Architects' fees range typically from 10%-18% of dream home building costs (excluding land) and from $75-$250/hour.  Our fees typically run roughly -

Around 5% -10% of custom home building costs (including our costs and everyone and everything else's except land and legal) for to-be-builts (the percentage characteristically ranging to the lower end with most larger projects, or the percentage ranging to the high side with smaller projects) i.e., we tend to charge a lot less than that which you'd pay somebody else to do less than the same thing most of the time ... and you get more - your own direct participation, attention to your needs and interests, detail to take contractors out of the designing business, education and understanding of your home's design and dream home building.  The more basic design, the more detail perspective drawings, the more concept work, the more cost to take the time to do it.  A 2500 SF house can cost nearly as much to design and draft as a 5000 SF house.  If you want bigtime drawing for bigtime bucks, try most of the other guys.  If you  just want the other guys' book-learning without our decades of experience designing and building on job sites to back it up, you've got plenty of bad choices to make.  Good luck, you'll need it.

10%-15% on additions and remodels, sometimes more.  Tying into an existing structure, altering function, wedding foundations and elevations and rooflines and facades and lines of sight and traffic patterns and space redefinitions and so forth takes more time than working from scratch.  And the total costs themselves tend to be smaller than new custom home building, therewith making any given number a larger percent relative to remodels. Not always, but almost always.

Before The Architect's invoices total for a project typically range from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per week, varying with time for design complexity, research, number of drawings, number of revisions, size of drawings, etc.

Typically, our hourly fees fall into these ranges based on services performed —

	To $10,000, some very, very few in the low $100s as in brief consulting commissions.  This range includes virtually all second opinions and reviews, so far all design consulting, most minor changes to stock plans, almost all resolutions to specific, limited problems of design and dream home building — foundation repair, roofline design, deck structure, electrical diagram, etc. Occasionally, a very challenging remodel is selected for work falling in this range.  Most in this fee level half of the range.
	$10,000–$30,000.  Some of our work falls in this range.  Some smaller sets of plans belong here, whether significantly revised  or drawn from scratch (can range higher).  Occasionally, a very challenging remodel is selected for work falling in this range.
	Over $30,000.  Increasingly the major part of daily custom plan set design hereabouts, these are larger or more complex plan sets to revise in major ways or draw from scratch or sketches and most major addition work.   This range includes most of our business in both custom house designs and custom house plans.  Larger and more complex enterprises can involve several hundred hours and more. Most of our to-be-built projects have taken roughly 400-800 hours to complete, rarely less and less rarely more, even to 1000 hours and more, especially with larger draws, more extensive footprints and articulations and if perimeters keep moving as designs mature.   House surface areas including habitable and unhabitable both covered and open usually range from about 8000 square feet and up - 2 to about 20000 square feet.

As to what our work will "actually cost," who knows until the work is done.  Projects hereabouts range in total cost from our shop alone between roughly 50 hours and up for very small enterprises to several hundred hours for workproduct of significant scope.  Plan sets run from a dozen sheets or so to several dozen, depending on what it takes to convey clearly and comprehensively that which is designed to-be-built or remodeled.  Each day's work is filed separately, numbered in sequence from 1. Drawing sessions range from several dozen working files on the low end to 150 or more on the high end. 

	Your initial, 30-minute  consulting with the AG is free.  (Please don't be laying out an agenda for us to work through responsibly in 3 or 4 or 7 hours, and then thank me for the freebee.)
	There are no minimums for total fees.
	There are no maximums for total fees.
	Estimates are not possible.  You bring your common sense, and can take as long as you like to study 250+ pages and several hundred pics of all sorts on this 30+Mb website to judge our character, competence, and capacity.  If you're concerned about not having enough cash and commitment to start up with us, you're probably right . . . . sooner than later one or the other will run out.  This is not Discount Dan, The House Plans Man.  (Limit the project, not us.)
	If you're interested in interactive planning wherein your own thoughts, questions, and decisions are not only welcomed but expected, then you're where you ought to be.  If not, not.
	You pay for the prints (most often, not much).
	Fees are usually billed weekly on Mondays, often referenced in e-mails in the interim as to billable hours.
	AG retains copyrights (unless revisions to an already well-drawn plan are minor).
	Payment is received within 5 days of billing or work stops until that account is fully current, paid up completely, and work is queued  thereafter.
	For smaller projects, particularly those executed over a very few weeks, last payment is made in full before last product is delivered.
	E-mails and phone calls returned within 5 days or work stops until reply is received and work is queued again thereafter.
	PayPal and FEDEX or other reasonable conveyance charges can be either deducted or credited.
	We usually do not draw in landscape unless you or your landscape architect specify otherwise.

	All consulting related to design and drafting
	All design work, including 2d and 3d concept drawings, modeling, and builder plans of any type and including research time.
	All drafting, including 2d and 3d concept drawings, modeling, and builder plans of any type.
	Second opinions.
	For remodeling only, we offer only design concept drawings and, possibly, simple design model drawings.  Clients' measured sketches and builder's original plans have proved too unreliable for buildable plans done at distance.  Our design concept and design model drawings can be developed by local pros to finish up working plans in your own neighborhood and on-site.

For new clients whose work covers only a few weeks or less, final payment is made in full before final product is delivered.

	All work related to build outs and remodels for owners and tenants, supplements to plans.
	Note Well:  The AG does not do steel shells, he works on their insides, building out and remodeling.
	Note Well:  If you're planning on dream home building that requires a local permit to build, please check around to determine whether local architects have a lock on blueprint submissions.  If not, let's get to work.  If so, have a nice day . . . a nice expensive day.

	All work related to build outs and remodels for owners and tenants, supplements to plans.
	Note Well:  The AG does not do steel shells, he works on their insides building out and remodeling.  Yep, he's more than passingly familiar with shop floors, production and manufacturing space.
	Note Well:  If you're planning on dream home building that requires a local permit to build, please check around to determine whether local architects have a lock on blueprint submissions.  If not, let's get to work.  If so, have a nice day . . . a nice expensive day.

.dwg file cleanup, sketch-to-scaled translation drawing, drawings based on written specs, consulting, design work to support yours, etc.