When you compare CAD drafter costs with us, you are usually looking at a concrete work package, such as a pile of revisions to existing DWGs that has been sitting in the drawing office for weeks. We take over a package like that: making the changes, bringing the set into line and delivering it back in the format your team uses.
We also take on 2D drafting in volume, 3D modelling where needed, as-built drawings and revision rounds. We draft; we do not do engineering.
So the costs are in drafting hours, not in advice or calculations. We charge by the hour or at a fixed project price, and we only charge net working hours. Our drafters all have more than ten years of CAD experience and work from our own office with our own licences. We work nationwide and fully remotely, while a visit in either direction always remains possible. Below you can read how a project runs, which software we work in, how we scale up and what we need to get started.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
From first conversation to delivery with a CAD drafter
A project starts with a conversation in which we go through the job. You supply the details and usually existing drawings that need revising. We read through that material, ask the questions that are really necessary and explain how we will approach it. After that, the door does not close for months. We deliver in stages, gather feedback, make adjustments and carry on, so your project lead can see along the way what is in place. The meeting frequency differs per client. With one client we speak every two days, with another weekly, depending on how urgent the work is.
Day-to-day contact runs via email, phone and meetings, and where it helps we sit around the table, at your office or ours. That frequency matters for the costs, because every day a wrong assumption continues costs drafting hours that nobody had budgeted for. Before a partial delivery goes out, the work passes through at least three review layers. A drafter draws, a second team member checks that work, Sam, our team leader, then checks it and Barry, our project manager, gives it a final look.
As a result, errors are kept to a minimum in practice, which saves checking work on your side. For one-off drafting work, we deliver by email, in a file the recipient can open straight away. Larger projects, such as greenhouse construction projects, run in software that you can log into to follow the project. At the end, you have a set that fits into your existing environment.
The software, versions and formats our CAD drafters work in
Our main software is Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino. We also use Inventor and Grasshopper, and to a limited extent Dynamo and Vault. We always work with the latest versions, so you never have to fall back on outdated file exchange. We can open and update older files, provided the source material is usable. We agree in advance which version you use, to avoid conversion problems. Files go back and forth in DXF, DWG, Revit formats and STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format.
Which format we choose depends on what happens after us. If the drawing goes to work preparation, DWG usually causes the least hassle. If it continues in a model, we stay in Revit. We work to your standard and drawing conventions, which you supply to us. That means your layer structure, your naming and your title block, not ours. For the costs, connecting to an existing set is just as important as drafting speed, because a set that still has to be reworked internally costs you twice.
The work is done in our own environment with our own licences. So we do not work in your environment, which saves you accounts, licences and access rights. Where a parametric approach pays off, we build Revit families that adapt to a different size, with a material schedule that updates automatically. In repetitive work, such as pipework layouts in greenhouse construction, that saves at least seventy per cent of the time. Where it does not pay off, we simply draw it directly.
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.
Scaling up from one CAD drafter to a whole team
The reason for a request is almost always capacity. There is too little time, there are too few drafters, or there is a peak that your own team cannot handle. Depending on the project, we deploy as many drafters from our large, variable team as are needed. The team is already in place, so we deploy what the project requires instead of recruiting first. For a rush job, we add people to the running work immediately. That is fundamentally different from taking on your own employee, which involves recruitment, onboarding time and ongoing payroll costs, even in quiet months. With us, you do not pay those payroll costs. If one of our people is absent due to illness or holiday, we replace them and the work continues. Hiring a single drafter offers no such safety net, because if that person drops out, the job comes to a standstill.
Despite that flexibility, communication stays clear. Barry is usually the first point of contact for a new request and Sam then takes over the technical side, so you have one fixed point of contact. Sam has more than fifteen years of background in architecture, worked in Iran for seven years, ran his own design practice in the Netherlands and still works as an engineer. He safeguards consistency in the work, even when several drafters are working on one set. When a deadline once could not slip, our team worked evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours, to meet that date. This set-up keeps costs predictable, even when a job turns out bigger than expected halfway through.
Getting started and getting a clear view of CAD drafter costs
Once no information is missing, we start. In practice, that means the starting points, the existing files, the drawing conventions and a clear definition of what the package includes. We respond to a new request within 1 to 2 working days, followed by a conversation in which we go through the project. If something is missing, we say so straight away instead of making assumptions that cost hours later.
You can choose the form of the agreement. We charge by the hour or at a fixed project price, and both are common. A clearly defined revision round of known size suits a fixed price. An ongoing flow of drafting work with varying jobs works better by the hour, because then nothing is tied to an estimated volume.
We only charge net working hours, so if someone steps away for five minutes for a coffee, the clock stops. Prepaid bundles of hours and monthly hours subscriptions are not part of how we work. What reduces the cost of a CAD drafter with us is clarity up front, repetition in the work and a supplied standard we can connect to straight away.
A short assignment is fine. If you wish, we start with a small first package, so you can judge our speed and accuracy before more work comes our way. What we do not do is charge hours for discussions that produce no drafting. We therefore keep contact short and focused on what needs to be drawn that week. You can reach us by phone or via the contact form on our website.
Frequently asked questions about CAD drafter costs
Hand your CAD 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.