Most design studios treat kitchenware sourcing as a cost center, something to get through as cheaply and quickly as possible before moving on to the parts of the project that actually generate margin. That framing leaves real money on the table. A kitchen pack, sourced through the right partner, is a legitimate profit line in its own right, and the studios that treat it that way aren’t doing anything unusual. They’re just doing the math the rest of the industry skips.
Why Kitchenware Gets Treated as a Cost, Not a Margin
Furniture, lighting, and finishes are where most designers expect to mark up, because that’s where the visible design decisions live. Kitchenware feels transactional by comparison, closer to a supply purchase than a design choice, so it often gets quoted at cost or close to it just to get it off the project list. That’s an understandable habit, but it’s not how the numbers actually work out for studios that specify kitchen packs regularly.
How the Markup Actually Works
A design studio ordering a Premium, Luxury, or Diamond pack for a client isn’t just passing through a supplier invoice. The studio is the one managing the relationship, specifying the correct tier for the property, and taking responsibility for the outcome on handover day. That coordination work has value, and a reasonable markup on the pack price reflects it the same way a markup on furniture or lighting does. Most studios that adopt this approach apply a markup broadly in line with their standard furnishing margin, treating kitchenware as a line item within the wider furnishing budget rather than a separate, discounted category.
Why Clients Don’t Push Back on This
Clients aren’t pricing out kitchenware against retail alternatives the way they might compare furniture pieces. They’re paying for a finished, move-in-ready property, and a kitchen that arrives complete, on schedule, and installed in 30 minutes is worth more to them than the sum of its individual items. A reasonable markup on that outcome is rarely questioned, because the client’s actual comparison point is the property’s overall finish level, not a line-by-line kitchenware invoice.
What This Looks Like Across a Project Pipeline
For a studio handling several villa or penthouse projects a year, the difference between quoting kitchenware at cost and quoting it with a standard furnishing markup adds up to a meaningful margin line across the year, not just a single project. It’s not a dramatic change to how a studio operates. It’s simply applying the same pricing logic already used everywhere else in the project to a category that’s been quietly excluded from it.
How to Start Applying This
Treat the kitchen pack as part of the furnishing budget, not a separate procurement task. Quote it alongside furniture and finishes rather than as an afterthought once the rest of the project is priced.
Choose a supplier that makes this straightforward. A single coordinated order with transparent tier pricing (Premium, Luxury, Diamond) is easier to build a consistent markup around than sourcing items individually from multiple suppliers.
Apply your standard furnishing margin, not a discounted rate. There’s no reason kitchenware should be priced differently from the rest of the furnishing scope on the same project.
Build This Into Your Next Quote
Curious what this looks like for a specific project? Get a quote and see the base pricing across our three tiers, or book a quick chat if you’d like to talk through how this fits into your standard pricing structure.
FAQ
Is it standard practice for designers to mark up kitchen packs?
It’s increasingly common among studios that treat kitchenware as part of the overall furnishing budget rather than a separate, discounted procurement task.
What markup is reasonable on a kitchen pack?
Most studios apply a markup broadly consistent with their standard furnishing margin, rather than pricing kitchenware differently from the rest of a project’s scope.
Do clients typically question this markup?
Rarely, since clients are evaluating the finished, move-in-ready outcome rather than comparing individual kitchenware items against retail pricing.
Does this work the same way across all three pack tiers?
Yes. The same margin logic applies whether the underlying pack is Premium, Luxury, or Diamond, since the coordination and accountability work scales with the project either way.