How to price a 3 BHK turnkey project without leaving money on the table

Pricing a 3 BHK turnkey interior project is the single hardest number an early-stage studio has to put in writing. Quote too low and the project eats your margin for nine months. Quote too high and the client signs with the neighbourhood carpenter instead.

This piece is the framework we have seen actually working at studios doing 30–80 lakh projects, across Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad.

Start with the base rate, not the total

The wrong way to price is to estimate the total and back into a per-sqft. The right way is the opposite: start with a base rate per usable sqft, multiply by area, then add the fixed and variable layers on top.

Three tiers cover almost every conversation we have heard:

• Essential — ₹1,100 – ₹1,400 / sqft. Branded laminate, standard modular kitchen, vitrified flooring, simple cove ceiling, retail lighting.
• Premium — ₹1,800 – ₹2,200 / sqft. Acrylic or membrane shutters, designer kitchen, engineered wood or large-format tile, profile ceiling, smart lighting basics.
• Luxury — ₹2,600 – ₹3,200 / sqft. Veneer / lacquered glass shutters, Italian / German modular kitchen, marble or hardwood flooring, coffered ceiling, full home automation.

For a usable area of 1,250 sqft (typical 3 BHK in a mid-tier metro), that is:

1. Essential → ₹13.75 – ₹17.5L
2. Premium → ₹22.5 – ₹27.5L
3. Luxury → ₹32.5 – ₹40L

That is the canvas. Now you paint the room.

Distribute the canvas across rooms

The mistake almost every junior designer makes is to apply the per-sqft rate uniformly. In reality, a kitchen costs four times what a balcony does per sqft. The cleaner approach is to allocate by share of canvas, not share of area.

A workable starting split for a 3 BHK Premium:

• Living + Dining — 22%
• Kitchen — 20%
• Master bedroom — 16%
• Kids bedroom — 11%
• Common bath + master bath — 9%
• Study / pooja / utility — 7%
• Common areas (foyer, passage, balcony) — 6%
• Floor levelling + civil overhead — 9%

Sum the shares, multiply by your canvas total, and you have a per-room budget. That number is what goes on the quote — never the per-sqft rate.

The four fixed costs that never appear in per-sqft

These eat margin if you forget them. Add them as flat line items on every quote:

1. Site supervision — ₹35,000 – ₹85,000 depending on project duration. This is your project manager's time.
2. Design and 3D rendering — ₹40,000 – ₹1,50,000. Charge this even if you do it in-house. Especially if you do it in-house.
3. Logistics + storage — ₹15,000 – ₹40,000. Material drops in the apartment lobby do not stack themselves.
4. Cleanup + handover — ₹10,000 – ₹25,000. Polishing, deep clean, snag list close-out.

These four lines total ₹1 – ₹3L and are routinely missed. They are the single biggest source of "where did our margin go" at month-end.

Add the variable layer: client picks

Once the base is set, the client makes choices that move the number. Each pick should appear as a delta line, not be absorbed silently:

• Flooring upgrade — Italian marble adds ₹35,000 – ₹50,000 per room over vitrified.
• Wardrobe upgrade — Acrylic adds ₹18,000 – ₹25,000 per wardrobe over laminate.
• Kitchen shutters — Lacquered glass adds ₹45,000 – ₹70,000 over laminate.
• Ceiling upgrade — Designer/coffered adds ₹15,000 – ₹30,000 per room.
• Smart lighting — ₹35,000 – ₹65,000 site-wide.
• Home automation — ₹85,000 – ₹1,50,000 for a meaningful coverage.

Show each one as an optional add-on with a clear delta. When the client says yes, it goes on the quote with the delta visible. When they say no, it stays off.

Where the margin actually lives

Two places:

• Material markup — 8–18% on bought-out items (lights, hardware, sanitaryware, appliances). This is normal and clients expect it. Be transparent about which categories are passed through at cost (large appliances often) and which carry a markup.
• Carpentry labour leverage — the gap between what you pay your carpentry team per running foot and what the client sees on the quote per running foot. This is where 60% of studio profit comes from. Protect it: never break out carpentry labour as a separate line.

The places margin does not live:

• Civil work. You will roughly break even after vendor markup eats the buffer.
• Electrical. Same.
• Cleanup. Always more expensive than it looks.

A worked example

A 3 BHK Premium, 1,250 sqft, with marble flooring in living + master, acrylic wardrobes, lacquered kitchen, smart lighting:

• Base Premium canvas (1,250 × ₹2,000) — ₹25,00,000
• Marble upgrade — Living + Master — ₹90,000
• Acrylic wardrobes × 3 — ₹66,000
• Lacquered kitchen — ₹55,000
• Smart lighting — ₹50,000
• Site supervision — ₹65,000
• Design + 3D — ₹1,20,000
• Logistics + storage — ₹25,000
• Cleanup + handover — ₹18,000
• Subtotal — ₹29,89,000
• GST @ 18% — ₹5,38,020
• Total — ₹35,27,020

That is a defensible number. Every line has a reason. Nothing is buried in "miscellaneous".

One last rule

Build the quote in your software, not in Word. A quote that lives in Word will be re-keyed into a budget sheet on acceptance, and the rate per running foot of wardrobe will not survive the relay. Build it where the line items become the budget.

This is exactly why AakarX exists.