Anyone asking about a drafting firm rate almost always wants to know at the same time how quickly the work can get going. The two are linked. We have a permanent team already in place, so an assignment does not have to wait for recruitment or an onboarding period of several weeks. Depending on what a project needs, our large, variable team scales with it, from one drafter for a small assignment to as many drafters as a large project requires.
When things are urgent, we add people immediately, without the client having to enter into long-term commitments.
If someone drops out through illness or holiday, we replace them and the drafting carries on. For a project lead, that often matters more than the hourly figure, because downtime in the drawing office costs more than an hour of drafting. We charge by the hour or per project at a fixed price, and we make that choice together. On this page we explain who this applies to, exactly what we deliver, how the rate is made up and how a first assignment with us begins.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Which clients consider a drafting firm
Our clients are engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers, and more broadly companies with a lot of technical drafting. The people at the table are managers, team leaders and owners who can see for themselves that the schedule is tight. The trigger is almost always capacity. There is too little time, there are too few drafters, or there is a peak the in-house team cannot absorb. A drafting firm then comes into view as a temporary extension of the drawing office, not as a replacement for the in-house team.
At an engineering firm, it is often a set that needs finishing while the permanent drafters have already moved on to the next project. At a manufacturer, we are more likely to see a pile of production drawings with many variants on the same base type. A contractor usually comes to us with as-built material and revisions, sometimes in a state where nobody knows which version is correct any more. All these situations share the same problem: the work has to be done and the in-house team cannot take it on at that moment.
We then take over the drafting that can be clearly defined, so your own drafters can stay on the work only they can do. What a drafting firm's rate is worth shows in practice mainly in how quickly someone gets up to speed. We ask for the standard, look at an existing drawing and get started. That is how we have run more than twenty projects for Firefly, with hundreds of drawings, without them having to hire a permanent drafter for it.
The drawings and models our drafting firm delivers
Our drafting firm delivers 2D drawings and, where the project calls for it, 3D models. Specifically, that means floor plans, sections, elevations, details, standard details, production drawings and general arrangement drawings, plus the associated material schedules that are generated from the model. We produce as-built drawings based on what the client supplies, from clean DWGs to barely legible scans. Revision rounds are an integral part of that, because in practice something always changes along the way. We draft in Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino, and where needed in Inventor with Grasshopper alongside. We deliver the output in DXF, DWG, the Revit formats or STEP, exactly as the client's next stage requires.
What we do not do is just as important. We do not do calculations, we do not advise on structural matters and we do not handle permits. We draft and model, and we do so in high volume. Delivery happens in parts. After each part we collect feedback, process it and move on to the next block. That way nothing is left until the end and your drafting team can see along the way whether our interpretation is correct.
On larger projects, such as greenhouse construction projects, we work in software that the client can log into to follow progress. For standalone AutoCAD drafting, delivery is simply by email, because an extra system would only add noise there. Every piece passes through at least three layers of review before delivery, which keeps the number of errors minimal in practice. We build that review into the delivery rhythm, so it is not something tacked on 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.
A rate built on pure working hours
With us, a drafting firm's rate consists of pure working hours. We only bill the time that actually goes into the drafting. If a drafter walks off for five minutes for coffee, the clock stops, and that is not a sales pitch but a working agreement within our team. Besides an hourly basis, we also work with a fixed price per project. For a defined set with a known number of drawings, a fixed price gives you peace of mind in the budget. For a revision round whose scope only becomes clear once we look into the existing set, an hourly basis fits better, because nobody then has to price in a risk premium. We decide together which option fits best before we start. What brings costs down above all is preparation. A clear CAD standard, a complete project file and a fixed point of contact on the client's side save more hours than any negotiation.
We also reduce costs by taking repetition out of the work with parametric families, which saves at least seventy per cent of the time in piping work. We do not work with prepaid hour bundles or a monthly hours subscription, so no costs keep running when there is no work for a while. The client also pays no ongoing salary costs, no holiday pay and no idle time. If someone drops out, we replace them without the bill continuing to run. The intellectual property of everything we make belongs to the client, so there is no hidden item there. We only draw up an estimate after we have seen the existing documents, because a figure without a drawing to go with it says little.
Getting started with our drafting firm, from first documents to first delivery
Getting started with our drafting firm begins with a conversation in which we go through the project. We want to know what is already there, what needs finishing and which package the work is in. We then ask for the existing documents, usually drawings that need revising, and for the client's drawing conventions. We follow those conventions, so we draft in the layer structure, naming and title blocks that are already in place.
If there is no standard, we derive it from the existing work and present our choices first. As soon as the information is complete enough, we start. We respond to a new request within 1 to 2 working days, and Barry, our project manager, is the first to go through such a request.
Sam, our team leader, then joins for the technical side, so you keep one fixed point of contact instead of a changing help desk. We match the meeting rhythm to the pressure on the project. With a tight schedule we speak every two days, on a calmer project weekly. Contact is by email, phone and meetings, and we visit you or welcome you at our office.
A short first assignment is a good way to start, because it lets your drafting team see what our speed and accuracy are worth before a larger volume is handed over. We work in our own environment with our own licences, so your IT department does not have to set anything up. If you would rather get acquainted first, schedule a conversation in which we go through the work without any obligation to place an order.
Frequently asked questions about our drafting firm rate
Hand your drafting work 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.