Split your interior budget
Total budget and carpet area, then what matters most to you.
How this calculator works
- Each home type carries a base percentage split across eight heads, published in the table below and derived from completed Greenbox projects.
- Your priority adjusts the split by fixed amounts: kitchen-first adds 6 points to the kitchen and takes them from the living and bedroom lines; storage-first adds 3 each to the bedrooms; entertaining adds 7 to living and dining.
- The adjusted shares are renormalised to 100%, so no combination ever over- or under-allocates.
- Where civil work is included, it takes its percentage first and everything else is scaled into the remainder.
- Implied rate = budget ÷ carpet area, then matched against the rest-of-India bands audited at October 2026: essential ₹1,560–2,330, premium ₹2,330–3,490, luxury ₹3,730–5,600. In Mumbai each band sits about 12% higher.
- Nothing is randomised — the same inputs always produce the same split.
| Head | 1BHK | 2BHK | 3BHK | 4BHK / villa |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modular kitchen | 26% | 24% | 21% | 18% |
| Master bedroom | 22% | 18% | 16% | 15% |
| Other bedrooms | — | 13% | 20% | 24% |
| Living & dining | 24% | 22% | 22% | 23% |
| False ceiling & lighting | 10% | 9% | 9% | 9% |
| Painting & finishes | 7% | 6% | 5% | 5% |
| Electrical & plumbing | 6% | 5% | 4% | 3% |
| Design & project management | 5% | 3% | 3% | 3% |
These are shares of the interior budget, not of the total project. Civil work, appliances and loose furniture sit outside them.
Design and build under one accountable roof
Worked example — ₹15 lakh on a 700 sq ft 2BHK
| Head | Share | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Modular kitchen | 24% | ₹3.60 L |
| Master bedroom | 18% | ₹2.70 L |
| Second bedroom | 13% | ₹1.95 L |
| Living & dining | 22% | ₹3.30 L |
| False ceiling & lighting | 9% | ₹1.35 L |
| Painting & finishes | 6% | ₹90,000 |
| Electrical & plumbing | 5% | ₹75,000 |
| Design & project management | 3% | ₹45,000 |
| Implied rate | ₹15,00,000 ÷ 700 | ₹2,143 / sq ft — essential |
Where budgets actually go wrong
Not in the split. In the sequence. Most overruns we are asked to rescue happened because the first two rooms were built to a standard the budget could only sustain across one, and by the time the third bedroom came round there was nothing left. Allocating the money before the drawings are signed, and holding each room to its number, is unglamorous and it is the single most effective cost control there is.
The second failure is the invisible lines. Electrical, plumbing and project management add up to 8% of a 2BHK budget and produce nothing anybody can photograph. They are the first things cut and the most expensive things to add later — a socket in the wrong place after the wall is finished costs ten times what it costs before. If the budget has to come down, take it from finish level, not from services.
The third is confusing the interior budget with the project budget. Appliances, loose furniture, curtains, art and the society deposit sit outside every number on this page and typically add another 15–25%. We include a line for them in every proposal precisely because clients otherwise discover them in month four.
There is one more use for this page that has nothing to do with planning. If you already have a quotation, put its total and your carpet area into the calculator and compare the split it produces against the quotation's own breakdown. Where a quotation puts 35% into the kitchen of a 3BHK, either the kitchen is exceptional or the bedrooms are thin. Where design and project management is under 2%, somebody is not being paid to supervise the site, and that cost will reappear as rework. The split is a diagnostic as much as a plan.
The one line we would defend against any cut is lighting. It is 9% of the budget, it is invisible in a photograph of an empty flat, and it is the single largest determinant of whether the finished home feels expensive. A ₹20 lakh flat with four flat ceiling lights looks worse at night than a ₹12 lakh flat with layered lighting, and no amount of veneer compensates for it.
The allocation shares come from Greenbox site records, and the per-sq-ft bands the tool checks your budget against come from six measured projects we costed and billed, restated at October 2026 — from a ₹1,419 per sq ft budget refit to a ₹5,100 per sq ft compact luxury flat. Treat the output as a planning figure: accurate enough to brief a landlord, a bank or a family, and not accurate enough to sign a contract against.
What this tool does not cover
- Appliances, loose furniture, curtains, rugs and art — typically another 15–25% on top.
- Society deposits, service-lift charges and statutory permissions.
- 18% GST, which sits on top of every figure shown here.
- Civil and structural work unless you select it, and never structural changes needing approval.
- The 8–10% contingency, which should be held outside the allocation rather than inside a room's number.
- For an area-based estimate rather than a split of a fixed budget, use the interior design cost calculator.
Selected work by Greenbox Design Studio. Tap any image to enlarge.
Frequently asked questions
How much of an interior budget should go to the kitchen?+
About 24% in a 2BHK, 21% in a 3BHK and 18% in a villa. The share falls as the home grows because a kitchen is close to a fixed cost — it is priced by running feet of counter, not by the floor area around it.
What is a realistic interior budget per sq ft in Mumbai?+
₹1,750–2,610 per sq ft of carpet area for essential finishes, ₹2,610–3,910 for premium and ₹4,180–6,270 for luxury, before 18% GST. Across the rest of India each band runs about 12% lower, and those are the figures this calculator benchmarks against. Divide your budget by carpet area and see which band you are actually in before choosing finishes.
Should I include civil work in the interior budget?+
Only if you are actually doing it, and then as an explicit line. Minor civil — moving one partition, a bathroom change — takes about 12% of the budget; extensive work takes 20%. It comes off every other line, which is why it must be decided before the room allocations are set.
How much contingency should an interior budget carry?+
Eight to ten per cent, held outside the room allocations. On any live site something is found behind a wall — old wiring, a leaking pipe, a floor 20 mm out of level — and a project without a contingency absorbs it by quietly cutting the last room.
What is not included in an interior budget?+
Appliances, loose furniture, curtains, rugs, art, the society deposit and GST. Together they typically add 15–25% on top of the interior figure, and they are the most common reason a project that was 'on budget' still costs more than the client expected.