Product markup, hourly retainers, and square-footage fees, chosen per project,
invoiced beautifully, and added up into one clear picture of your profit. Serenza runs the money
side of your practice so the spreadsheets can finally retire. Built for solo decorators,
full-service studios, and design-build firms running construction budgets next to FF&E.
Every studio bills its own way. Serenza is built for yours.
Generic invoicing tools assume you bill one way. A working design firm doesn't:
product is marked up, some projects run on retainers, others on flat fees.
Serenza builds all three in from the start, and you choose how each project bills.
Product Markup
A per-category markup schedule prices every item automatically. Client invoices never leak your cost.
Clients pay for a batch of hours up front and logged time counts down against it. Bill again when it runs low, or let Retainer Autopilot refill it monthly from a card the client saves once.
Drawn from published pricing across leading design-business platforms, July 2026. Every platform is different; check the one you are leaving.
Your bookkeeper rides free: a finance seat is included on Solo, and Studio never counts seats at all. On per-seat tools, your accountant is another monthly bill. Here, they are just invited.
Client payment fees, the whole table:
$25 cap
Bank transfers
1% until the cap, on any size deposit
2.9% + 30¢
Cards
at cost, nothing added on top
1.5%
Instant payouts
optional, when you want money today
Same rates on every plan. Pass the fee to your client with one click. Moving a $50,000 deposit costs $25 here; on a typical uncapped 1% to 1.5% rail it runs $500 to $750. Moving $100,000: still $25.
Every plan starts with a 14-day full-featured free trial. You won't be charged until the trial ends, cancel anytime before then. Annual billing is 2 months free, and you can start monthly and switch anytime. Prices are published, month-to-month, no setup fees, no per-seat math.
The client experience
Your brand on the front door. Ours nowhere.
Clients log in with a simple project code: no account, no password to reset.
What they see wears your logo: hours, documents, budgets,
mood boards, and selections waiting for approval.
Clients approve or decline each piece, and every answer is saved in writing
Proposals get signed right in the portal, and the deposit is queued for invoicing the moment they say yes
Share exactly the tabs you choose, per project
M Meridian Interiors Client Portal
SelectionsInvoicesDocumentsBudget
Arteriors · Halden Chandelier$3,875
✓ ApproveDecline
Visual Comfort · Sconce pair$1,240
✓ Approved Jun 12 by client
M Meridian Interiors Invoice DEP‑4471
Deposit · 9 approved pieces$14,200
✓ Signed · drawn signature on file
Pay by bank transferPay by card
Retainer Autopilot · monthly$5,000
✓ Refills 40 hours on the 1st
Getting paid
Signed, paid, and in your account.
The moment a client signs an invoice in the portal, the signature pad becomes a
payment panel: bank transfer at 1% capped at $25, or card. The money settles into
your studio's own Stripe account, not a platform ledger.
A $150,000 deposit costs $25 to collect by bank, and the portal blocks a second payment while the first is still clearing
When a deposit funds, the covered pieces are marked approved and vendor purchase orders draft themselves
If a client ever disputes a card charge, the signed invoice and delivery evidence are filed with the bank automatically
Purchasing & expediting
The vendor loop, closed.
Email purchase orders with your studio's name on them, replies going straight to
your inbox, and know when a human actually opened one. Vendors post ship dates and
tracking through a link that needs no account, and every promise they move is remembered.
Read receipts are human-verified, and an unopened PO gets flagged for a phone call after five days
Every slipped date is logged per brand, so you know exactly how much cushion each vendor needs
Order-By Radar reads each lead time and stamps an order-by date on every unordered piece
F PO‑1042 · Ferguson Vendor Link
Emailed Jun 12Opened Jun 13
✓ Human-verified read receipt
FedEx · 1Z 8834 4419Arrives Thu
✓ Posted by the vendor, no account needed
Profitability · Q2
Verde Residence
$61,300
Hilltop New Build
$38,900
Marsh Pied-à-terre
$17,200
design fees + product margin − costsprofit 34%
The bottom line
Know which projects actually make money.
Every project adds up its design fee, hourly or by the square foot, plus
what you earn on product, minus what you spend. You always know which
jobs are actually worth it.
See what hourly work earns next to flat-fee work, side by side
Your markup and card numbers stay hidden from junior staff
A file your bookkeeper can pull straight into QuickBooks
The back office
Every corner of the studio, covered.
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The Unbilled Sweep
Every dollar you've finished but never billed: hours past the retainer, expenses never rebilled, delivered pieces never invoiced, deposits never requested. One total, and a Draft Invoice button next to every line.
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Order-By Radar
Give a project an install date and each piece a lead time, and every unordered item gets its order-by date, with a warning before it threatens the install, not after.
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Quote Import
Upload a vendor quote, or a photo of one, and it comes back as line items grouped by room: SKU, quantity, and cost. You review every line before it lands.
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Meeting Notes
Record the meeting or paste a transcript and get back decisions, open questions, and action items with owners. The ones you tick become project tasks.
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Proposals & E‑Signatures
Send the scope of work and collect a typed name and drawn signature, timestamped. The deposit is flagged ready to invoice the moment they sign.
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Selections & Options
Clients say yes or no to each piece at the client price, or pick one of several options you offer. The first answer stands, on the record.
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Concept Boards
Curate inspiration into a board and clients react to every image from their phone. Loved pieces become project items in one click, and the whole thing presents full-screen in meetings.
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Client Questionnaire
New clients answer the first-meeting questions in their portal: style, spaces, budget comfort, how they live. The answers wait on the project before you ever sit down.
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Paper Trail & Dispute Shield
One button prints every decision a client ever made as a timestamped PDF. And if a card charge is disputed, the signed evidence files itself with the bank.
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Sales Tax Drawer
The resale-certificate loop, tracked: tax collected month by month on a cash basis, a Mark Filed button for each remittance, and a watchlist for goods billed without a tax line.
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Construction Budgets
Payment schedules, change orders, draws, contractor fees, and cost per square foot, in the same format your builder already uses. Certified draws reconcile against the schedule as they're billed.
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Expenses, Receipts & Mileage
Photograph a receipt and the vendor, date, amount, and category fill themselves in. Mileage logs compute the deduction, and a branded expense report goes straight to your CPA.
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Product Library & Clipper
Every piece you've ever sourced, saved with cost, lead time, and photo, ready to drop into the next project. Paste a product link and the item drafts itself: name, price, photo, and specs.
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Shipping & Deliveries
Every shipment on one board. Drop in a tracking number and carrier, status, and ETA appear on their own, refresh daily, and land on your calendar and the client's Deliveries tab.
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Schedule & Calendar Sync
Tasks, deliveries, follow-ups, and target dates on one calendar, with a live feed that drops it all into Apple, Google, or Outlook and keeps it current.
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Reports & QuickBooks
Receivables aging, pipeline value, Vendor Reliability, and what each way of billing earns. A one-way QuickBooks export your bookkeeper reviews before it posts, and a one-page Year-End PDF for your CPA.
Born inside a working design studio, not a software committee.
Serenza started as the internal tool of a residential design practice,
built order by order, invoice by invoice, against real projects. The purchasing
and ordering side that most platforms treat as an afterthought is the part
this one got right first.
A note from the founder: Serenza is newly public, and there is no wall of
customer logos here yet. It grew up inside DDW Designs, the residential practice
I run, keeping real orders, real invoices, and real clients straight. That is
also why the prices are published, the trial is 14 days, canceling takes two
clicks, and your data downloads anytime: when you are new, you earn trust by
making it easy to leave.
Margins stay private.Roles for owner, bookkeeper, designer and assistant. Junior staff see the work, never your markup, card numbers or vendor costs.
✓
Your data is yours.Download a full copy of your data anytime, with automatic backups every night in a second location. Leave whenever you like and take everything with you.
✓
Client-ready from day one.A 5-minute onboarding brands your invoices and portal; the first proposal can go out the same afternoon.
✓
Square footage, done right.Different rates by size, room-by-room breakdowns, staged payments and change orders: the way high-end firms actually quote.
Switching
Switching platforms? Bring the business, not the baggage.
There is no setup invoice here and no migration quote. Elsewhere, paid onboarding
and four-figure data migrations are common, often without a trial. Serenza is $0
to start, 14 days free, and you can see everything working before a dollar moves.
Start every new project here from day one. Paste the kickoff email into Start from Your Notes and it drafts the project, rooms, starter items, and proposal for you to review
Bring open vendor quotes with Quote Import: the PDF comes back as line items grouped by room, ready to check over before anything lands
Let in-flight projects finish where they are, and run the two side by side for a quarter. The per-seat bill shrinks as the projects do
FAQ
Fair questions, straight answers.
How does the free trial work?
Pick a plan, enter a card, and pay nothing for 14 days: every feature unlocked. We email you a reminder before the trial ends, and you can cancel in two clicks from Settings → Billing anytime before then and never be charged. If you stay, billing simply starts on day 15.
Do my clients need accounts?
No. Clients open their portal with just their email (we send them a sign-in link) or a private project access code. They see only what you've shared for that project. No passwords to reset, no seats to pay for.
Can I mix billing models across projects?
Yes, that's the point. Pick hourly or square-footage per project when you create it; product markup applies everywhere. You can switch a project later; Serenza asks you to confirm and keeps a record of the change.
What happens to my data if I leave?
One click downloads everything you've ever entered, and automatic backups run every night the whole time you're a customer. Your data is never held hostage.
How do clients pay, and what does it cost?
Clients sign the invoice in their portal and pay right there: bank transfer at 1% capped at $25 (a $150,000 deposit costs the same $25 as a $2,500 one), or card at the processor's own rate with nothing added on top. The money settles into your studio's own Stripe account. If you prefer, pass the fee to the client and it appears as its own line item on the invoice. The cap works the same at starter scale: a $6,500 first deposit costs $25 by bank here and about $97 on a typical uncapped 1.5% rail. Platforms that route payments through your own brand-new processor account also tend to cap bank transfers near $2,000 per transaction at first.
What happens if a client disputes a card charge?
Serenza answers it for you. The moment a dispute arrives, the signed invoice (typed name, drawn signature, timestamp), the client's own approval clicks, and carrier-confirmed delivery dates are assembled into an evidence packet and filed with the bank automatically. You get an email saying the evidence is already in, and the outcome lands in your activity feed when the bank decides.
Does it replace QuickBooks?
No, and that is deliberate: nothing here ever writes to your ledger. Serenza runs the studio side (fees, markup, retainers, client invoices, purchasing), and a one-way CSV shapes every invoice and payment for QuickBooks Online's transaction import: invoice number, customer, project, dates, line description, amount, status, and each payment with its date and amount. Your bookkeeper reviews every row before it touches the books, works from a free finance seat on every plan, and gets a one-page Year-End PDF at tax time.
I run a design-build firm. Does this replace my construction software?
It replaces the money half. Construction budgets live inside each project: budget lines with Original, Change Orders, Revised, Paid, and Balance, a draw register with certified totals and variance, and change orders that bill through draws, in the same format your builder's workbook already uses, next to the FF&E your construction software ignores. Scheduling crews and subs stays in your field tools; the dollars finally live in one place.
What happens if Serenza disappears?
Your money and your records were never hostages. Client payments settle into your studio's own Stripe account, not ours, so your payment rail and your funds are never on our ledger. One click downloads everything you ever entered, anytime, and your book of record was always QuickBooks, not us.
Is my markup visible to clients or juniors?
Never to clients. Invoices and the portal only show client price. Inside the studio, role permissions hide margins, vendor costs, and card data from designer and assistant roles.
Studio Notes
Sharper studio, same hours.
Occasional notes on pricing your work, polishing the client experience, and new Serenza features. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Run the studio like it's designed.
Set up your firm in five minutes. Send the first branded invoice today.
Card required, nothing charged for 14 days · cancel in two clicks
Contact
Questions? Just ask.
Tell us a bit about your studio and we'll show you exactly what Serenza
takes off your plate, from the first order to the final invoice.
The Unbilled Sweep
One view answers the question every studio dreads: what have we finished but never billed? Serenza derives it live from your real data. Nothing typed in, nothing estimated.
Four pots roll into one number: retainer overages, un-rebilled expenses, delivered pieces with no invoice, and design-fee deposits still unrequested
Every line has a one-click button that opens a pre-filled invoice in the right series
Money already invoiced but unpaid is excluded, so the same dollar is never claimed twice
A Worth a Look section nudges when a retainer is down to its last 5 prepaid hours, or a signed proposal still has no deposit requested
Included on every plan
Order-By Radar
Radar works backward from the install. Every unordered piece gets an order-by date: install date, minus its lead time, minus a two-week receiving buffer.
Items flip to order-soon two weeks out and past-due after, with warnings on your dashboard and the FF&E schedule
Pieces already on a live order are excluded automatically
A reverse calculation names the earliest realistic install date, and the exact piece constraining it
Radar dates are yours alone: clients never see a date you haven't chosen to promise
Included on every plan
Quote Import
Hand Serenza a vendor quote or bid, PDF or phone photo, and get back structured line items, room by room, with SKU, quantity, and quoted cost on every line.
Nothing lands until you confirm the review screen: rooms map to your project's areas, junk rows untick, every field stays editable
Freight and tax rows stay on the record but never become items
The quote itself files into Documents, flagged internal so it never reaches the client portal
Included on every plan
Meeting Notes
Run the meeting; let the notes write themselves. A browser recording or pasted transcript becomes a draft write-up: summary, decisions, open questions, and action items, each with an owner and a due date.
Nothing saves without your review; tick the actions you want and they land as project tasks
The write-up and transcript save as internal documents, never visible to the client
Recording uses your browser's built-in speech recognition; only the words reach Serenza, which never receives, records, or stores audio
Included on every plan
Proposals & E‑Signatures
Send the scope of work to the portal. To approve, your client draws a signature and types their full legal name; the server refuses anything less.
Every signature stores the typed name, the drawn signature, a timestamp, and a one-way hash of the signer's network address
Your phone buzzes when they sign; the deposit shows up in the Unbilled Sweep, one pre-filled draft away from sent
Clients can download a clean signed copy; declines capture their note
The same signature record doubles as chargeback evidence later
Included on every plan
Selections & Options
Send pieces for approval one at a time, in bulk, or as pick-one option groups with lettered choices, photos, and prices.
Clients see the client price only; your cost and markup never leave the server
One tap on an option approves the chosen piece and records every sibling as not selected, in a single write
The first answer stands; changed minds go through you, not the portal
Approved pieces queue for purchase orders; when the covering deposit funds, the PO drafts itself
Included on every plan
Concept Boards
Curate inspiration into boards and share them to the portal. Clients tap through on their phone: Love it, Not sure, or Not for me, with a note if they like.
Reactions save in place and land in your activity feed, timestamped
One click promotes a Love it into a real project item, ready to price and send for approval
Boards present full-screen for meetings
Progress feeds the client's status strip: 5 of 8 images reviewed
Included on every plan
Client Questionnaire
The intake interview runs itself. Before the first meeting, clients work through your questions in the portal: how the home should feel, which spaces are in scope, where the budget sits, how the family actually lives.
Rewrite every question in Settings: pick one, pick several, short text, or long answers
Clients see a live progress counter and can update answers anytime
Submissions are timestamped and wait on the project overview
Included on every plan
Paper Trail & Dispute Shield
Every decision your client ever made, in their own words: proposals and invoices signed or declined, selections approved, options passed over, board reactions. One button exports the lot as a timestamped PDF.
Signed items carry the typed name, the drawn signature, and a hashed network address
A card dispute triggers the response on its own: signed invoice, approval history, and delivery confirmations go to the bank as one evidence packet
By the time you read the notification email, the packet is already filed; the bank's verdict drops into your feed
Included on every plan
Sales Tax Drawer
The resale-certificate loop, tracked end to end: buy tax-free, charge tax on the invoice, remit to the state monthly.
A month-by-month ledger counts tax in the month the invoice is actually paid; click any month to see the exact invoices behind it
Mark Filed records the amount, date, and confirmation note for each remittance
A watchlist catches resale goods billed with no tax line and prices the exposure: the tax you'd owe if the state ever asks
Included on every plan
Construction Budgets
A full construction budget lives inside each project: budget lines, payments, draws, and change orders, no second spreadsheet required.
Original, change orders, revised, paid, balance, and percent paid on every line
A draw register with certified totals and variance; change orders bill through draws
Sales tax and GC fee compute off the original hard cost, matching the workbook your contractor knows
Included on every plan
Expenses, Receipts & Mileage
Snap the receipt and Serenza reads it: vendor, date, amount, category, all filled in. Anything you typed first stays exactly as you typed it.
Team members submit their own expenses; finance roles see the whole firm's, with attribution
A mileage lens logs trips and computes the deduction at your per-mile rate, $0.70 out of the box, per trip, per year, and all-time
Export a branded PDF expense report or CSV for your CPA
Included on every plan
Product Library & Clipper
Source a piece once and it stays sourced: photo, vendor, cost, lead time, and your spec'd client price, on file and ready for the next project.
The clipper turns a product URL into a drafted item, name through lead time, before you've left the vendor's site
Re-saves deduplicate and never blank a curated field with emptier data
Lead times travel with the piece, so the next project knows its order-by date immediately
A usage counter shows which pieces earn their keep
Included on every plan
Shipping & Deliveries
One board holds every shipment across every order. Paste a tracking number and Serenza works out the carrier, pulls the status and expected date, and re-checks all of it daily.
Every emailed PO carries a link where vendors post ship dates themselves, no account needed
Every date change, from you, the vendor, or the carrier, is written to a promise ledger that powers the Vendor Reliability report
Deliveries land on your calendar and the client's Deliveries tab automatically
Included on every plan
Schedule & Calendar Sync
Tasks, expected deliveries, follow-ups, and project target dates merged on one calendar, color-coded across every project.
Subscribe once in Apple, Google, or Outlook; the private feed keeps every device current without another export
One tap adds it to your iPhone calendar
Deliveries arrive from order tracking; nobody types a date twice
Included on every plan
Reports & QuickBooks
Who owes you and for how long, what your pipeline is worth, where the hours go, and what each way of billing earns.
Receivables aging buckets every invoice from current through 90-plus days; every row opens the invoice
Vendor Reliability shows each brand's typical slip in days, from their own tracked promises
One click exports every invoice and payment shaped for QuickBooks Online import
A one-page Year-End PDF for your CPA: revenue mix, write-offs, and the mileage deduction
