22/08/2026
The cheapest plans are often the most expensive!
It's a fair question, and one worth answering honestly: why does our fee look higher than the drafter around the corner for what looks, on the surface, like the same set of plans?
A drafter can look cheaper initially — a lower rate, a quicker set of drawings, less up front. But the initial price and the final cost of your build are two very different numbers. What you save at the drawing stage can quietly come back, and then some, once you're on site. The short answer is that it isn't the same set of plans — and the way we work is designed to protect your budget, not stretch it.
DIFFERENT TRAINING, DIFFERENT JOB
A drafter is trained to draft, and that's a genuine skill — they produce clear drawings of what you ask for. What sits behind our fee is a different kind of work: resolving the design. Working out the best way to lay out your home, coordinating it with your engineer, and detailing it so it can actually be built to budget.
We don't just draw a house, we resolve it. Years of experience in how buildings actually get built means we design to find the best solution, not just a nice picture. That's what you're paying the difference for — and that difference is small next to the thousands in unexpected costs that come from what wasn't documented.
WHY EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING MATTER
It isn't only years of experience on projects — it's years of study behind it too. The training covers design, regulations, solving construction detail, building law, and project management. That breadth is what ties a whole project together, and it's the hardest part to see on a quote.
Experience with council means we know what a compliant set looks like and how to get it approved without the back-and-forth. Experience on site means we understand how a design actually gets built, so what we draw can be constructed without expensive workarounds. Experience with builders means we document in a way they can price and build from directly, with fewer questions and fewer assumptions.
And experience in design is what pulls all of it together — balancing what you want, what the site allows, what council requires, and what the budget can carry, all in one resolved solution. Anyone can produce a drawing. Bringing every one of those threads together into a project that works, gets approved, and gets built to budget — that's what the experience buys you.
And that experience saves you thousands. Because we document properly and we ask the right questions up front, the costly changes get sorted on paper — before they ever reach site, where they'd cost you real money.
HOW WE PRICE A PROJECT
We price projects in a few different ways, because no two projects are the same. Work is broken into stages, and the fee for each stage is based on the scope of work it actually requires. For each stage we can work on an hourly, fixed, or percentage basis — whatever suits that piece of work best. It means you're only ever paying for the scope in front of you, structured in the way that makes the most sense for your project.
WHERE THE MONEY IS REALLY SAVED
A higher design fee that prevents a blow-out is cheaper than a lower one that causes it. Here's where our work pays for itself:
Efficient design saves square metres. A floor plan designed to work now and adapt later gives you the home you imagined in less space — useable rooms instead of wasted walkways. Every square metre costs money to build, so needing fewer of them is a real saving.
Coordination avoids expensive surprises. Plans worked through properly with your structural engineer stop costly problems before they reach site — the kind of change that, caught on paper, costs nothing, and caught on site, costs thousands.
Your plans are part of the contract. If it's on the plans, it's in the price; if it isn't, it becomes a variation later. Don't leave room for variations that can cost you thousands. A fully resolved, coordinated concept is a clear brief to the builder, to council, and to you — everyone works from the same picture, so there's nothing left to assume, argue over, or price later.
Not drawn? It's a variation. Anything left off the plans, the builder prices later — at their margin, when you've no leverage left. Every gap becomes a variation, and variations are where budgets quietly blow out.
NAVIGATING THE APPROVAL PROCESS
Council isn't your enemy — it's a checklist for how a design complies. When you understand how they read a set and give them exactly what they need, approval becomes a straightforward process. And there's more room to move than people realise: where a design doesn't sit neatly within a council control (a DCP), a variation can often still be achieved, provided it's reasonable and clearly explained. Knowing how to make that case, and documenting it properly, is the difference between a smooth approval and a stalled one.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Our fee buys resolved design, coordinated documentation, and a build that's far more likely to land on time and on budget. It keeps everyone moving — council can sign off without chasing missing information, your builder can build without guessing, and you get the home you pictured, without the surprises.
And here's the part that matters most: variations to the builder and the back-and-forth with council can easily cost you more than our fee in the first place. So the fee isn't really the expense — it's the saving. It's what stops those costs happening at all.
Get it right the first time — and save yourself thousands.
If you're planning a project and want to understand exactly what your fee covers and how we structure it, I'm always happy to talk it through.
Jo
Josephine Reich (M.A. Architecture)
josephinereich.com · [email protected] · 0421 924 723
