If you need a Revit drafter, the first thing you almost always look at is the cost. We keep that transparent by billing only pure working hours. If a drafter steps away for five minutes to get a coffee, the clock stops, and with us that isn't the exception but the rule.
You can pay by the hour or per project at a fixed price, and we decide together which approach fits before anyone starts. We don't quote a figure on a web page, because the size, the complexity and the state of the material supplied determine the picture entirely.
What we can tell you is what brings the costs down: a clear standard, complete material and highly repetitive work. We draft and model; we don't do engineering. Our people have more than ten years of CAD experience and work from our own office with our own licences. You pay no ongoing payroll costs. We respond to a request within one to two working days.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
When firms need a Revit drafter
The need almost never builds up gradually. An engineering firm wins a tender, an architecture practice gets the green light on three projects at once, or a contractor has to update a file while construction is already under way. At that point the drawing office turns out to be fully booked. We usually speak with managers, team leaders and owners, because they see the schedule slipping before anyone else notices. Manufacturers approach us with a different kind of question, often a series of product details or a model library that needs finishing without bringing their own designers to a standstill.
What all these situations share is that the expertise is in-house but the hours are not. Hiring in fits that better than recruitment, because a vacancy only delivers capacity months later. We take over the production and leave the substantive decisions with you. We don't make calculations, we don't give structural advice and we don't handle permits. That is a deliberate boundary, because it lets us move quickly on high-volume drafting.
Our clients are in the Netherlands and that is where our focus lies. We work entirely remotely, so a client on the other side of the country notices no difference in practice. Visits are possible, but not necessary for the work itself. For Firefly we have completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings, and the pattern was the same every time: a mountain of work with a hard deadline and too few hands to draw it up. Our role is then fairly simple, because we supply those hands.
Scaling up capacity as soon as you need more Revit drafters
We rarely deploy our whole team straight away. A project usually starts with a small core of drafters who pick up your standards and work out the first part. In doing so, they build up the knowledge the rest of our team later takes over. If the volume turns out to be larger or the deadline gets closer, we scale up from our large, flexible team with as many drafters as the project demands. There is a reason for that approach.
Starting with a large team right away wastes time on coordination and risks five people asking the same question. By letting a core team run first, we can bring new people in on work that is already correct. When it's urgent, we add people straight away, without a recruitment process, because our team is already in place. We don't look for drafters when a request comes in; we assign people we already have. Everyone who works for us has more than ten years of CAD experience, so onboarding is about project agreements, not the software.
If someone is off sick or on holiday, we replace that person and the work carries on. So you don't carry that risk and don't keep paying wages in a quiet month. When a deadline really couldn't move on one occasion, our team worked evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours. Even during a planned holiday of Sam, our team leader, that work simply carried on. Weeks like that aren't standard, but they do show how we handle a fixed date.
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 it costs to bring in a Revit drafter
By the hour or per project at a fixed price; both are possible. Both approaches occur, and we decide together which fits before anyone gets to work. A fixed price is convenient for a clearly bounded set, for example a revision round on a known number of sheets. An hourly rate suits work whose size is still shifting better, such as a file where the quality of the supplied material only becomes clear along the way. We only bill pure working hours. That literally means the clock stops when a drafter steps away for five minutes to get a coffee. Meetings, reviews and processing feedback are part of the work, and we make those hours visible. What keeps costs down is above all predictability: a complete set of starting points, clear drawing conventions and highly repetitive work.
Repetitive drafting takes less time per sheet as the series progresses, and you benefit from that directly. Parametric families amplify that effect, because a component we build properly once can then be used everywhere. What drives costs up is unclear material, a standard that changes halfway through or feedback that only comes at the end. That is why we deliver in stages. We don't offer prepaid bundles or a monthly hours subscription, because that fits poorly with work that varies in size from week to week. You pay no ongoing payroll costs and so keep a firm grip on what the drafting really involves. If you want an indication in advance, show us the material and we'll give you our estimate of the scope.
Communicating with our Revit drafters during the project
You have one fixed point of contact with us. Barry, our project manager, picks up the first request and remains available, and Sam takes over the technical side as team leader once the project is running. That saves your project leader a lot of searching, because he doesn't have to work out which drafter is on which sheet. We set the meeting rhythm together.
On a tight schedule we speak every two days; for calmer work, weekly is enough. Day-to-day contact runs by email and phone, and we also schedule meetings to go through progress. We come to you or you come to us, although we do the drafting itself remotely from our own office.
For standalone drafting, files are exchanged by email. On larger projects such as greenhouse construction, we use software that lets you log in and follow the project. Being able to look over our shoulder takes the tension out of the question of how far along things are. We deliberately deliver in stages, gather feedback and process it before moving on. That keeps corrections small. What we ask of you is that feedback comes back within a reasonable time, because a batch left waiting holds up the next part.
If something changes in the starting points, we would rather hear about it immediately than afterwards. The intellectual property of everything we draw belongs to you, and we are open to an NDA if there is a need for one. That keeps the agreements on communication and ownership just as clear as the drawing conventions themselves.
Frequently asked questions about needing a Revit drafter
Let us take on your Revit drafting
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.