What Architectural Drafting Costs and What Moves the Price
Architectural drafting is priced from three things: the state of the source material you supply, the level of detail the finished set has to reach, and how much the design is still moving. Square footage matters far less than buyers expect. A clean 8,000 square foot CAD file that needs a permit-level set is cheaper to draft than a 2,000 square foot house that exists only as a marked-up PDF and a site visit. Because none of those three variables is visible from a project description, we scope drafting after seeing the actual files rather than from a rate card.
This is the question we get asked first and can answer last. Rendering has a repeatable unit, one view of one scene, so it can carry a published rate. Drafting does not. Two projects with identical floor area can take very different amounts of work depending on what arrives in the handoff, and pretending otherwise produces a number that has to be revised the moment someone opens the files. Our architectural drafting work is quoted after a look at the source material, which is the only point at which a number means anything.
The three variables that actually move the price
Source condition. This is the largest single factor in our experience, and it is the one clients most often underestimate. Native CAD or a Revit model with intact layers is a starting point. A PDF export is a redraw. A scanned paper drawing, a photograph of a drawing, or a set of measurements taken on site is a reconstruction, and reconstruction is drafting plus interpretation plus a verification pass. The same building can sit at any of those three levels.
Required level of detail. A schematic plan for a marketing conversation and a coordinated permit set are not the same deliverable, even when they show the same building. The permit set carries dimension strings, door and window schedules, wall type callouts, sections, and the notes a plan reviewer expects to find. Each of those is real drafting time.
Design stability. A design that is settled gets drafted once. A design still being negotiated gets drafted, revised, and revised again, and the revisions are frequently larger than the original. This is why we ask early whether the layout is final, and why an honest answer of no is more useful than an optimistic yes.
What matters less than buyers expect
Square footage is a weak predictor on its own. A repetitive warehouse shell covers a lot of area with very little drafting content. A small custom residence with a complex roof, changing floor levels and detailed millwork carries far more.
Sheet count is also misleading. Sheets can be split or combined without changing the amount of work, so a quote priced per sheet rewards the wrong behavior.
Number of floors is only a multiplier when the floors differ. Six identical residential levels are close to one level of work plus coordination. Six different levels are six.
What to send if you want a real number
The fastest path to an accurate quote is to send the worst file, not the best one. Clients tend to send the cleanest drawing they have, which produces an optimistic scope that then has to be corrected. We would rather see the messy as-built sketch up front.
- The most complete source you have, in its native format if it exists
- What the set is for: permit, construction, marketing, as-built record, or coordination with another consultant
- Who else touches the drawings, since coordination with an engineer or a jurisdiction adds passes
- Whether the design is final or still in review
- Any drawing standard or title block you need us to match
The related question of what you should hand over at the start is covered in more detail in our note on what to send a drafting partner, and the formats a finished set can be delivered in are covered in drafting deliverable formats.
Why we do not publish a drafting rate
We publish rates where a unit is stable. A rendering has one. Drafting does not, and a published per square foot drafting rate would be accurate only for the narrow case it was calculated from. Every other project would be quoted wrong in one direction or the other, and the correction would arrive after the client had already built a budget around it.
The practical alternative is quick. Send the files, and the scope conversation is usually one exchange rather than a negotiation, because both sides are looking at the same drawings.
If the building already exists and you are trying to establish a drawing record rather than design something new, that is a different scope with different inputs, and it is covered in as-built drawings versus new construction drawings.
Send us the drawings you have, in whatever condition they are in and we will come back with a scope, a timeline and a price for the set you actually need.