StudioHaus vs DesignFiles.
Last updated · August 2026
Two tools built specifically for interior designers — one that grew up around the design board, one that grew up around the practice.
Unlike the general construction platforms, StudioHaus™ and DesignFiles share a customer: the working interior design studio. Both do design boards, product sourcing, client portals, and invoicing. The honest difference is center of gravity. DesignFiles is an established, board-first platform — its presentation tooling is polished and deep. StudioHaus starts from the operations side — the books, the schedule, the communication trail — with design boards as one part of a practice-management whole. It is also the newer product, generally available with a self-serve free trial.
What DesignFiles is
DesignFiles has served interior designers for years and its public materials lead with presentation: drag-and-drop design boards with background removal, a product clipper, curated product and paint libraries (including major paint brands), questionnaires, and white-labeled client portals with proposals, invoicing, and online payments. Studios that live inside their boards — sourcing, composing, presenting, selling — are its home crowd, and it earns its reputation there.
What StudioHaus is
StudioHaus is a practice-management platform: projects and phases, tasks and workflow automation, a per-project communication log, time tracking, site-visit mileage at the IRS rate, and financials that sync to QuickBooks Online with client payments via Stripe. Its design boards are genuinely capable — clipping from any retailer with a Chrome extension, automatic background removal, fonts and annotation marks, item-by-item client approvals — and they feed the same system that runs the invoices and the schedule. StudioHaus also connects to your own AI assistant read-only, so tools like Claude can summarize a project’s week or draft a client update from real activity.
Where each one is strong
Choose DesignFiles if the board is the business — you want the most mature presentation workflow, brand-name paint libraries, and a sales flow built around boards, and your back-office needs are covered elsewhere.
Choose StudioHaus if the practice is the business — you want one system carrying the project from inquiry through install: boards and approvals, yes, but also the QuickBooks-synced money, the tasks and workflows, the communication record, and the mileage log at tax time. Pricing is published and flat: Basic at $49 per month for one user, Pro at $99 per month for three users, additional seats $9 per month each. Billed monthly, no annual contracts, free trial with no card required.
At a glance
| DesignFiles | StudioHaus | |
|---|---|---|
| Center of gravity | Design boards & presentation | Practice management, boards included |
| Design boards | Mature, board-first tooling; paint-brand libraries | Clipper, auto background removal, fonts & marks, client approvals |
| Client portal | White-labeled portals with proposals & payments | Branded portal per project: boards, approvals, invoices, messages |
| Accounting | Invoicing & online payments | Invoicing + QuickBooks Online sync + Stripe client payments |
| Operations | Project tools around the board workflow | Tasks, workflow automation, time tracker, IRS-rate mileage, communication log |
| AI access | — | Read-only connection for your own AI assistant (MCP) |
| Pricing | Published on their site | $49/mo (1 user) or $99/mo (3 users); +$9/seat/mo |
| Maturity | Established, large designer community | Newer — generally available, self-serve trial |
DesignFiles capabilities per their published materials, August 2026 — verify current plans and features with them directly. Also comparing the generalists? See StudioHaus vs Houzz Pro and StudioHaus vs Programa.