Published in full, because a firm that will not put its design fee in writing is telling you something. Three fixed tiers, each one credited in part against your build. Every figure below includes GST.
You are quoted a number before any work begins, and that is the number you pay. If the scope genuinely changes — you buy the neighbouring block, the survey finds a metre of fall nobody knew about — we requote rather than invoice a surprise.
Credits apply against a BMEL build contract and appear as a line item before the deposit is calculated. What each tier contains is set out on the design overview.
A rear garden with a level change, a retaining wall, paving, a deck and planting — the size of job we do most often. Here is what design costs on it and what comes back if you build with us.
10.2% of the construction value. The market range for landscape design fees on a percentage basis is 6–15%, narrowing as budgets grow; published fees from comparable Melbourne firms sit near 7%. We sit above that deliberately, and the documentation depth is the reason — the set is built from, not just admired.
If you take the drawings elsewhere, design has cost you $9,050 and you own a set three builders can price like for like. That is still a better outcome than three quotes against a sketch.
The usual industry offer is that the design fee disappears entirely if you build with the designer. It sounds generous and it is corrosive. A design that becomes free the moment you sign is not a design you are free to reject — it quietly becomes a sales instrument, and everybody involved can feel it. It also means the design work is subsidised by the build, which is precisely how design ends up done at nine o'clock at night.
Zero credit is the other failure. It asks you to pay twice for the same decision and it costs conversion for no good reason.
Partial credit is the honest middle. The consultation credits in full because it is a qualifying step for both of us. Half the concept credits, because concept work has enduring value to you whoever builds it. A quarter of the documentation credits, because that set is genuinely the most expensive thing we produce and the most useful thing you will own. You end up paying roughly 10% of your build for design — and if you walk away, we have still been paid for the work.
Named here rather than discovered later. Where a project needs one of these we say so at the consultation, tell you who does it, and get you a price before anyone starts.
Byron holds degrees in civil engineering and architecture from Monash University. He is not a registered architect or a registered landscape architect, and BMEL does not use either title. Preparing plans or documentation for a building permit requires registration as a building designer, so where a project needs that — or needs certified structural design — we engage Solid Structural Engineering and a registered building designer, and their fee is quoted to you separately.
Concept design, levels strategy, paving setout, drainage, planting, material specification and construction detailing for permit-exempt work are ours, and that is the overwhelming majority of a landscape package.
Photorealistic renders are not part of the standard package, and that is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. A render is a picture of an intention. What you actually need in order to commit forty or eighty thousand dollars is a dimensioned plan, a material you can hold in your hand, and a number you can rely on — and rendering time competes directly with the hours that produce those.
You will get plans, sections, levels, a physical material palette and a costed schedule. If a render would genuinely help you decide, ask and we will price it separately rather than folding it into everybody else's fee.
The consultation is $450–$650 inc GST and credits back in full against whatever you do next. If the honest answer is that your project does not need a design package, we will tell you that too.
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