Quote came back at $3,900 for a vacant three bedroom, how is that number built

The one percent figure is a rough observation people repeat, not a pricing method. Stagers price off rooms and inventory, and the correlation with list price only exists because bigger houses in pricier areas need more furniture. Use it as a sanity check and nothing more.

What actually goes into a quote: a paid consultation or design fee, which is the walkthrough plus building the furniture plan and pulling items; the install, which is truck time and crew hours; the furniture rental itself for a first period, commonly 30 to 60 days; then a monthly rate if the house doesn't sell inside that period; then labor to remove everything. Room count drives inventory, inventory drives truck loads, truck loads drive labor. A 1,700 square foot house staged in four spaces and the same house staged in seven spaces are different jobs even though the square footage on the flyer is identical.

So your two quotes aren't really comparable. Get each one broken into consultation, install, first period rental, monthly extension, and de-stage, listed by room, and the spread usually explains itself. Often the cheap quote is fewer rooms, a shorter first period, or a plan that skips beds and uses only accessories.

The consultation charge is standard. A stager can't quote inventory without seeing ceiling heights, stair turns, door widths, and what's already there. The number that catches sellers out is the monthly extension, since a listing that takes four months to sell can end up well past the original quote. Ask what that rate is before you compare anything else.

Access and logistics move the price more than people think. Third floor walkup with a turn in the stairwell, no elevator reservation, street parking only? That's a longer install and sometimes an extra body on the crew. I've seen quotes go up several hundred dollars for exactly that on properties I manage.

Following the room by room breakdown idea, do stagers usually skip secondary bedrooms? The $2,400 quote in @pike's post might just be main living, dining and primary, which is the standard vacant package a lot of them lead with.

$3,900 doesn't sound wild to me once you count the truck. Box truck rental, fuel, two people for most of a day at each end, and the furniture is capital sitting in that house instead of earning on the next job.

The consultation being paid separately confused me too until I realized it's sold as its own product. Plenty of sellers buy just the consultation, get a written list of what to move out and what to repaint, and do the work themselves. Cheapest version of staging there is.

Is there a version where the stager only brings art, lamps and bedding and the house keeps the owner's furniture? That has to be less than $3,900.

@plumb yes, and it's usually called accessory or soft staging. Only works if the existing furniture is decent and correctly scaled. If the sofa is too big for the room, no amount of throw pillows fixes it.

@pike I'd ask the $2,400 stager what happens on day 61. That's where the two quotes might converge.

One thing nobody's said: if the house is occupied during the term, the stager's damage exposure changes and some of them price occupied jobs higher for that reason alone. Worth asking whether the friend is still living there or already out.