Questions about a 3D drafter rate rarely come to us out of nowhere, because there is usually a peak in the drawing office, a deadline that cannot slip or a vacancy that has gone unfilled for months. At a moment like that, speed is what counts.
A project leader wants to know when someone can join, what it costs and how to hand over the work without bringing his own team to a standstill. We model remotely from our own office, with a team that is already in place, so we do not need to recruit anyone before we start.
We draft and model, and we explicitly leave engineering to the client. Below, we describe what information we need to get started, which companies this applies to, what we actually deliver and how we adapt when the volume goes up and down during a project. After all, a rate can only be judged once it is clear what work lies behind it and who is doing it.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Getting started with a 3D drafter without a long run-up
We start as soon as we have enough information. In practice, that means a conversation in which we go through the project, followed by delivery of the details and usually existing drawings or models that need revising. For 3D work, we also look at the level of detail required, because a model for the workshop needs something different from a model for coordination. The client's CAD standards are also part of that first delivery, including naming, line weights and the structure of existing families. When a request comes in, we respond within 1 to 2 working days.
Barry, our project manager, is usually the first point of contact and picks up the request, after which Sam, our team leader, takes over the technical side. That gives the client a fixed point of contact, so he does not have to deal with changing faces. Because the team is already in place, adding an extra drafter costs no recruitment time. Everyone who works for us has more than ten years of CAD experience, so onboarding is limited to the project's conventions. We work in our own environment with our own licences, which makes an IT project on the client's side unnecessary.
A short first assignment is fine, for example a well-defined model or a limited series of revisions. That way, the client can judge our speed and accuracy before handing over a larger volume. If information is missing, we say so straight away, because guesswork in a 3D model always comes back to bite you later. In the first conversation, we also set the meeting rhythm and agree which partial delivery the client will see first. That way a project leader knows from day one what he can steer on.
Clients who bring in a 3D drafter
Engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers come to us, and more broadly companies with technical drafting work. The people at the table are managers, team leaders and owners, in other words people who are held accountable for the schedule themselves. The problem on the table is almost always about capacity. The in-house team can handle the work perfectly well in terms of quality, but not within the time that is left. Sometimes the bottleneck is a single order that requires a lot of modelling, sometimes a series of projects that all come in at once.
A drawing office manager then has to choose between overtime, delay or outside help. In that situation, we take over the work with high volume and lots of repetition, while the in-house team stays on the pieces that require company knowledge. Our clients are based in the Netherlands, and that is where our focus lies. So far we have worked with one client, Firefly, and have completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings for them. We started this service last year because a client asked for it, and it went well enough to offer it as a permanent service.
For an owner, the financial picture often matters too, because a temporary worker on the payroll brings ongoing costs. With us, the client only pays for hours worked or for an agreed project price, and nothing else. Onboarding costs him little as well, because our team already works together and knows its own way of working. What the client still needs to hand over is his CAD standards and the project's starting points. That handover takes one conversation and a few sample sheets, not weeks of supervision in your own drawing office.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
What a 3D drafter delivers when you work with us
We deliver 3D modelling and the associated 2D drafting, plus as-built drawings and revisions. Specifically, that means models in Revit, Rhino or Inventor, detailed floor plans, sections, elevations and details generated from that model, and production drawings the workshop can work from. We also build parametric Revit families, in other words smart components that adapt to a different size or a new situation. The drafter creates such a component once and then places it everywhere without redrawing it, and the material schedule updates automatically. In pipework for greenhouse construction, this way of working saves at least seventy per cent of the time, because otherwise a valve in 90 and in 110 ends up on the drawing by hand every time. Besides new work, we take on existing material. We bring a file of loose sheets back into a coherent model, and we clean up or rebuild a clogged family library.
We deliver the output in DXF, DWG, Revit formats or STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format. We always work with the latest versions of the software. The client owns the intellectual property of everything we create. We do not do engineering, so calculations, structural advice and permits remain outside our scope. We keep that boundary sharp, because otherwise a rate blurs into work nobody agreed on beforehand. We also deliver in stages, so a project leader can see after the first models whether the level of detail is right. If something does not fit, we correct it before it spreads across a hundred sheets. The intellectual property of everything we create lies with the client, so he can carry on with it without restriction.
Scaling up and the rate when volume fluctuates
With our large, flexible team, we scale up or down per project with as many drafters as needed. The team is already in place, so we deploy what the work requires and halve the staffing again once the peak is over. For urgent work, we add people to a running assignment straight away, without the client having to arrange anything. For the rate, that fluctuating volume makes little difference, because we charge by the hour or at a fixed price per project, not with a fixed monthly commitment.
We do not work with prepaid hour cards or hour subscriptions. We only bill pure working hours, so if a drafter steps away for five minutes for a coffee, the clock stops.
If someone is out due to illness or holiday, we bring in a replacement and the work continues at no extra cost to the client. That continuity is exactly what your own temporary worker cannot offer, because there an absence immediately leaves a gap in staffing. The core of our team has around twenty-five years of combined experience, and Sam has more than fifteen years of background in architecture.
He worked in Iran for seven years, ran his own design firm in the Netherlands and still works as an engineer. For a deadline that could not slip, we worked evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours. That work simply carried on, even during a planned holiday of Sam's. That kind of commitment requires a team whose members know each other, not individual workers who change every week.
Frequently asked questions about the 3D drafter rate
Hand your 3D modelling over to us
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.