Question
What would one expect to pay a landscape designer to come and do a landscape plan?  The property is quite small.  Possibly 150' x 50' with an 900 Square ft house on it.  Property is NE Ohio

Answer
A landscape designer could charge anything from nothing to a few thousand dollars. For example, if he/she is an employee of an installation firm they may offer design services for free or at a discounted rate if you hire them to do the installation. However, be careful because they make it up in selling you lots of plants. They may charge you a lot more also if you ask them to design a lot of extras like decks, patio, fire places, pools, etc.
Landscape Architects, which are educated and tested will typically cost more than landscape designers and are also typically worth the extra money as they have a more well rounded education with a background in far more than plant design.

In general I would expect to pay a landscape designer about $150- $500 for a full landscape plan. A landscape Architect would probably charge $350 or more. My fee for this size lot would be $750 if you were in Atlanta.
I charge $55-75/hr for my staff Landscape Designers with several years experience. For a Registered Landscape Architect I charge $65 to $125/hr.

Keep in mind, if you want the best price and design that you really want, hire a designer or landscape architect to do a design only. Make the selection based on their past work and fees. Then after you have completed a design and tweaked or revised it to your liking...then get three competitive bids from installers. This is the only way to be sure you get what you want for a fair price. If you get three 'design-build' companies to bid, you'll not be able to compare apples to apples as each will give you a different design and a different price. The only way to get a fair assessment on design build is to have three companies come and tell them your budget and ask them to give you a design and plant list telling what you'll get for the price. Then you can compare.

Good Luck!
Sean Murphy
www.seanjmurphy.com