If you’re ready to transform your yard and turn it into the outdoor area of your dreams, the best thing you can do is contact a local landscape designer or landscape company to help you figure out the best way to use your space. Some companies offer free landscape designs, while others only offer paid designs.
You’re probably wondering why you would pay for a design when you could get a free one. One of the main reasons is that they create a high-quality design that is based on your property, leading to minimal issues, while a free design is more generic and likely to look nearly identical to other designs. Let’s take a look at the main reasons that a paid design is worth the money.
Benefits of Paying for a Landscape Design
When it comes to your home, you want to make sure it’s taken care of, both inside and out. Your landscape design is the single most important document when you’re considering making changes to your yard and hardscaping spaces. A landscape design is essentially a construction document that will help determine the caliber of the outcome of your landscape and outdoor living investments. A paid design ensures several things, including quality and customization.
Quality
That old saying “you get what you pay for” is true for a lot of things. When you pay for a landscape design from a reputable company, you know they’re working hard to create your design. It takes anywhere from 5 to 25 hours to create a unique customized plan for most properties. Estate plans can take over 45 hours. The only way to ensure your investment dollars are spent wisely is to start with a detailed, professional landscape design tailored to you and your property. Simply put, small businesses cannot afford to offer 5 to 25 hours free and still provide quality with attention to detail. If they offer free designs, they’re likely tucking those fees in elsewhere or struggling financially.
Accountability
With free designs, you never know what you’re going to get. Most of the companies that have free designs have a goal to get as many designs completed as they can in a week, hoping a few of them transfer to sales. With paid designs, your landscape designer is held to a higher standard and is held more accountable to provide their customers with quality designs the customer is happy with. There is also a level of transparency in knowing up front where the design fees are charged instead of being hidden somewhere.
Landscape Design: A Key Investment for Your Ideal Outdoor Spaces
Once you pay for a design, it is yours. You own it and you can make any changes you choose to. It’s often easier to phase your project once you own a design. This is especially true with multi-acre estate plans and landscape designs after a new home build. People spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on landscaping and outdoor living. That investment should be taken very seriously. If you wouldn’t build a home or do a remodel without a high-caliber design, why would you do a landscape or hardscape without one?
Customized
If you want a unique outdoor space, professional landscape designers and landscape architects are experts in customized landscape designs. They dedicate the time to each design, taking into account the amount of space you have to work with, as well as current landscaping, and the current layout of the space. There’s less uniqueness in a free design since they are creating them in bulk and have less time to commit to each design.
Customized paid landscape designs provide more style distinction, spend more time on accurate site analysis for fewer surprises later, and maximize the beauty and functionality of your spaces. Free designs based on speed simply don’t offer the same level of detail due to time constraints.
Free Design vs. Paid Design
Overall, the main takeaway is that a paid design and a free design are going to vary in quality. A free design is going to be generic and likely will have some copy-and-paste aspects to it. A paid design is going to be customized to your wants, needs, and the landscape and property you’re working with. If you view your landscape design as a worthy investment since it’s your primary construction document, you’ll likely be more satisfied working with companies that offer paid design packages.
High Prairie Landscape Design Group Can Transform Your Space
When you’re ready to upgrade your outdoor space so that you finally have the patio, outdoor kitchen, or curb appeal you’ve been dreaming of, High Prairie Outdoors can help. We work with customers in the Kansas City area every day to improve their outdoor spaces, and we can help you too. Just reach out to us today
Please note our professional landscape designers are in high demand and may not have openings for design-only clients unless it’s winter. If you’d like to learn more about landscape design packages at High Prairie Outdoors, check out our Intro Guide.
