When clients consider AutoCAD drafting outsourcing, the first question is usually about cost, and rightly so. We charge either by the hour or at a fixed price per project, and we agree with you which option fits best. One thing is fixed: we only ever bill genuine working hours.
If someone steps away for five minutes to grab a coffee, that time simply comes off. That principle keeps our estimate honest, because you never pay for time we did not spend on your drawings.
There are also no ongoing salary costs for a drafter your own business cannot always keep fully occupied. If someone is ill or on holiday, we replace them, so the work carries on without you noticing a thing. That is how we keep AutoCAD drafting predictable in cost, even when the volume changes along the way. A short first assignment is the quickest way for us to show you how this works in practice.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
A real-world example from our AutoCAD drafting work
A concrete example shows where AutoCAD drafting outsourcing makes a real difference. Firefly sent us as-built material in which the existing drawings had been printed incorrectly and partly completed by hand, leaving the whole set messy and hard to read. Rather than ringing the client every time something was unclear, we worked it out ourselves and rebuilt the drawings step by step in AutoCAD. That meant piecing together incomplete information, checking assumptions against whatever was legible, and going back to older versions where necessary to establish the correct dimensions.
We delivered a clean, consistent set that the client could once again use for the next stage of their process, without constant back-and-forth about details we were able to resolve ourselves. We take one lasting lesson from projects like this: with a messy dossier, it is not efficient to get in touch over every uncertainty, so we first look for a logical explanation ourselves and then ask for a quick confirmation.
For you, that means less time spent answering questions and more time for your own work. For us, it means more time goes into understanding before we start drafting, which saves time afterwards because there is less to correct. Firefly is the client we have worked with most so far, with more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings, and this kind of as-built work comes up regularly.
What AutoCAD drafting outsourcing actually delivers
Outsourcing your AutoCAD drafting means we take care of a broad range of output for you. That includes 2D drafting such as floor plans, elevations, sections and detail drawings, supplemented with 3D modelling where needed. We also produce as-built drawings of existing situations, and revisions of drawings that no longer match what is on site. The latter is common: a drawing dates back years, all sorts of changes have been made along the way, and nobody has had the time to update it properly.
We take on a set like that, trace exactly what has changed and deliver an updated version that serves once more as the basis for what comes next. AutoCAD drafting often involves linework that has to follow a strict layer structure, with the right blocks, hatches and annotations, so the drawing remains legible in other software too. We deliver our output in DXF, DWG or another common format, depending on what you need for the next stage. Where it makes sense, we work with parametric components, so a recurring element does not have to be drawn from scratch each time.
We also handle changes to an existing model, provided you give us a clear source to work from. It is always drafting and modelling work, never engineering, calculations or structural advice, and we keep that distinction sharp. We agree in advance exactly what we will deliver, so you know which drawing types and which output will be ready at the end.
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.
The delivered set and the next stage of your project
A set we deliver after AutoCAD drafting outsourcing is usually more than a collection of loose drawings. Alongside the drawings themselves, where relevant, we include an overview of what we changed compared with the previous version, so you do not have to work out for yourself what is different. On a revision job, we mark each change clearly so it can be traced back to the original drawing at a glance. We supply the files in whatever format you need, usually DWG or DXF, and where applicable in Revit formats or STEP. Because we always work with the latest versions of the software, the files generally fit seamlessly with what you use yourself. The structure of each drawing follows the CAD standards and layer setup you give us beforehand, so our set fits into your existing archive rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.
That matters a great deal for the next stage: a contractor or engineering firm often works with several drafters and several suppliers at once, and a set that does not match the rest only creates extra work. By adopting your standard at the start of a job, we avoid that problem. If an existing family set or drawing template has become messy, we discuss beforehand whether a clean-up will do or whether rebuilding it would be quicker. That way our set slots straight into the next step of the project, without a clean-up round first.
Drafting to your own CAD standards
Every client has their own way of drawing, and we adapt to it rather than imposing a template of our own. Before a job starts, we ask for your CAD standards, layer structure and drawing conventions, so that outsourcing your AutoCAD drafting never results in a drawing that looks different from the rest of your archive. Those conventions cover things such as layer names, colours, linetypes, text heights and how annotations are built up, and sometimes also file naming and storage and the way a revision is recorded in the title block.
If we deviate from them, it creates extra work for you, because someone then has to convert the drawing before it fits into your existing system.
By working to your standard from the outset, that extra step disappears and our drawing fits straight into the rest of the project, with no one needing to do a correction round afterwards. The same applies to existing Revit families and drawing templates: once a set has been built according to a certain logic, we build on it rather than introducing our own structure.
If a set is messy or contradictory, we raise that with you first, so we can make a deliberate choice together between cleaning up and rebuilding. Our starting point never changes: the drafting has to fit the way you already work, not the other way round. That keeps your archive consistent, even when different drafters and different parties work on the same project over a long period.
Frequently asked questions about AutoCAD drafting outsourcing
Hand your AutoCAD drafting 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.