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

Around 5% -10% of 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 residential contractors out of the home designing business, education and understanding of your home's design and home building.  The more basic home design, the more detail perspective home drawing, the more home concept work, the more cost to take the time to do it.  A 2500 SF home can cost nearly as much to home design and home draw as a 5000 SF home.  If you want bigtime home drawing for bigtime bucks, try most of the other guys.  If you  just want the other guys' book-learning without our decades of experience home designing and home 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 home building, therewith making any given number a larger percent relative to remodels. Not always, but almost always.

Before The Architect's invoice totals for a project typically range from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, varying with time for home design complexity, home research, number of home drawing entries, number of revisions, sizes of home drawing, 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 opinion and reviews, most minor changes to stock plans, almost all resolutions to specific, limited problems of home design and home building — foundation repair, roofline design, deck structure,  electrical wiring diagram, etc. Occasionally, a very challenging remodel is selected for work falling in this 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 $20,000.  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 home design and custom home plans.  Larger and more complex enterprises can involve several hundred hours and more. Most of our to-be-built projects have taken roughly 300-600 hours to complete - rarely, less; sometimes, more.

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-many 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 home designed to-be-built or remodeled.  Each day's work is filed separately, numbered in sequence from 1. Home drawing sessions range from several dozen working files on the low end to 150 or more on the high end.  The last, small remodel project billed $4,162.50; recent to-be-built projects billed $26,831.25-$75,000+.

	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 Home 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 home design and home drawing
	All home design work, including 2d and 3d concept home drawing, modeling, and builder plans of any type and including research time.
	All home drawing, including 2d and 3d concept home drawing, modeling, and builder plans of any type.
	Second opinion.
	For remodeling only, we offer only concept home drawing and, possibly, simple model home drawing.  Clients' measured sketches and builder's original plans have proved too unreliable for buildable plans done at distance.  Our concept and model home drawing 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 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 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, home drawing based on written specs, consulting, design work to support yours, etc.

(If this is your first visit to Before The Architect, please consider spending a few moments looking over the Site Map, in design of a custom home, plans, the home designers, about builders and building.  Before The Architect E-mail:  jrp2h2000@yahoo.com.)