Planning a shop fitout: briefing a shopfitter without blowing the budget
What a fitout involves, why hospitality costs the most per square metre, and how the shell condition swings the whole budget.
A shop fitout turns a bare or dated tenancy into a working business — a shop, café, salon or office — and it's one of the larger cheques a small business writes before it opens the doors. Get it right and the space works for years; get it wrong and you're paying to fix it while trying to trade.
The costs are driven by things that aren't obvious from the outside: the sector you're in, the state the space starts in, and how much of the design is custom. Understanding those before you brief a shopfitter keeps the budget honest.
What a fitout involves
Shopfitters take a tenancy and build it out — joinery, counters, flooring, ceilings, lighting — and coordinate the electrical, plumbing and mechanical trades that make it function. Fitouts are priced per square metre, with the sector setting the band: basic office space is cheapest, retail sits in the middle, and hospitality is dearest because commercial kitchens, extraction and grease traps add cost and compliance that a clothing shop never touches.
The starting condition matters enormously. A 'warm shell' that already has services, ceilings and amenities costs far less to fit out than a cold shell where everything must be brought in from the bare slab. A cold shell can add a substantial premium over a warm one for the same finished result, so it's one of the first things to establish about a tenancy.
Approvals and compliance run alongside the build: landlord approvals, development or complying-development requirements, accessibility, and fire and food-safety compliance depending on the use. These add time as much as money, and someone needs to own them.
How the cost works
The band on this page is broad because it spans a cosmetic refresh at the low end through to a full hospitality fitout at the top. The estimate here adjusts for floor area, sector and shell condition — the three factors that move a fitout budget the most.
Two habits keep the number under control. First, negotiate a fitout contribution from the landlord before signing the lease; it's standard in retail leasing and it's leverage you lose once you've signed. Second, lock the design before work starts — mid-fitout changes are among the most expensive changes in all of construction, because trades and materials are already committed.
Choosing the right shopfitter
Whether the head contractor needs a builder's licence depends on your state and the value and nature of the work, so check the local requirement rather than assuming — and note that the electrical, plumbing and gas trades within the fitout are always licensed work regardless. A good shopfitter is clear about who holds which licence and who signs off compliance at the end.
Ask to see fitouts they've completed in your sector, because a retail specialist and a hospitality specialist are not interchangeable. Nail down who is responsible for the compliance certificates — occupation, food registration, fire — at handover, because a beautiful space you can't legally open in is worse than no space at all.
Mistakes to avoid
Fitout budgets blow out in predictable ways, almost all of them decided before the first trade arrives.
- Signing the lease before negotiating a landlord fitout contribution
- Not establishing whether the tenancy is a warm or cold shell before budgeting
- Changing the design mid-fitout, the most expensive kind of change in construction
- Comparing per-m² quotes across sectors as if a café and a boutique cost the same
- Leaving compliance certificate responsibility undefined until handover
- Choosing a shopfitter with no track record in your specific sector
Indicative range only, not a quote — see the full guide for worked scenarios and what moves the price.
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