Free design or paid design? The 40% that decided it

The value ladder

Potential customers approach us for free, to start getting to know the brand, including in informal settings: open days, live cooking with the chef, a visit to the store. That is the bottom rung of the ladder. Further up you reach design, which is the moment the customer asks us to work for them. And this is where it is decided: free or paid?

Online, you pay

For those without a store nearby, German, American, Swiss, online design costs €500: a dedicated designer, a private chat, a 3D design with a quotation, a box of samples sent home. Why paid? Because I don't know you. I have never met you, you haven't come to see me, you haven't made any effort. The €500 is proof that you are serious, and those who pay for the design go on to buy: in one week we sold three, to a Swiss man, a German man and an Italian woman. The German put it like this: “Worst case, I've thrown away €500 if the design is rubbish.”

In the showroom it's free, but at the second appointment

In Milan we do the design for free, and we do it at the second appointment. At the first, the customer sees the showroom, understands the method and answers the questions about budget. At the second, they find the design based on their chosen collection. Free, but to get it they have already committed: they have taken the car, paid the Area C charge and the parking under the showroom, and come up to the second floor twice. They have already spent money, not with me, but they have spent it. And we don't let them keep the design: they see it, they discuss it, but it stays ours. So they come back for the third appointment, which is the one where the deal is closed.

The conversion rate of free in-store design is 40%. In class someone asked: “Ninety?” No, forty. And forty is a huge number.

The number that decides

I chose not to charge for the design in the showroom for one reason only: four out of ten customers who receive the design buy. If the conversion rate had been 3 or 4%, I would have charged everyone for the design, as some of our dealers in Northern Europe already do; they are a level above, and in Italy we will get there. At 40%, the cost of the six designs that don't close is covered by the four that do, and the free design becomes a marketing tool.

In Modena, where the showroom is at street level and people come from Bologna and Tuscany, the province thinks differently, and the sums have to be redone. The rule changes from place to place: you measure a number and decide on that basis.

What to do in your company

If you sell on the basis of a design, a quote or a consultation, measure before you decide: how many of those who receive the design buy? If it's a lot, the free design is your best sales tool, as long as you give it at the second appointment and don't leave it in the customer's hands. If it's few, charge for it: you will filter out the curious and the competitors posing as customers, and those who pay will arrive already decided. In both cases, anyone who doesn't know you and has never met you always pays.

From my classroom courses and my book Direct from Milano. Figures and examples updated to September 2026.