designer

interior designer

associate

general manager

sourcing manager

Havenly

When I first considered consulting with Havenly, the promise of flexible, remote work with a steady stream of clients seemed like a great opportunity. The platform boasts a tech-forward system, an easy-to-follow project structure, and the ability to set your own schedule. Conceptually, it sounds like a dream setup for designers. Unfortunately, the reality is far from ideal—mainly due to the abysmal pay structure, unrealistic workload expectations, and lack of genuine support.


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Unfair Compensation: More Work, Less Pay

One of the biggest red flags is the shockingly low pay. Projects, which can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks, typically pay around $70 in total. When broken down into hourly wages—considering the time spent on client communication, revisions, and sourcing—it’s not even close to fair compensation.

Havenly structures payments by breaking the designer’s portion into small increments per project phase:

$40 for completing one phase

$10 for another phase

And so on...


On top of that, if there’s a sale on design services (which is almost always the case), the designer takes the financial hit—not Havenly. There’s also no pay adjustment based on project length; whether a design takes a day or a month, the payout remains the same. That means your $200 project fee could break down to $20 per hour… or as low as $5 per hour, depending on how much time the client requires.

The commission structure doesn’t offer much relief either. While designers technically earn 7% commission on Havenly’s in-house brands, these brands are often high-ticket items that most budget-conscious clients won’t splurge on. In reality, commissions average around 2-3%, and clients don’t always spend their full budget with Havenly. What initially seems like a promising income stream can quickly drop from $90K per year to a mere $19K.


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Unrealistic Workload Expectations

To make a full-time income, Havenly suggests accepting 15-20 rooms per month. This is an unrealistic workload unless you’re willing to sacrifice sleep, personal time, and any work-life balance. Even then, supporting yourself—let alone a family—is nearly impossible, especially in major metropolitan areas.

And don’t expect stability. Pay is biweekly, alternating between project pay and commission pay, meaning your income fluctuates unpredictably.


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A System Stacked Against Designers

Another major issue is Havenly’s punitive approach to project delays. While some delays are unavoidable—such as waiting on client feedback—the platform enforces financial penalties rather than fostering a collaborative environment.

Support from team leads is also disappointing. Many are unresponsive, passive-aggressive, or more focused on pressuring designers to push purchases than actually helping with legitimate concerns. In one instance, I flagged a client who seemed suspicious, only to be told to “stay on timeline for purchasing opportunities.” The lack of genuine support is frustrating and, at times, concerning.

The Hidden Costs of “Flexibility”

While working remotely and setting your own schedule might seem like perks, Havenly still finds ways to exert control. Even if you take time off, you’re responsible for extending deadlines, and the platform may still schedule deliverables during your break.

And let’s not forget taxes—since designers are independent contractors, they’re responsible for setting aside part of their already meager earnings for tax season.


The Bottom Line: Not Worth It

The idea behind Havenly isn’t bad—making interior design accessible to every budget is commendable. But the execution fails its designers. The pay is too low to be sustainable, the workload is overwhelming, and the lack of real support makes the job unnecessarily stressful.

For those considering Havenly, be prepared for long hours, endless revisions, constant client communication (often unpaid), and little recognition for your hard work. If you’re serious about building a career in interior design, this platform will likely leave you overworked, underpaid, and burned out.

Simply put: the numbers don’t add up, and the effort isn’t worth the return.



Like many others I too was excited about working for Havenly.  They promised a flexible schedule and claim you can make a decent living working right from home.  This however is extremely mis leading.  For one, you will be a sub contractor for them meaning you are not their actual employee however they do not treat their sub contractors as such.   They want all of the benefits of paying you as a subcontractor while treating you like an overworked salaried employee.  You will have no control over which clients you are assigned and the admins/managers will breath down your neck the entire time and not only micromanage every project they will also try to control 100% of your time and life more so than I have ever experienced in a real job where I was an actual salaried employee.   

The pay is horrible! You will make absolutely no money for your time. you get paid a base rate for a project, when I worked for them it was $100 per full project with the potential to make commission.  Now Havenly claims that a full project should take a designer about 5 hours so it sounds like you should make a base of $20.00 an hour plus commission potential which sounds pretty decent right? Wrong! Heavenly offers unlimited revisions to the clients so you will never get a project that only takes 5 hours I promise! (more like 12-15 hours) Heavenly lets the clients set up phone calls with you at any time of day, even out of business hours and with out thinking about different time zones, then the clients have your cell phone number and will call and text you about the project at inappropriate times. The clients that Havenly attracts are cheap and difficult and want as many revisions as they can possibly get and then when its all done very few people actually buy anything that you can make a decent commission on.  I was not the only person not making commission, in the designers chat room it was a very common topic that none of us were making commissions.  The most I ever made as a sub contractor for Havelny was 7 dollars an hour working more than full time (that was the best month I had, most months I made about 5 dollars an hour) ... I don't know about you but most college educated adults cant afford to make less then the federal minimum wage.  

In addition to the low pay and no flexibility the work culture is horrible.  I had a legitimate family emergency happen one week and asked for an extension on a project, they gave me ONE extra day and when I couldn't get it submitted in time they gave me a "warning" in a very unprofessionally written nasty email.  I had of course communicated with the client and she was very understanding and it was no problem to her but Havenly will literally threaten you at every opportunity.  The managers are extremely unhelpful and create a nasty work culture.  I realize deadlines are important as well as client happiness however there has to be a balance for the designers because this is a remote position where they advertise it as a super flexible job and that is a complete and utter lie on Heavenly's part because they fully expect you to be available 24/7.  Havenly has an extremely high turnover rate on their subcontracted designers, I know this because I was getting about one client per week that had started with another designer who had quit.  Havenly cant keep people around and there is a reason for this!  Take my advise this is NOT worth your time!

Conceptually it’s not a bad setup. Work from home, get steady stream of clients, decide your schedule and monthly workload, easy to follow project deliverable schedule, and tech-forward systems. The biggest problem is pay structure. Havenly doesn’t typically attract big-budget clients, which is great and I love that they provide access to design for every budget. But when you break down the income vs cost to design for the brand, you’re lucky if you’re not operating at a constant net loss.

Pay is bi-weekly with an alternating split between project pay and commission pay. Project pay is what you earn for completing each phase in the design. Clients pay a variety of fees for a design package based on how many rooms they want to redo. Havenly takes a cut and chops the designer’s portion into small-ish amounts (i.e. $40 for completing 1 phase of the job, $10 for a different phase) which is meant to keep designers engaged and on schedule.  

The problem is if there’s a sale on design services (hint- there’s ALWAYS a sale), the designer takes the hit on the discount. There’s also no difference in pay if a design takes a day or a month to complete. Yep, one flat fee entitles clients to as much time and as many revisions they desire. That means as a designer your $200 project pay could quickly break down from $20/hr or $5/hr or less, depending upon the total time spent per project. 

Commissions seem decent at fist glance with percentages of 7% on in-house brands. The brands themselves have great quality and nice features, but the highest per item ticket price. But when a client has a $10k budget and an entire living and dining room to furnish, odds are slim they’re going to spend $5k -$6k on a sofa. So that commission % quickly falls off and averages more in the 2-3% range. And just because a client has a $10k budget or a $100k budget, doesn’t mean they’re going to spend it all at once or spend it all with you, or spend it at all. Big dreams of potential earnings can quickly go from $90k per year to $19k per year. 

They suggest to accept 15-20 client rooms per month for full time hours & wages. That workload is rare and unsustainable unless you never sleep and live with zero expenses. Don’t expect to support yourself, let alone a family especially if you happen to live in a major metro area.

Long hours, countless revisions, unending promotional discounts and sales, no real authentic colleague interactions or support. Not worth the money especially when looking at it from an hourly wage. Almost forgot, ur an independent contractor so save those few extra pennies for tax season!



I was really excited to begin working with Havenly. Everything seemed amazing - the platform, design process, earning potential, and using my creativity and love of interior styling to help others love the spaces they live in. But Havenly sells you a dream while using a model that doesn't work.

Not one day working with Havenly did I feel like I owned my own business, which is how they present the position. Every aspect of the design process is excessively micro managed, which leaves very little room for developing your own personal style of working with clients, managing your workload or creating your designs. 

Plus, the amount of time it actually takes to complete the design process for each client is waaaaay more than they say (you have to be the designer, customer support and salesperson for each client) or what they adequately compensate for. When I talked to other designers about this, they all said they were just has overwhelmed and exhausted, given the amount of time the process took and the deadlines for each stage, and were underwhelmed by the pay. 

Havenly pays a very small fee ($20-$50) per stage of each project and whatever else you make is straight commission on the products you sell through the designs you create. 

I was told by management that the amount of time you put into projects and the amount of money you make would start to make sense within the first month or so. Well, that month for me came and went and I didn't make one dollar in commission because no one was buying!!! When I spoke to other designers about it, I was told it's more like 3-4 months before time vs money begins to even out. I didn't stick around to see. I had already put in 6 weeks - 2 full, unpaid weeks of training + a month or so working 40 hours plus per week on designs and communicating with clients. My first and last check (because they only pay once a month) was a whopping $500. 

I'm all for innovative systems, but Havenly just took a traditional employer-employee structure, changed the pay in their favor, and called it something new. (The E-designer job description is nearly the same as the in-house designer job description, but of course the latter gets paid a salary.) They do not care about the designers and lose them constantly, which is why they are always hiring. 

I guess those designers who have been with them for a while have smoothed out all the kinks in the process and it goes a lot faster for them per client. But when I inquired about what to do to get over the hump, I wasn't met with any information that made me feel like it was possible to get there. Plus, I had bills to pay. 

Aside from this, I did enjoy working on the platform, designing rooms, and management is pretty responsive to most questions and issues.

At first, I loved the idea of working remotely for an interior design firm, creating my own hours, working when I wanted, but it is not what you expect. 

Firstly, this is an interior decorator position, not an interior design position. Before you start the position as a contract designer you will be asked to do some example projects and renderings. I understand that there is no real way to get paid for this work as the company is working with designers remotely, but more than 30+ hours of work? This was outrageously unfair to those of us trying to pay the bills. 

You are HORRIBLY underpaid. The company does not make it clear to clients that we designers are not slave laborers to them, we are not unlimited resources and they paid a fixed amount. Havenly does not make it clear to the clients the scope of the work that we are creating for them. I worked more than 40+ hours with a client I had and when calculated out I ended up working for only $2.30 an hour. At an interior design firm I would be making $20-$80 an hour. 

Yes, you can make a commission off of the products the client buys, which is a benefit. You can also get a happiness bonus if you go above and beyond for your client: a 4 star review and they buy some products.  I never had a client buy more than a few items through the Havenly site, and the happiness bonus is only $15, which certainly does not add up to the 10+ hours you might put in extra for a client. 

It is remote work so a client may choose you from across the country. The problem with this is it causes very late work hours. Most nights I worked for a client on PST until 2 or 3 in the morning to get things done for the deadline in the morning. 

When clients are not responsive or do not get back to you in time to create a full rendering or concept you are still required to get projects in with the very strict deadlines. This is wasted time, there should be a way to extend a deadline if the client isn't even there to respond or see the results.

The company does not give you accurate records of how much you are making each month. You get a Current Work Statement of Designer Work but you do not get any record of your commissions and any penalizations so you will never know or have an accurate record of how much you have actually made. 

I want to reiterate that you are HORRIBLY underpaid, even for projects that you are not having to overwork. Most projects I was still paid between $6.50 an hour and $4. On top of this only a few dollars in commission? This a modern-day slave labor.

I loved the idea of working for Havenly. I love designing and I am a full time mom at home. Unfortunately this is a raw deal. The time commitments are drastically misrepresented. The pay structure is insulting. It would be a great platform for interns or recent grads to deal with clients and build a portfolio quickly but absolutely no place to make a decent wage. 
People get entire houses designed for under a grand, even $500. 

I took it to be part time but it still requires full time hours because you have to deliver designs every 2 days. And it’s at least 5 designs per project once you go through all their phases. You are penalized if designs are late even if your clients are okay with it. 

There is an atmosphere of censorship and bullying in a very covert way. Their slack channel is for communicating bubbly transmissions only in order to maintain the illusion that everyone is happy. They have a high turnover rate and this seems to work for them because they have yet to change their model. They expect endless revisions even after the project is complete. As many phone calls on designer’s time that you are not paid for. There are no client boundaries. It’s a you know what show.  

To add insult to injury, their pay system is unorganized and inconsistent. It’s hard to keep track of your earnings and hard to guess when a payment will be issued. Insanity. Only to randomly receive a $400 check for a months work. 

And their tech! Beside the fact that the projects take massive amounts of time to complete, their platform has endless glitches! On designer side and customer side. There are major time absorbing issues you have to contend with because the coding or whatever is a hot steaming mess. 

I would never tell anyone NOT to work anywhere but I do think people should have enough information to make informed decisions so hopefully I’ve provided that. Apply at your own risk. 

Overall, this company is run by a group of absolutely wretched and horrible managing individuals.

No one in the higher ups even remotely cares about their employees.  Unfortunately, it's the lower level employees that suffer.  They put in grueling hours and as much effort as they can to work on projects quickly and efficiently, and are compensated with embarrassingly low wages.

I would absolutely never trust the upper level management to be clear or actually communicate with anyone employed there or contracted with the company.  I wish all the best for the employees who do the actual designing, but I genuinely cannot believe the lack of communication in an online business.  Without face-to-face interactions, virtual communication is all the more important.  The management's communication skills would be more than just unacceptable by in-person work standards.  They would be means for firing almost any employee.  If I received 6-7 emails from someone within one week's time and didn't respond to any, I would expect some serious ramifications.  The management and upper level individuals who don't know how to communicate seem to be perfectly fine taking advantage of their employees and running their company using the effort of individuals who don't know any better and just need money.

Working for Havenly just provides the management there with an excuse to abuse the efforts of others.  Contract them at your own risk.  It may be worth it to you, but it is absolutely not worth it for the employees there.

To be clear: upper level company workers/management = bad, and lower level designers = good.  Be careful here.

It seems like a great job at first but the pay is not scaled to a livable wage. I was making less than minimum wage, and with how busy it was during quarantine I was working 65-80 hour weeks for nearly TWO MONTHS to try and keep up with the required workload so I wouldn't be penalized, but still barely making enough to pay rent and keep myself afloat because of the amount of work you do that goes unpaid. Clients are allowed revisions until they're happy, which is understandable from a company standpoint but the amount of work I put into projects did not align with the pay I was making.

I felt unsupported or unheard a lot of the time. A common complaint among designers was that clients weren't aware that a large chunk of pay comes from commission/sales through Havenly's platform, but despite this being a repeat issue the company didn't ever seem to adjust how the process was explained to clients.

I ended up leaving the company without having another position lined up because I contracted COVID and realized life is too short to put up with a job that left me so unhappy at the end of the day. I suffered from extreme depression at several points during the year I spent with Havenly due to feeling stuck in this position. As much as I considered staying on until I found a new job, I realized that I wouldn't have time to look if I stayed with Havenly.

There were some great people on the management team, but I would never recommend this job to anyone unless they're being supported by another income such as from a spouse. There's no way any one person could fully support themselves in the long term from this position as a contractor. I could literally make more money working less hours at a grocery store.

The Reality: Low Wages and Financial Penalties

The reality of consulting with Havenly was far from the promising vision I’d envisioned. One of the most glaring issues I encountered was the lack of a living wage. For the time and effort required to complete a project—sometimes stretching over several weeks—the compensation was shockingly low. Payments hovered around $70 per project, an amount that, when broken down into hourly rates, barely covered basic costs, let alone represented fair compensation for professional design work.

Adding to the frustration was the structure of financial penalties for project delays. While delays can sometimes be inevitable due to client feedback or unforeseen challenges, the platform seemed more focused on penalizing designers than understanding the complexities of creative work. This punitive approach felt unnecessarily harsh and left little room for collaboration or flexibility.

Questionable Priorities: Profit Over People

What disappointed me the most was the clear disparity between the platform’s financial priorities and the treatment of its designers. While Havenly appears to be focusing heavily on acquiring other companies and expanding its market presence, this growth seems to come at the expense of the individuals who make the platform successful: the designers. It’s disheartening to see financial gains directed toward corporate acquisitions rather than ensuring fair pay and support for those contributing their time, expertise, and creativity.







This job on paper sounds amazing.  You get to work on multiple projects a week, are payed per project, and can seemingly control your on schedule all while working from home and the work truthfully is enjoyable.  However once you realize you are expected to keep up with an insane amount of work, an extremely quick pace, little pay, strict deadlines that are hard to change, and little regard given to you as an employee, you start to see why so many only take this job when there are no other options and so many more quit as soon as possible.

You are only payed for certain deliverable and make little commission. Your work life balance is thrown out the window due to contestant contact with clients and a work overflow.  In order to makes ends meet you will have to keep an unrealistic pace and an intense work schedule and often times your work will still slip though the cracks because of this. 

The job is entirely online so it is difficult to get in touch with people and even more difficult to solve problems or share opinions because the site set up for designer communication is monitored and people are sometimes blocked from sharing feelings of neglect and suggestion for ways to improve are overlooked.  

Overall the company does not care about there employees or customer because they have such a high volume of both.  The system is unsustainable and the designs you create as an employee will be quick, cheep and defiantly not the best quality because everything is stacked agents you.    

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Designer 11 salaries reported	$50,909 per year
Interior designer 24 salaries reported	$81,146 per year
Associate 7 salaries reported	$18.57 per hour
General manager 8 salaries reported	$102,750 per year
Sourcing manager 9 salaries reported	$75,000 per year

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