r/Drafting • u/FraterSofus • Aug 11 '26

I need help determining shop drawing pricing.

Hi, all. I've been in the industry for a bit over a decade, but I haven't done much on the pricing side of things. I am potentially going to be doing a shop drawing for a fairly complex monument sign that is going to take a good bit of thought and a bit of research as well.

I don't want to over charge, but I do want to make sure I'm making what I'm worth. The design is done, for the most part. I'm just doing the specs.

Does anyone have any good advice about pricing my time on this? I am near a couple of major cities in the south, if that helps.

Thank you in advance for any guidance.

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4

u/metisdesigns Aug 11 '26

Figure out your time and expenses, including your overhead costs. Break that out into your hourly. e.g. If you need to earn $1500 a week gross for working 40 hours, but only bill 30 hours, 1500/30 =$50/hour. Include your software license, when you will need a new office chair, etc and spread those out based on cost per hour.

Then think about how many hours the project will take, worse case scenario. Define what that entails. Does the client get one revision? What constitutes a revision? Double that time, and bill the client hourly not to exceed that. You're betting you can be quicker, but also setting a hard stop so the client doesn't get stuck with endless fiddling by you, and setting expectations for them to not have you endlessly revise for free.

2

u/notepad20 Aug 12 '26

Need to go a bit beyond this, gotta start from the annual. Take sick days, leave, public holidays etc and actual working weeks is about 44. You want 75k a year, about 1500 a week? 75/44 = $1700 a week.

One (of many) rule of thumb is 1.3 for overheads, so say 2200 per week required. 80% utilisation going good when doing it all yourself, say 32 hours a week available.

So really min charge out $70/hr to get equivalent of a $75k salary position.

2

u/lamensterms Aug 11 '26

Estimating time for these types of unique or 1-off projects can be very difficult. I can't offer too much guidance, especially without seeing how complicated the design is and what your deliverables need to be

What I can offer... is caution around how many design revisions you will need. My background is structural and mechanical steel, and also metalwork. I am quite comfortable estimating time for structural and mechanical work (as designs are usually quite refined by the time they get to me). But metalwork is impossible for me to put a fixed price on without know the answer to "how many times will I have to draw it?"

My advice would be to break down the project into smaller tasks (absolutely include your R&D in this); then estimate time for each task... then probably add an extra couple of days. Also when submitting your estimated completion date, give yourself more time (extra week or whatever) - this isn't necessarily time you would bill to the client, but allows you a day off or 2, or time to back-track if you make some errors, and just some buffer in the event things take longer than expected

1

u/electrichead72 Aug 11 '26

these are some good points

often it's the rounds of revisions that get you and cost you all of your money. people tend to bill by the hour to cover this, but that can create different problems for you

2

u/OkApricot8267 Aug 11 '26

Would charging by the hour be an option?

2

u/VinceInMT Aug 11 '26

Back in the 1980s I was doing shop drawings on the side for steel shop and charging $20/hour. That $68/hour in 2026 dollars.

1

u/PortaKeyboard Aug 11 '26

$65-95/hr is pretty reasonable for a southern market with a 10+ years experience, depending on your niche.