29 September 2026 · 6 min read · Oscar Markham
Getting paid for the drawing
A landscaper spends an evening on a layout, a plant list and a rough costing, hands it over free, and hears nothing. Three months later the garden gets built by somebody cheaper, from that drawing. It happens constantly and it is entirely avoidable.
Free design is not free to you
It is hours of skilled work, and giving it away teaches the customer that the thinking is worthless and only the labour has value. That is exactly backwards for a business that wants design-and-build work.
It also attracts the wrong enquiries. People who would never pay for a design are disproportionately likely to shop the drawing around.
Charge for it, and make it worth having
A paid design that is properly presented — a scale layout, planting, materials, a phased plan if the budget needs staging — is a product in its own right. The customer has something valuable whether or not you build it.
Most will want you to build it, because you designed it and they now trust you. But the ones who do not have at least paid for your time.
Credit it against the build
The line that removes almost all resistance: the design fee comes off the build if you go ahead with us.
It is fair, it is easy to say, and it turns the fee from a barrier into a deposit. Landscapers who adopt this almost never go back.
Filter before you get there
A consultation fee for the first visit — credited the same way — removes the people who are collecting free ideas from four landscapers.
You will get fewer first visits and a much higher proportion will become work. Measure jobs won per visit rather than visits booked and the change is obvious.
Say it on the website
The design process, that it is a paid piece of work, and that it is credited against the build. Plainly, on the design page.
It sets the expectation before anyone rings, which means the conversation on the phone is about the garden rather than about whether you charge.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.