Guide · Cost
What Drives the Cost of As-Built Drawings
Ask three as-built firms what a set of drawings costs and you will get three answers, all of them conditional. That is not evasion. An as-built is priced on a building nobody has seen yet, and the things that move the number — how the space is cut up, how much of the ceiling is in scope, what file has to arrive at the end — are decided before anyone gets there. This guide takes the price apart: the part that does not move, the part that scales, the drivers behind each, and how to read two quotes that look nothing alike.
A price with two halves
Almost every as-built price, whoever quotes it, is built the same way: a component that does not change with the size of the building, and a component that does. Ours works that way too. The estimator on our home page prices a job as a flat amount plus a rate applied to the floor area, and the rate itself depends on how much detail you need captured.
The fixed half covers the things a job needs once, whatever its size. Somebody has to be scheduled, get to the building, set up, and produce and check a deliverable afterwards. A thousand square feet and eight thousand square feet both need all of that. The variable half is the work that genuinely grows with the space: more scan positions, more processing, more line to draw, more rooms to label and check.
Once you can see those two halves, most of what looks arbitrary about as-built pricing stops being arbitrary. It explains why a small suite costs more per square foot than a warehouse. It explains why adding ceilings to a scope costs more than adding floor area. And it explains why a firm can give you a price for a 2,000 square foot office in seconds but wants to talk about a 60,000 square foot industrial park.
This page does not publish a rate card
Deliberately. A per-square-foot figure quoted out of context is the single most misleading number in this business, because it says nothing about what is being captured or what arrives at the end. What this page gives you instead is every driver behind the number, so that when the estimator prices your actual building you can see why it says what it says.
What is fixed and what scales
The same job, split into the parts that behave differently as a building gets bigger. The last column is the one worth reading before you scope anything.
| Part of the job | How it behaves with floor area | What actually moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Part of the jobGetting a surveyor to the building | How it behaves with floor areaFixed. A visit costs a visit, whether the space is small or large. | What actually moves itThe number of visits, not the size. Phasing a building across two dates makes this the largest single lever on the total. |
| Part of the jobCapturing the space | How it behaves with floor areaScales, but with the number of rooms more than the square footage. | What actually moves itHow compartmented the space is. An open floor is captured in far fewer positions than the same area cut into offices, exam rooms or storage cages. |
| Part of the jobProcessing and floor plans | How it behaves with floor areaScales steadily with area. | What actually moves itLittle on the client side. This is the most predictable part of the job in cost as well as in time. |
| Part of the jobDrafting the CAD set or the model | How it behaves with floor areaScales with area and, more sharply, with detail. | What actually moves itWhat has to be drawn. Reflected ceiling plans, services and a Revit model each add drafting, and each is a scope decision made before the visit. |
| Part of the jobArea calculation to a lease standard | How it behaves with floor areaPriced separately, not folded into the scan. | What actually moves itWhether a lease-grade area figure is needed at all, and which standard the lease names. |
A description of how the work behaves, not a breakdown of a quote. Our estimator prices a job as a single number for the scope you choose.
Why a small suite costs more per square foot
This is the most common surprise in as-built pricing and it is entirely a consequence of the fixed half. When a job carries a component that does not shrink, that component is spread across whatever area the building has. On a small space it is spread thinly and dominates the total. On a large one it almost disappears.
So a 900 square foot retail unit will always look expensive measured per square foot, and a 40,000 square foot warehouse will always look cheap, even though the second one takes far longer to do. Neither figure is telling you anything about value. They are telling you about arithmetic.
The practical consequence is that per-square-foot rates are close to useless for comparing quotes on a small building, and only start to mean something at scale. If you are weighing two prices on a single suite, compare the totals for the same scope. If you are weighing two prices across a portfolio, the rate matters more and the fixed component matters less — which is also why firms, ours included, will discuss volume terms on a set of buildings that they would not discuss on one.
The drivers, and which direction each one pushes
Everything that genuinely moves the price of a commercial as-built survey, in roughly the order it gets decided.
| Driver | Why it moves the number | Decided by |
|---|---|---|
| Floor area | The variable half of the price is applied to it. The most obvious driver and rarely the decisive one on a small building. | The building |
| How the space is subdivided | Every enclosed room needs its own scan positions and its own drafting. Two spaces of identical area can be very different jobs. | The building |
| Level of detail captured | This is what sets the rate. A listing-grade record, a standard interior set for renovation and permit work, and a set that carries furniture and assets are three different amounts of work on the same floor. | You, at booking |
| Whether the ceiling is in scope | A reflected ceiling plan is a second drawing of the same floor, capturing a layer most people forget until a mechanical consultant asks for it. | Your design team |
| The file you need at the end | A PDF plan, a layered DWG and a Revit model are three deliverables with three different amounts of drafting behind them. | Your design team |
| Access and occupancy | Waiting for keys, security escorts and phased access turn one visit into more than one. Occupied space itself is normal and is not a surcharge. | You and the landlord |
| Number of site visits | The clearest single lever on the total, because each visit carries the fixed component again. | How the job is phased |
| A lease-grade area calculation | Calculated to the standard the lease names, from measured wall positions, and quoted separately from the scan. | The lease |
| Travel | Real on this work, and it belongs to whoever is closest to the building. | Where the building is |
Floor area
- Why it moves the number
- The variable half of the price is applied to it. The most obvious driver and rarely the decisive one on a small building.
- Decided by
- The building
How the space is subdivided
- Why it moves the number
- Every enclosed room needs its own scan positions and its own drafting. Two spaces of identical area can be very different jobs.
- Decided by
- The building
Level of detail captured
- Why it moves the number
- This is what sets the rate. A listing-grade record, a standard interior set for renovation and permit work, and a set that carries furniture and assets are three different amounts of work on the same floor.
- Decided by
- You, at booking
Whether the ceiling is in scope
- Why it moves the number
- A reflected ceiling plan is a second drawing of the same floor, capturing a layer most people forget until a mechanical consultant asks for it.
- Decided by
- Your design team
The file you need at the end
- Why it moves the number
- A PDF plan, a layered DWG and a Revit model are three deliverables with three different amounts of drafting behind them.
- Decided by
- Your design team
Access and occupancy
- Why it moves the number
- Waiting for keys, security escorts and phased access turn one visit into more than one. Occupied space itself is normal and is not a surcharge.
- Decided by
- You and the landlord
Number of site visits
- Why it moves the number
- The clearest single lever on the total, because each visit carries the fixed component again.
- Decided by
- How the job is phased
A lease-grade area calculation
- Why it moves the number
- Calculated to the standard the lease names, from measured wall positions, and quoted separately from the scan.
- Decided by
- The lease
Travel
- Why it moves the number
- Real on this work, and it belongs to whoever is closest to the building.
- Decided by
- Where the building is
Which of these a project actually needs is a question for the architect or designer running it. This page describes what each one costs you, not what your project requires.
What you are choosing when you choose a detail level
The level of detail is the one driver entirely in your control at the point of booking, and it is the one that sets the rate. Our estimator offers three.
Base 360
A listing-ready record for leasing, planning and discovery. The right level when the job is to show a space, market a vacancy or understand what is there before deciding anything.
Shell 360
Standard interiors, renovations and permit sets. The level most tenant improvement and design work runs on, and the usual answer when a design team needs a base drawing to work over.
Full 360
Standard furniture, fixtures and equipment, and facility assets. The level for move management, facility audits and space planning, where what is in the room matters as much as the room.
Buy the detail the next decision needs
The temptation with a tiered choice is to read it as good, better, best and assume the top one is the safe option. It is not, and on most projects it is the wrong answer. The levels describe different jobs, not different qualities of the same job. A leasing agent marketing a vacancy does not need the furniture recorded. A facility manager planning a move does, and a plain shell drawing will not do it.
The other half of the same point is that scope is cheapest decided before the visit. Everything captured in one pass is drafted in one pass. Adding ceilings or a model after the plans have landed does not just cost the extra drafting; on some scopes it costs a second visit, which means paying the fixed half of the price twice.
If you are unsure, the useful question is not "how much detail can we justify?" but "what is the next decision this drawing has to survive?" A test fit, a permit application, a millwork order and a move plan each need a different amount, and the answer is usually obvious once the decision is named.
What does not change the price
It is worth being explicit about the things that are not levers, because in a market where most quoting happens behind a form, buyers reasonably assume everything is negotiable or chargeable.
The measurement accuracy is not a tier. Every scan is captured with the same LiDAR instrument to the same published tolerance, whether the job is a listing record or a full asset survey. There is no version of the work where we measure less carefully because the scope is smaller. The 3D tour is not an upsell either — it ships with the survey rather than being priced on top, because in practice it is what prevents the return visits that would cost everyone more.
An occupied building is not a surcharge. We scan around staff, stock and furniture routinely, and where a space is better captured outside working hours the visit moves to an evening window rather than costing more for being awkward.
How to compare two as-built quotes
Two numbers for the same building are only comparable once you know they describe the same work. Five questions make them so.
Confirm both quotes cover the same detail level
A shell drawing and a set that records furniture and equipment are different products. A cheaper quote for less scope is not a cheaper quote.
Ask what files arrive, and how the CAD is layered
A PDF, a flat single-layer DWG and a properly layered set have very different downstream lives. A set your drafting team has to rebuild has a cost that does not appear on the invoice.
Ask whether the ceiling is included
Reflected ceiling plans are the most common thing to be in one quote and absent from the other, and the most common reason a second visit gets booked later.
Check how many visits are assumed
A price assuming one visit and a price assuming phased access are not the same price, and the difference is the part of the job that does not scale.
Ask what happens if the building is not as described
Everybody quotes from an approximate area and a description. What matters is whether a revised number arrives before the work starts or after it is finished.
A price, or a quote request
There is a commercial difference between as-built firms that has nothing to do with the amount and everything to do with when you learn it. Most of this market quotes: you describe the building through a form, and a number comes back in a day or three. One firm in Metro Vancouver publishes its rates openly, which is unusual and, on its own terms, honest.
Our own answer is neither a rate card nor a quote request. You put the approximate area and the detail level into the estimator and it prices your building immediately, then you book the date in the same flow. The reason is not transparency for its own sake. It is that as-built work usually sits at the front of somebody else's schedule — a lease decision this week, a design kickoff next Monday — and a quote that takes three days to arrive has spent a real part of the float before anyone has looked at the building.
If you are weighing providers rather than prices, the roundup of as-built companies in Metro Vancouver sets out what each firm publishes about itself, and why we think PlanBase 360 is the right pick for most jobs.
The cost that never appears on the invoice
The expensive failure in this work is not overpaying for a survey. It is designing over a drawing that turns out not to match the building, and finding out when the work is on site. A partition that lands 60mm out, a ceiling void that is shallower than the drawing claimed, a column nobody recorded: each one is a change on site, and a change on site is priced by a contractor who is already mobilised.
That is the comparison worth making. Not the difference between two survey quotes, which on a single commercial suite is usually modest, but the difference between either of them and one avoidable rework item. It is also why the accuracy of the underlying measurement matters more than the format of the deliverable, and why it is worth understanding what a stated tolerance figure actually describes before treating two of them as equivalent.
None of which means buying the largest scope available. It means buying the scope the next decision needs, from a measurement you can rely on, in a file your team can open.
Price your own building
The estimator takes an approximate square footage and a detail level and gives you a number for your space, with the booking in the same flow.
Opens the estimator on our home page — a price for your space before you speak to anyone.
Common questions
There is no single figure, because the price is driven by the floor area, how the space is subdivided, the level of detail captured and the file you need at the end. Rather than publish a rate card, we price your actual building in the estimator on our home page and let you book in the same flow.
Because a per-square-foot figure quoted out of context misleads more than it helps. An as-built price has a fixed component and a variable one, so the rate on a small suite looks high and the rate on a warehouse looks low without either telling you anything about value. The estimator gives you a total for your building, which is the number you can actually compare.
On a small building, the number of site visits, because each one carries the part of the price that does not scale. On a large one, the level of detail and how much of the ceiling and services are in scope, because those set how much drafting the job carries.
In total, usually yes. Per square foot, almost always less. Two spaces of the same area can also differ significantly if one is an open floor and the other is cut into many small rooms, because each enclosed room needs its own scan positions and its own drafting.
The one the next decision needs. Base 360 is a listing-ready record for leasing, planning and discovery. Shell 360 covers standard interiors, renovations and permit sets. Full 360 adds standard furniture, fixtures, equipment and facility assets for move management, facility audits and space planning. What a particular project requires is a question for the architect or designer running it.
No. Everything captured in one pass is drafted in one pass, so scope decided at booking is the cheapest scope. Adding to it after delivery starts a new round of drafting, and on some scopes it means a second site visit — which is the part of the price that does not scale.
No. We scan occupied commercial space regularly and work around staff, furniture and stock. Where a space is better captured outside working hours, the visit is booked into an evening window rather than priced differently.
Above 10,000 square feet the estimator asks for a conversation instead of giving a number, because very large areas, multiple buildings and unusual access need scoping rather than estimating. Non-standard projects get a detailed quote within four hours.
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See the number before you commit
Put your approximate area and detail level into the estimator and get a price for your building, then book the date in the same flow.