A client says yes to a $4,200 dining table. You buy the walnut, book the finisher, block three weeks of shop time — and six days later they change their mind. If you took nothing up front, you just paid for someone else's indecision. The deposit is not a formality or a trust exercise: it is the number that decides who carries the risk between the day of the order and the day of delivery.
The short version
Most made-to-order brands charge 30–60% up front, and 50% is the single most common number. Furniture and cabinetry sit at 50%, custom jewelry at 30–50%, small-batch fashion and pre-order drops usually take 100% because production is grouped. The floor for any deposit is your materials cost for that specific order — below that, a cancellation costs you cash, not just time.
Why do deposits matter more for made-to-order than for retail?
Because in retail, a cancellation costs you a sale. In made-to-order, a cancellation costs you a purchase. Those are completely different problems.
When you sell from stock, the item goes back on the shelf and waits for the next buyer. When you sell made-to-order, the materials are bought against one specific order — the fabric in their color, the stone in their cut, the panel in their dimensions. If the order dies, you are holding inventory that was never generic in the first place. A cancelled custom sofa in someone's chosen boucle is not a sofa you can sell tomorrow at full price.
There is also a timing problem. Money leaves your business weeks before it arrives. A typical furniture order might have materials paid in week 1, outsourced finishing in week 4, and the client's balance landing in week 9. Without a deposit, you are lending your working capital to every customer, interest-free, whether or not they follow through.
A deposit is not a sign of distrust. It is the moment an order stops being a conversation and becomes a commitment on both sides.
What is the standard deposit percentage by category?
Here are the ranges you will actually run into across made-to-order categories. These are market conventions collected from how makers price and quote, not legal minimums — treat them as the starting point you adjust from, not the answer.
| Category | Typical deposit | Payment split | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom furniture & cabinetry | 50% | 50% order / 50% before delivery | High material spend up front, 6–16 week lead times |
| Built-in / installed millwork | 40–50% + progress payment | 40% order / 30% at install start / 30% completion | Long projects with labor spread over weeks |
| Custom jewelry (bespoke pieces) | 30–50% | 50% order / 50% before shipping | Metal and stones bought per piece; casting is irreversible |
| Engagement rings & high-value stones | 50–100% | 50–100% at order | Single stone purchase can exceed the rest of the build cost |
| Made-to-measure fashion (suiting, bridal) | 50% | 50% at first fitting / 50% at final fitting | Fabric cut to one body; zero resale value if cancelled |
| Small-batch fashion drops / pre-orders | 100% | Full payment at order | Production run is sized by orders; grouped, not individual |
| Lighting, décor, small custom goods | 30–50% | 50% order / 50% before shipping | Lower ticket, shorter lead time, lower cancellation damage |
| Trade / interior designer accounts | 50%, sometimes net terms | 50% order / balance on net 15–30 | Repeat volume buyers with a track record earn softer terms |
How to check the number against your own costs
Conventions are a sanity check, not a calculation. Run your own floor in one line: deposit floor = direct cost of the order ÷ order price. Direct cost means materials, components, outsourced labor, freight in, and any supplier minimum you cannot avoid.
- A $4,200 table with $1,500 in walnut, hardware and finishing has a floor of 36%. Charging 50% leaves a buffer for shop time already spent.
- A $9,000 ring with a $5,400 center stone has a floor of 60%. The 50% convention would leave you $900 short on day one.
- A $180 made-to-order lamp with $40 in parts has a floor of 22%. Here the risk is admin time, not cash — take 50% or the whole thing and stop thinking about it.
Notice what the ring example shows: the standard number is wrong roughly whenever your material cost is unusually front-loaded. That is the real rule underneath every range in the table.
Stop guessing whether the deposit covers the build — see cost and margin per order.
See how it worksWhen should you charge more than 50%?
Go above 50% when the money leaves your account earlier than usual, when the wait is long, or when you have no history with the buyer. Each of those pushes risk onto you, and the deposit is how you push it back.
The materials are expensive and bought up front
If a single purchase — a stone, a slab, an imported fabric roll, a specialty motor — represents more than half of the order cost, your deposit should cover that purchase in full. Say it plainly in the quote: the deposit covers the material acquisition, the balance covers the build. Clients accept specific much more easily than they accept "policy".
The lead time is long
A 4-week order and a 20-week order are different financial products. Past roughly 8 weeks, add a progress payment instead of raising the deposit — 40% at order, 30% at a visible milestone (frame complete, casting done, first fitting), 30% before delivery. It keeps cash flowing without asking for a scary number on day one, and it gives the client a reason to stay engaged.
It is a one-off client with no history
Repeat clients and trade accounts have earned softer terms; a first-time buyer found through a DM has not. This is not cynicism, it is pricing risk. A common approach: standard 50% for anyone new, and net terms or 30% only after two completed orders.
The piece is unsellable to anyone else
Monograms, engraving, exact-fit dimensions, a client's own fabric, a name on a plaque — anything that makes resale impossible should push you to 60–100%. If a cancellation leaves you with scrap rather than stock, do not carry that risk on a 50% deposit.
The client is asking for changes mid-build
Scope creep is its own cost. Handle it with a change-order rule rather than a bigger initial deposit: any change after materials are ordered is quoted separately and paid in full before work resumes. Two sentences in your terms will save you several awkward conversations a year.
Worth knowing
In the EU and UK, the standard 14-day right to cancel a distance purchase does not apply to goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalized — EU Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU, Article 16(c), and the UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, Regulation 28. In the US, the FTC's Mail, Internet or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule (16 CFR Part 435) requires you to ship within the time you stated, or within 30 days if you stated none, and to offer a cancellation option if you miss it. State law adds rules on top. Verify your own jurisdiction before you finalize deposit terms.
What should you say if a client pushes back on the deposit?
Answer with what the deposit buys, not with why you need it. The moment you justify your cash flow, the deposit sounds like your problem. The moment you describe what it reserves, it sounds like their purchase.
Two lines that work
- The materials line: "The 50% covers the materials I buy specifically for your piece — walnut, hardware and the finishing slot. Once that's in, your build is booked into the schedule for the week of March 9."
- The slot line: "I hold two production slots per month. The deposit is what reserves yours — without it I can't take the piece off the availability list."
Both do the same thing: they turn an abstract percentage into a concrete object and a concrete date. Add the date. "Week of March 9" does more work than any argument about fairness.
If they still hesitate
Offer structure, not a discount. A smaller booking fee (10–15%) to hold the slot, with the rest of the deposit due before materials are ordered, keeps the order alive without exposing you. What you should not do is quietly drop to 20% and start buying materials anyway — that is the version where you lose money and the relationship.
Make the terms boring and written
Put three things on every quote: the deposit amount, the exact point at which it becomes non-refundable ("once materials are ordered"), and the expected ready-by date. Clients rarely argue with terms they read before saying yes. They argue with terms they discover afterwards.
How do you track what has been collected versus what is still owed?
Taking the deposit is the easy half. The hard half starts around order number fifteen, when you have deposits collected in three payment methods, two balances quietly overdue, one client who paid in three uneven transfers, and a spreadsheet where "paid" is a column someone forgot to update.
The three numbers that matter per order are always the same: order total, collected so far, and balance due — plus the date that balance is expected. Miss the fourth one and you discover unpaid balances by accident, usually while doing something else. Aggregate the same three across all open orders and you get the number that actually runs a made-to-order business: how much of the cash in your account is still someone else's until you deliver.
This is where deposits collide with batch costs. Money in the bank from deposits looks like profit and is not — part of it is committed to materials you have not bought yet. Brands that do not separate the two end up spending a deposit on this month's rent and finding the walnut money gone. You can hold that line in a spreadsheet up to about twenty open orders. Past that, it stops being a tracking problem and becomes a memory problem.
Deposits, balances and batch costs on one screen: collected, owed, and really yours.
See how it worksThe short version
Start at 50% if you make furniture, cabinetry or made-to-measure clothing; 30–50% for jewelry and smaller custom goods; 100% for grouped pre-order drops. Then check that number against your own materials cost for the order and raise it whenever the spend is front-loaded, the lead time is long, the client is new, or the piece is unsellable to anyone else. Write the deposit, the non-refundable trigger and the ready-by date on every quote before the client says yes.
We built Ordamo because tracking deposits, balances and batch costs across dozens of live orders in a spreadsheet stops working past a certain point — and the point arrives earlier than most brands expect.
FAQ
Is a 50% deposit normal for custom orders?
Yes. A 50% deposit is the most common single number in made-to-order furniture, cabinetry and custom jewelry, usually split 50% at order and 50% before delivery or shipping. It is a convention, not a legal requirement — you can charge 30% or 70% if your costs and cancellation risk justify it.
How much deposit should I charge for custom furniture?
Custom furniture makers typically take 50% up front, and 60–70% when the piece uses expensive imported materials, specialty hardware or a long lead time. The deposit should at minimum cover your materials cost for that piece plus any non-refundable supplier fees.
What is the minimum deposit that actually protects me?
Your break-even deposit is your direct cost for that order — materials, components, outsourced labor and any supplier minimums — divided by the order price. If materials are 35% of the price, a 35% deposit means a cancellation costs you time, not cash. Anything below that means you lose real money on a cancellation.
Should the deposit be refundable?
Most made-to-order brands make deposits non-refundable once production or material purchasing starts, and refundable before that point. Write the exact trigger into your order terms — 'non-refundable once materials are ordered' is clearer than 'non-refundable'.
Do customers have a legal right to cancel a custom order?
In the EU and UK, the standard 14-day distance-selling right to cancel does not apply to goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalized (EU Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU, Article 16(c); UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, Regulation 28). Rules differ by country and by state in the US, so confirm your own jurisdiction before writing terms.
How many payments should a custom order have?
Two is the default (deposit and balance). Use three — deposit, progress payment at a production milestone, balance before delivery — when the order runs longer than roughly eight weeks or the value is large enough that a single balance payment becomes a real cash risk.
When should I take 100% up front?
Take full payment up front for small-batch drops and pre-orders with a fixed production run, and for low-ticket personalized items where splitting payments costs more in admin than it saves in risk. Be explicit about the ship-by date when you do.
What do I say when a client asks to lower the deposit?
Explain what the deposit buys, not why you need it: 'The deposit covers the materials I buy specifically for your piece — that is what reserves your slot in the production schedule.' If they still hesitate, offer a smaller booking fee to hold the slot with the rest due before materials are ordered.
Does a deposit count as revenue when I receive it?
Under accrual accounting, a deposit is a liability (deferred revenue) until you deliver, not revenue on the day it lands. Small businesses on cash-basis accounting record it when received. Confirm the treatment with your accountant, because it changes what your profit looks like mid-production.
How do I track deposits across a lot of open orders?
You need per-order visibility on three numbers: total, collected, and balance due — plus a date for when the balance is expected. Spreadsheets handle this fine up to roughly 20 open orders; past that, missed balances tend to appear. Ordamo tracks deposits, balances and batch costs per order automatically.
Run every order with the deposit already accounted for, and see the real margin.
See how it works