01
100% before installation
This is the one to walk away from. Paying in full before anything is fitted leaves you with no leverage at exactly the point you need it most.
Money · Explained
Interior design payment milestones
What a fair payment schedule looks like, why the last tranche is the one that matters, and the schedules you should refuse.
The short answer
The split, and the principle behind it.
A reasonable interior payment schedule in India is 50% at order confirmation, 40% before installation begins, and 10% after handover. The percentages vary between firms and that is fine; the principle does not. Money should follow work that has actually happened, and something meaningful must remain unpaid at handover. The 10% retention is your only real leverage on snags, once a contractor is paid in full, closing out a list of small defects depends entirely on goodwill. Any schedule that reaches 100% before you have accepted the work has removed the mechanism that protects you.
The schedule
What each stage should require.
| Stage | Share | What must be true before you pay |
|---|---|---|
| Design advance | Booking amount | Adjustable against the project value, and refundable if you do not proceed after the first design round |
| Order confirmation | 50% | Final drawings signed, itemised quote signed, materials and hardware specified by series |
| Before installation | 40% | Factory production complete, site first fix done, delivery scheduled |
| After handover | 10% | Installation complete, snag list closed, warranty and check sheet issued |
GST at 18% applies to each tranche as it is invoiced, including the advance, and should appear on the receipt.
Refuse these
Three schedules that should stop the conversation.
02
Payments tied to dates, not to stages
A schedule that says "40% on the 15th" pays for the calendar rather than for progress. Milestones must be things you can go and look at.
03
A large non-adjustable booking amount
A booking amount should be adjusted against the project value. A substantial fee that simply disappears buys you nothing and is designed to make leaving expensive.
Protecting yourself
Four things to put in writing.
Insist that the retention is released against a signed snag closure rather than against a date. Insist that any scope change is quoted and approved in writing before it is built, with both cost and time impact stated. Get the delay remedy in the contract. Ours is ₹1,000 per day credited against the final invoice. And keep every receipt with its GST line, because an advance receipt without tax stated is not a proper document.
None of this is adversarial. A firm that is comfortable with its own process will have no difficulty with any of it, and the ones that resist are telling you something useful early.
Questions
Asked and answered.
No, for turnkey work. Materials are ordered and factory production is committed on your specification and cannot be resold, so a substantial order-confirmation payment is normal and reasonable. What matters is what remains unpaid at the end.
It reserves design capacity and starts the measurement and drawing work. It should be adjustable against the project value and, in our case, refundable if you do not proceed after the first design round.
You can ask. Most firms will negotiate the retention percentage more readily than the earlier stages. What matters more than the size is that it is tied to snag closure rather than to a date.
After handover and after the snag list is closed, not on the day the last unit is fitted. Ours is due once the pre-handover check sheet is signed off and you have the warranty document.
Keep reading
Related.
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