Competing with Livspace and HomeLane

The market the platforms are chasing

Magicbricks, a property portal, published research (page updated 11 December 2025) putting the home interiors market at Rs 1.27 lakh crore in 2024 and Rs 2.75 lakh crore by 2030, with Tier-2 cities growing at 19% a year against 12% for Tier-1. Two details matter more than the headline. 82% of Tier-2 interior demand comes from resale homes, which means renovation rather than a bare new flat, and furniture and modular components make up 45% of interior spend. Lucknow, Jaipur, Goa and Kochi lead Tier-2 demand in its data.

A Deloitte report, as reported by Business Today on 1 October 2026, puts average Tier-2 spending at Rs 3.9 lakh per home in 2025, about 74% of Tier-1 levels, with interior services growing from USD 4 billion to USD 8 billion between 2025 and 2030. That is a news report citing an industry study, and its definition differs from Magicbricks’, so the two should not be compared.

How big the platforms really are

Livspace reported revenue of about Rs 1,460 crore in FY25, up 23% (Business Standard), with a net loss of Rs 242.6 crore, down 43% (Inc42). HomeLane, now merged with Design Cafe, reported revenue from operations of Rs 747.8 crore in FY25, up 22%, and a net loss of about Rs 111.4 crore, short of the Rs 1,000 crore it had projected (Entrackr). Both are growing at more than 20% a year and both are still loss-making.

Together the two largest platforms booked roughly Rs 2,200 crore against a market Magicbricks sizes at Rs 1.27 lakh crore. That is under 2% by our arithmetic, an order of magnitude rather than a precise share, because the revenue is for the year to March 2025, the market figure is for calendar 2024, and the sources define interiors differently. The point stands at any reasonable adjustment: the market is overwhelmingly fragmented and local, and the platforms are small in it.

They are large in one place, which is the homeowner’s head. Google autocomplete in India on 10 October 2026 offered “livspace vs homelane”, “homelane vs local carpenter” and “is livspace worth it”. Autocomplete shows that a question exists, not how often it is asked, but it does show the comparison set a prospect arrives with: a platform package above, a local carpenter below, and you in between.

What the platforms sell, and what they do not

The platforms sell packaged modular kitchens and wardrobes, a fixed timeline and often financing. Magicbricks describes the market shifting from carpenter-made furniture to factory-finished modular formats, and modular components are the 45% of spend the platforms are built to capture. What follows is our reading of the sources rather than a finding in them: platforms do far less civil and structural work, municipal submission, redesign of an existing layout, or bungalow and villa work, because none of it fits a catalogue.

Where independent studios win

Structural work and approvals

In Mumbai, tenantable repairs such as painting, retiling and refitting a kitchen or bathroom do not need the Municipal Commissioner’s permission under Section 342 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, but a no-objection certificate from the housing society is still required, as Housing.com’s guide to the BMC rules sets out. Work that touches load-bearing members, changes dimensions, adds a mezzanine or loft, or opens a wall between two tenancies needs BMC sanction, normally submitted through a licensed architect. A platform package stops where the wall is load-bearing. That is where a studio with a registered architect and a structural engineer begins.

The title

Under Section 37(1) of the Architects Act 1972, no person other than an architect registered with the Council of Architecture may use the title and style of architect, and Section 37(2) sets a fine of up to Rs 500 on a first conviction and up to six months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to Rs 1,000 on a later one. The Supreme Court held in March 2020, in a case reported by LiveLaw, that the Act restricts the title, not the activity: an unregistered person may do the work, but may not call themselves an architect. For a registered architect that is a credential a platform’s package page cannot show. Use it accurately and visibly, because the client cannot tell the difference until you point to it.

Customisation and the resale home

If 82% of Tier-2 interior demand comes from resale homes, as Magicbricks reports, most projects start with an existing layout, old services, a society with rules and a family that has already lived there. That is not a catalogue job. It is the work independent studios already do, and the 19% Tier-2 growth in the same research is concentrated in cities where the platforms’ footprint is thinner than in the metros. A studio that publishes what it actually did to a 1990s flat, with the society and municipal steps named, answers a question nobody else on the results page answers.

Fee pressure and the COA scale

The Council of Architecture publishes a Scale of Charges under its 1989 regulations, and we have explained how the scale is built separately. Its standing in the market is weaker than its wording. A 2015 office memorandum from the Central Public Works Department, reproduced by Architexturez, said the scale is not approved by Parliament or the central government and should not be used to award consultancy work, and quoted a Central Vigilance Commission observation that architects asked for competitive bids invariably offer their services at much lower fees than the scale. The Wire, in an undated report, describes most registered architects deviating from the scale without any action by the Council, and cites a one-rupee bid on a university project. Both are secondary sources, but they agree with each other and with what every studio owner in India already knows: the scale is a reference point in a negotiation, not a floor the market respects.

The platforms add a second pressure, which is a package price the client has seen before meeting you. The answer is not to match it. It is to show, side by side, what the package covers and what your fee covers: design, civil and structural work, approvals, supervision, and the components themselves, priced separately. A package price and a design fee are two different things, and the proposal is where you say so. What a fee discount really costs covers the discount you will be asked for next.

What to do this quarter

1. Publish one page for each question homeowners in your city ask before hiring: the society NOC, municipal permission, and what a resale flat redesign involves. Put your name, registration and the date on it.
2. State the title and the approvals you have filed on every page and every proposal. The Act protects the word; it does not advertise it for you.
3. Separate design fee, civil and structural work, approvals and components in every proposal, and put a platform package next to it only where the client has raised one.
4. Reply to every enquiry the same day with a qualifying question and a site-visit slot. The enquiry to consultation playbook has the sequence.