increasing your Design Fee.
If the Hourly Bill Rate is $50–$100/hour or 2×–3× your Hourly Labor Cost:
You are working efficiently and may have flexibility to reduce your Design Fee to be more competitive.
There are no industry-standard labor times — every florist’s style, complexity, and process are different. The goal is to develop your own benchmarks based on real data.
Analyze Profitability by Product
Tracking labor also helps identify which floral products:
Generate strong profit with less labor
Require significant labor time for less profit
This insight allows you to adjust pricing, redesign offerings, and set expectations with clients more confidently.
Final Thoughts
Understanding your floral design fee and labor time helps you determine:
How time-efficient you are when designing specific arrangements
Whether your Design Fee is truly appropriate
When you know:
How long designs really take
What you are actually charging clients per hour
What that design time truly costs
How your Gross Labor Profit impacts your Gross Profit
You will gain confidence and clarity in pricing your arrangements, explaining pricing to clients, and building a more sustainable floral business.
That is exactly what Floral Math Works is designed to help you do.
Pete
Creator of Floral Math Works
Comments