The search for a self-employed CAD drafter almost always starts with a date that will not move. There is a series of drawings, a delivery date has been agreed and your own drawing office will not make it. At that point the question is not so much who can draft, but how much drafting capacity is available within that lead time.
That is where a single freelancer and our set-up differ. We have a large, variable team and deploy as many drafters per project as the work requires, from one drafter for a small job to a full crew on a large project.
The team is already in place, so there is no need to recruit or onboard first. If it turns out during the project that the volume is bigger than expected or the schedule is getting tighter, we add people immediately. We are OutsourceCAD; we draft and model for companies that lack drafting capacity, and we do not do engineering. The work is carried out entirely remotely from our own office, with our own licences and to your drawing conventions.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Clients looking for a self-employed CAD drafter
There is a clear pattern in the enquiries we receive. They come from engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers, and more broadly companies where technical drafting is tied to production or construction. The person we speak to is a manager, a team leader or the owner, looking at a schedule that no longer adds up. A manufacturer has a new product line and needs to update hundreds of part drawings while its permanent drafter is busy with live orders. A contractor gets back a project file in which some of the changes exist only as handwritten notes on the printout.
An engineering firm wins a tender and within a few weeks needs more drafting capacity than its staffing allows. In all these cases, a self-employed CAD drafter is the first option that comes to mind, because it seems quick to arrange. The bottleneck then often shifts to supervision. A single hired drafter has to be onboarded, managed and checked, and that takes time from exactly the people who are already too busy.
We take care of that part. Sam, our team leader, divides the work, safeguards the technical line and checks what goes out, so you do not have to handle the day-to-day management yourself. What we keep sharp is the scope. We draft and model, while calculations, structural advice and preparing permit documents fall explicitly outside our scope. Design choices and the responsibility for them stay with you, which keeps meetings short and the division of roles clear for everyone working on the project file.
Drafting work we take over as a self-employed CAD drafter would
Most of our output consists of 2D drafting. Floor plans, sections, elevations, details, schematic diagrams and production drawings, including the revision rounds that follow. We also produce as-built drawings, often based on material that is outdated or supplied incomplete. Where needed, we move on to 3D modelling, for example when an existing set has to be extended into a model in which components can be reused. Building and cleaning up families and templates is also part of the work.
We deliver in DXF, DWG, the Revit formats and STEP, and in any other common CAD format. Our core software is Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino, supplemented by Inventor, Grasshopper and, to a limited extent, Dynamo and Vault. We always work in the latest versions. Whereas a self-employed CAD drafter usually works inside your environment, we work in our own environment with our own licences. So no accounts, workstations or licence seats need to be freed up.
That saves you a good deal of preparation and keeps your internal systems out of the project. What we deliver follows the standards supplied to us: layer structure, naming, title blocks, hatching and the way revisions are tracked. The intellectual property of all drawings belongs to you. Before a large series gets going, we first deliver a small part so you can check whether our interpretation of those conventions is correct and the rest of the series can continue consistently.
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 cost of a self-employed CAD drafter in perspective
With a freelancer, the conversation usually turns straight to the hourly rate. That is a narrow view of costs, because the outcome is determined by how many hours are needed and how much has to be redone. Payment is per hour or per project at a fixed price, and we choose the right form together. If the scope is fixed, a fixed project price is the most predictable option for you. If the size is hard to estimate in advance, for example with a revision round whose condition only becomes clear once the files are opened, we work on an hourly basis. We only charge for actual working hours. If someone steps away for a coffee, the counter stops. No waiting time or start-up time appears on the timesheet. We do not work with prepaid hour bundles or a monthly hours subscription, and no salary costs keep running when the volume drops.
In case of illness or holiday we replace the person concerned, so you do not pay for downtime. What brings costs down most in practice is preparation and the amount of repetition. A complete set of starting points, documented CAD standards and one contact person on your side achieve more than negotiating the rate. The same goes for the review layers: an error that is only found on site or in production costs many times the drafting time that checking would have taken. That is why we would rather check once more than let a whole series go out with the same deviation. These steps are built into our process and are not charged separately.
Getting started with the drafting work
A project starts with a conversation in which we go through the job. We discuss the size of the series, the fixed date and which documents are already available. In most cases, existing drawings that need revising come along, together with the details and starting points. We also need the drawing conventions: layer structure, naming, title blocks and the revision system.
Once that information is available, the drafting can begin. We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days, and you can reach us by phone or through the contact form on the website. We do not make promises about delivery times in hours or days, because they depend entirely on what the source material turns out to contain.
We do give a realistic estimate after reviewing it, even if it is disappointing. A short assignment is fine, and we regularly start with a small first series so you can judge our speed and accuracy on your own material. If that works well, we expand within the same agreements and with the same people. From then on we deliver in stages, gather feedback, process it and carry on.
We agree the rhythm of meetings in advance, and it varies per client: every two days on a tight project, weekly on a calmer one. If you first want to compare a self-employed CAD drafter with a team, the best way is on the basis of a concrete assignment rather than an outline quotation. What gets cleared within the same lead time is then immediately visible.
Frequently asked questions about self-employed CAD drafters
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.