Companies asking how much production drawings cost almost always weigh that figure against two other routes: hiring a freelancer or taking on a drafter as an employee. That comparison is rarely about the hourly rate alone, because a permanent drafter brings recruitment, onboarding time, licences and ongoing payroll costs with them.
A freelancer is quick to arrange, but drops out when ill and cannot scale when the volume doubles. We sit in between, with a permanent team that moves with each project and bills only genuine working hours.
On this page we set those routes side by side and show which factors really drive the price of production drawings. We also describe when outsourcing simply does not pay. A drawing office with enough breathing room is better off keeping the work in-house. If a peak is on its way, or a fabrication order is stalling on drafting work, outsourcing is almost always the faster route. We charge by the hour or at a fixed project price, agreed with you as the client.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
When outsourcing production drawings makes sense
Outsourcing production drawings pays off when your own drafting team is structurally lagging behind demand. For our clients the trigger is almost always capacity: too little time, too few drafters, or a peak the team cannot absorb. If that peak is in repetitive work, the gain is at its largest. Series of parts, variations on the same principle and sheets that differ by size are ideally suited to an external team. We take on that volume without your own drafters having to step away from their current project. There are also situations where your own team is better off keeping the work.
Work that is closely tied to internal knowledge and needs a decision from the engineer on every drawing costs more coordination with an outside party than it delivers. The same applies to a handful of one-off sheets with no repetition. There, the handover does not outweigh the time saved, and we will tell you so. We draft and model; engineering is not part of our service. If the design work stays in-house and the detailing goes out, the split falls in the right place.
A manufacturer that hands its production drawings to us keeps the product knowledge in-house and buys in drafting capacity only. We start with a single drafter if that is enough, and our large, flexible team scales up per project whenever the order calls for it. If someone drops out, we replace that drafter and production never stalls on an empty chair. With a tight delivery date, that certainty often counts for more than the difference in hourly rate.
How much production drawings cost and how we build the estimate
What production drawings cost with us depends on three things: the amount of repetition, the quality of the input and the speed you need. We charge by the hour or at a fixed project price, and we make that choice together with you. A fixed project price suits a clearly defined series with a fixed scope. An hourly basis works better when further variants may still be added. We bill genuine working hours only. If someone steps away for five minutes to get a coffee, the clock stops, which makes the timesheet easy to verify.
What brings costs down most is repetition that we can set up cleverly. For a series of variants, we build a parametric part and then place it everywhere, instead of drawing every size from scratch. In that kind of work the approach saves at least seventy per cent of the time. You pay for the set-up once and reap the benefits with every following variant. A second cost driver is what you supply. Complete dimensions, clear material choices and established CAD standards save us research time, and research is the most expensive category of hours.
A third factor is lead time. If a series has to be finished within a tight schedule, we put more drafters on it and the effort shifts forward. We list these items separately in the estimate, so your buyer can see which choice has which effect. We only name a figure once we have seen the actual material, because a shot in the dark helps nobody.
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.
Who we make production drawings for
Our clients for production drawings are manufacturers, engineering firms, contractors and architectural practices, and more broadly any company with technical drafting work. Around the table there are usually managers, team leaders and owners, in other words people responsible for both the schedule and the budget. The problem they bring is rarely complicated. There is an order, the drawings need to go out and the drawing office is full. With manufacturers, it is often about series of parts whose dimensions differ per variant. In greenhouse construction we see this in piping diagrams, where a valve in 90 and in 110 has to be added to the drawing by hand every time. We build a smart family for that, after which the part is placed in a single action. With engineering firms, the emphasis is more often on detailing a design that has already been fixed internally.
Contractors come to us with revision work and with sets that have been marked up on site. For Firefly we completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings, including as-built material that was partly drawn by hand. We worked through that ourselves instead of calling the client every day. That attitude saves you hours internally, and it counts towards the total cost of a project. Our clients are in the Netherlands and our focus is on the Netherlands too. We carry out the work itself entirely remotely from our own office. You are welcome to visit, and we also come to you when a project calls for it. That mainly happens at the start of a larger project.
The process behind your production drawings
A production drawings project with us starts with a conversation, not a quote. We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days, after which we go through the project with you. In that conversation we ask about the details, the existing drawings and your company's drawing conventions. Usually there is already material that needs revising, and that becomes the starting point.
We begin as soon as the information is complete. We then deliver in batches, collect feedback, make adjustments and move on to the next block. This approach prevents a wrong assumption from multiplying through an entire series. The rhythm of meetings varies per client, from a check-in every two days to a weekly catch-up.
Every drawing passes through at least three review layers before delivery. A drafter draws it, a second team member checks it, Sam, our team leader, then reviews it and Barry, our project manager, signs it off. As a result, errors stay minimal in practice and your work preparation team is left with very little correction work. A short assignment is fine, and many clients start with a small first series to assess our speed and accuracy.
If that works well, we scale up and take on the full volume in one go. The intellectual property of the drawings belongs to you, so your company can carry on without us. So far we have not signed a non-disclosure agreement because clients have not asked for one, but we are open to an NDA. If you would like a specific series costed, give us a call or fill in the contact form.
Frequently asked questions about how much production drawings cost
Let us handle your production drawings
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.