Why We Plan Spaces Free of Charge (and Why That Isn't a Trick)

Office space planning is free at Deskwell. One desk or a whole floor. Send us the room and we will tell you what fits, draw it, price it and send it back. There is no charge, no minimum order, and no invoice arriving later dressed up as a design fee.

People ask what the catch is. I understand why. In this industry a free service usually means the cost has been moved somewhere you cannot see it, normally into the price of the furniture, and a complimentary plan is the bait on the hook. So here is what the service is, why we do it, and why it costs you nothing.

What the office space planning service includes

You send us the space. A floor plan from the landlord or the architect is ideal. A sketch on squared paper with the measurements written on is fine. A phone video with a tape measure in shot will do. Tell us how many people, what they do, and what you already own that is staying.

We come back with a layout. Desks, storage, the meeting table, the breakout corner if there is room for one, laid out to scale with the walkways drawn in, and the list of what is on the drawing priced at the same published prices you see on the site. If you want it changed, it gets changed. Six people instead of eight, standing desks on one bank, the meeting room turned round. That is the job.

For bigger projects, twenty items and up or anything with a complication (a mezzanine, a listed building, a lift that argues back), the plan comes with a bespoke quote for delivery and installation, so you know the whole cost before you commit to any of it. The detail is on our delivery and installations page.

Why we give it away

Three reasons, and I will be straight about the third.

The first is that planning is where buying goes wrong. Almost every furniture problem I have seen in this trade was a planning problem wearing a furniture costume. Desks that fit on paper and not in the lift. A bench for eight in a room that seats six. A meeting table nobody can walk round. Fixing those after delivery costs everyone money, and the customer most of all. Half an hour with a plan avoids nearly all of it.

The second is that it is how we would want to buy. The whole point of Deskwell is that every answer is on the page. 'What fits in my room' is the one question a product page cannot answer on its own, so we answer it ourselves rather than leave it as homework.

The third reason is commercial, and that is fine. A business that has seen its office drawn out with our desks in it is more likely to buy them from us. We are not embarrassed by that. It is the same reason a decent tailor measures you for free. The measuring is not the product. Getting it right is.

Why it is not a trick

The plan is priced at our published prices. There is no special planning price and no price that goes up if you go elsewhere. The published price is the price, whether you buy one chair or fifty, and it is the same whether we drew your office or not. That is what makes the free plan free. There is no hidden margin to recover, because there is no other margin.

You are under no obligation either. Take the plan to a competitor if you like. I would rather that than a business buying the wrong desks from us because they felt they owed us something.

What to send us

The room dimensions, the door and window positions, where the power is, and the headcount today and in two years. If you have already decided on a bench desk or you know the boardroom needs a meeting table for twelve, say so and we will plan around it. If you are starting from a blank room, a useful first question is desk width, because it decides everything else. The 140cm office desks page is a good place to see how much desk you get per person before we draw a single line.

Talk to us. The plan is free, the prices are the same as they always are, and the catch is still nowhere to be found.