How Would You Charge for CAD Work?

If it's what you would/could charge, depends on your efficiencies and what the market will bear...... Do not know either, so can't give an answer.

Me neither. I do know that there are just a handful of us left that do CAD design with fishing gear. I do not know their proficiency or costing.

I'd say $25.00 USD per hour would be the going rate.

Maybe look at some employment sites on the web for something equivalent to what you do.

$25 per hour seems low. I'd have estimated $40 or higher. But it depends on a lot of factors. I agree though on checking local sites to find the going rates for CAD work.

I would guess that there are quite a few people without CAD or ME degrees in small shops that only get $10 to $12 per hour. If there is a piece of paper framed on the wall I guess $2x - $4x per hour. Contract work with a degree, business cards, office with receptionist, etc. might run $80/hour.

Lyn's suggestion of $25/hour sounds like a good number.

.....in small shops that only get $10 to $12 per hour.

10-12.00 hour....

I take you have no idea of the hidden costs?

I do know a little about hidden costs. I also know a little about the shops with very low pay. One of the key features is that they tend to not last very long. Thus, my suggestion was that if the CAD work is "somewhat on the side" and "not really the focus of his business" then Lyn's suggested $25 seemed like a good initial value to consider.

If you make an appointment at ACME Engineering, sign in with the receptionist, wait in the waiting room and then talk to someone in the conference room you will probably pay $80 to $120 per hour for their services. Netmaker's posting suggested a lower overhead operation.

The point that I'm getting at, whether it's $25.00 or $80.00.

There are costs evolved. The point being, Sure 25.00/hour is fine if its matches your requirement. If it doesn't, $25.00 can be deceivingly cheaper, while $45.00-80/hours actually the cheaper.

When I did it7-8 years ago, it was 42.50/hour as a designer with Cadd, for Engineering it was $85.00/hour.

The one thing I bring out front is that I specified it so that there is an understanding.

Otherwise, after you start working, slowly design and engineering responsibilities are added to the project. (scope creep)

But looking at some of the examples, it actually looks like technical writing.

All good suggestions. I'll shop around and see what is out there. However, I only know of two other companies that do their own work like this and neither goes into the detail I do.

The thought is that the more information you put out there the more liable you are for the finished result. In my case I am reasonably confident of the result before I design something. The CAD drawings show the customer how to set up and use the gear, adjust it and repair it to an extent . If they don't speak English they can still understand it as I have done work through the FAO/UN and the nets went to non-English speaking countries.

Anyway, thank you all and l will look around for something similar.

A few weasel words are often worth much more than the cost of the ink to print them. From you comment you might wish to consider adding to each drawing something similar to "These assembly instructions are provided for reference only. All safety and operational procedures are the responsibility of the ship's captain".

Lyn's figure seems low. Then again, if there is no designing or engineering envolved then all you are doing is simply documentation.

Basically, if they are not complaining about the price you are probably not charging enough.

ha ha!

it does sound more like electronic drafting.

To find help in starting a business I would suggest that you contact SCORE.org that is financed by the (SBA) Small Business Administration and arrange a free mentoring session which can be face to face or email depending on your location.

I have been in SCORE for over 22 years since I retired and have mentored over 1000 Clients both F-F and email. I'm sure you will find one of the 17,000 volunteer members who can guide you in your efforts.

Good luck in your efforts.

Marv

This was mentioned to me before. We are in business since 1988 but with the decrease in net makers nation wide ( this is considered a dying trade) our business has grown .

thank you for the information.

Check out Craig's List under the "Gigs" section. There are a lot of people who do work on the side to fill their boredom time and wallet. The rates are somewhat comparable to real world employment.

These are some examples:

There are 3-5 sheets like this with each sheet having more and more detail. I am not going to bore you all with all of that.... these are just the average drawings.

These are the STARTER or HEADER sheets. Enhanced drawings of each segment follow and they have more detail.

I am thinking at least $25/hr. depending on how much "detail". I am NOT a trained draftsman or architect so my stuff is not so clean.

Thank you all for the comments and warnings. I do include a disclaimer as some customers feel they are just too smart to follow instructions.

Not so much from an engineering point but from an artistic point of view I would be expecting to pay something like $50 to $100 per drawing for technical drawings like that. It all really depends on how many drawings there are and how much work and complexity is involved in each.

Remember that when you are charging for CAD work your costs are not just the work itself but for the cumulative computer hardware and software and office costs which can add up substantially. (I assume that you're not using $50,000 per year per seat CAD software though.. :) )

A few points, as I see them.

netmaker is a sole proprietor with a very small business.

Until now, he seems to have been absorbing his drafting costs into the general overhead of his operation. His customers never see a charge for it.

Producing brochures does not necessarily add value to the nets he produces. It MAY increase the number of nets he sells.

Adding more detail to the paper part of the operation may not be seen as a reason for increasing the cost of the product, until some value/cost is associated with the production of the paper.

"He" is the marketing, drafting, production, testing and shipping departments of his company.

Right now, as far as the customer sees it the paper is free.

$25.00/hour seemed to me to be a good starting place.

What it really does is allow the customer to get the most out of his net by showing him/her how to BEST use it and how to ADJUST it when there is a different current, water depth, boat or engine size, etc.

I have found that the longer someone has been in the research business ( scientific end) the chances are the less they are going to read instructions. We all do it .... its why I draw more than I write instructions. Everybody can look at a picture or drawing....hence the Cartoon CAD moniker.

$25 seems a good place to start.

Just as you reached out to your CR4 associates here, why don't you try reaching out to the few others that are still in your industry. While they may be your competition for your share of the money in the market, they may well be just hard working people doing similar things and with similar problems to solve. Every place I ever worked at had a working relationship with our competitors. Selling fruits and vegetables, repairing bowling alleys, cars trucks or fire engines. Would you be willing to use your CAD skills for money if it was not going to lead to a sale of your normal product?

I have done work ( design and building prototypes) for many small and large businesses in our trade. Some was on the clock, some was just a good will "freebie". Some of the work was taken with appreciation....some was just taken.

I have also had some of the same people I tried to help, commit copyright infringement, break contacts and the absolute taboo of our trade. . . . commit design theft.

I understand your comment and I thank you for your thoughts. There are only a handful of us left in this business . We really should collaborate more than we do. Its just our nature to work alone .

If hiring someone to create manuals becomes too costly, here's an alternative that you may be able to do yourself. You sound very resourceful and willing to learn (new software). I am an automotive designer and have been working in a 3D CAD software called SolidWorks. They offer a separate software called Composer, here's a link:

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/products/technical-communication/solidworks-composer.htm

This software can turn existing CAD dwgs and even printed dwgs into manuals generated from different software and even from CAD dwgs generated in SolidWorks.

Please IM me if you have any questions and I can point you in the right direction if this interests you.

Good Luck,

UFG

Thank you for the link and the offer. I have heard about Solid works. I am self taught at CAD. My licensed AC 2012LT is about all I can handle right now without proper training. I am no where in your league as far as CAD drafting goes.

I appreciate your offer though and might very well PM you later this Spring as we are looking at doing a little something different with the How-To brochures.

Thank you again for the offer and I will be in touch.

As a former buyer of occasional services I searched http://www.peopleperhour.com/freelance/cad and found £16 - £25 in the main, with one (Budapest) at £7 and another ("web programmer" - London) at £40. I suggest that netmaker starts at £18 - £20 and reacts to Client comments. Run up the flag and see who salutes!

occasional

Thank you and what is that in US dollars??

1 British Pound Sterling equals 1.67 US Dollar

Add "Operation and Maintenance Manual" or "User's Manual" to the bill of materials or packing list for the net and rigging set.

Don't give it an itemised value, just as you wouldn't itemise the value of every D-shackle, or eye thimble, but just add $513.42 to the total selling price.

I like your business approach.

I'd say a minimum of $50 to $75 per hour, depending on where you live, if you are working as an independent contractor in the U.S. without benefits. What you are performing is a skilled technical service. My dog sitter charges $16 for a half hour visit. Why should you discount your knowledge and experience to the point where you are charging the wages of unskilled labor?

We are an LLC and yes we have to buy our own insurance and such. Benefits are that my partner is a bonafide Cajun cook and I eat good! Too Good!

I would say a lot depends on what your customer wants the drawings/designs for.

There will be basic costs for traditional services and you will have to compete with these.

In the 'old days' a lot of design costs were attributed to the drawing process of a highly skilled draughtsman that could takes hours to transfer design concepts to paper. Nowadays it is almost a few seconds. So you have to weight up the value of the service your customer is buying from you. Is it design expertise - or just drawings.

But as most posts say, pitch in a sensible price, and see what happens. But be careful, because (if successful) you go in too low you might get a lot of business that you cannot afford to service. No problem if it is occasional pocket money.

In an 'off-topic' analogy, we quoted a special low price for a non-standard product using labour in quiet periods of production and using off-cuts (that would have been binned anyway). We treated the income as a contribution to the profits.

Our customer came back sometime later asking us to quote for larger amounts. But instead of a quantity discount (expected by the customer) we had to bump the price up because it meant buying new stock made up in prime production time - and that was an expensive direct cost. No orders here then!

It is basically a question of an income for you for a hobby or a profitable business.

I made that mistake years ago with a gear we re-designed for a state agency. They had this 'creation' they were using and it was horrendous..... no defined Fish Cirlcle, no semblance of Net Geometry, hanging ratios and coefficienst were are wrong... a mess.

So we asked them what they were trying to achieve and then redesigned the whole net and bridle system to do just that. I thought, OK this is just a one time deal... its a favor we did and that is that...cost was minimal as we used some pieces of netting that we had lying around ... it was just to get them off the books.* yep, I drew them up a How-To Brochure just for their new net*

BAM! that net design went viral as the kids say. We had orders pouring in and the state agency that had asked us to re-design it, was promoting us to everyone. I had to raise the cost because we had to buy supplies and materials that we normally do keep much of on hand. Even today, we sell the heck out of that net and 4 other advanced models that came as Spin Offs from the original. Oh yes, I understand about those one time deals made from "in the bin" pieces. ha ha.

great story, kudos....

The logical break down of costs is :

Computer cost prorated CADD station, special plotters, inks, paper.

Software cost prorated includes "Annual extortion fees" for software

CADD hourly rate

Additional for printing and output based on cost plus profit and overhead

You must consider the value of this based on who your clients are. I have found to show this as an additional fee is often, regretably, very poorly received by the client.

Your call.

My clients are scientists chasing after fish and other marine organisms that are either invasive or endangered...both sometimes very hard to catch. When they find us they have often been using 30 year old methods and designs to do the chasing. When we develop a new gear specific for their work, they beg us for these "How-To brochures".... so they can get the most of their gear. About 90% of them actually look it over intensely. the rest just hand it off to a tech person onboard and have them review it.

I never mentioned this but I calculate that I spend easily 40 hours a month on the phone with even more advanced technical assistance. My phone bill reads like a small phone book. And no, I never charge for that...I just learned to wear a heads set while working.

Thank you for the comments.

Hello Netmaker,

After reading all the responses I was a little surprised to see no recommendation to establish a cost for your labor. This may be difficult to do as a sole proprietor unless you are paying yourself a fixed salary and benefit package. If you are not, it's still a good idea to establish a cost for your labor. An accountant would be better suited to help you with that than me.

I've been estimating custom machinery for several years and for multiple companies and each has always based labor rates on actual cost. Margin is typically applied to the cost of the entire job to determine the total price. Don't mess with the cost if you have to adjust price, only margin.

You could offer the "good" graphic manual as an extra cost option if you discover the cost of doing so is high.

By the way, the last rate I used, here in N.C. was $85/hr, but it was aerospace so it is a different market than yours.

Thank you too.

My accountant preaches at me every year that I give away too many "freebies".

...and yes, aerospace work is far and above what I do!

Sorry Netmaker only if you think your abilities are worth less is it so. There are few people doing what you do so your value to them should show an elevated cost of doing business. I am a locksmith and it is a dieing art to be a really good one, So many scammers. To try and help those whom have been scammed most of the work I do today is help people that have been hit by these people. You have a decreasing amount of competion that should allow you to increase your margins as you make your technical side more techy. Thus more profitable but I understand better than most some times we just have to bite the bullet and charge what we feel is what the market will bear even if we think it should be more. Duke

A real locksmith is hard to find these days. it is indeed a dying trade..... and yes, there are a lot of scammers out there.

I understand exactly what you are saying. As it stands right now, about 75% of the research gear we sell is not found anywhere else in the US or Canada. Some of my most serious competitors have gone over to the DARK SIDE and outsourced their work! I always encourage them to do so and offer my services with contacts and even CAD designs of THEIR product for the overseas manufacturer to follow, just to get them to stay buying "over seas".

$45 to $65 an hour. Depending on your overhead costs. You can consider $25/hr as the portion you keep as your personal income. You'll want to set up an office, whether it's a room in your house or rent an office space to meet with clients and expenditures for advertising, you're not going to be getting much business if no one knows you exist and you'll have to make sure you set a portion off to cover your business taxes and have a professional available to figure your taxes and make sure you get all the deductions available to you.

Not exactly the same line of work, but we charge $50/hour for all engineering work here where I work.

Don't ever give it away free - the customer can and will use your work with your competitors.

A few years back we had a process skid project to quote with a bus control system. Having some free time during the quoting period, I put together a complete and detailed CAD set of the bus system interconnect and the actual skid mounted control panels we were proposing to build for them. Our sales staff said we were 100% sure of getting the project. Long story shortened - a competitor got the job and used our drawings for the control system work. No more free CAD work here.

"Don't ever give it away free - the customer can and will use your work with your competitors."

Boy have we had that problem before.....

I think Solar Eagle has a point....I would add that if it's a 1 off, you need to figure your cost/time directly and charge for it, multiples of that design are the cost of manufacture, plus copy cost of the cad (figure in time for minor mod's)...a lower price for a purchaser of YOUR product, and a higher price for someone who just wants the cad dwg's for their own use. I've done this with hardware and software designs of automated systems and it's kept defense contractor's I've done business with from using my designs without paying for them.

You and SE make a very good point.

Thank you for them comment.

There's been a bit of chatter here about doing jobs at a discount rate because "scrap" material was on hand..

There's no such thing as scrap material. You should sell it at it's replacement cost plus margin as you would any "new" materials.

For small jobs the "bother to profit" ratio is low as you can't spread the design and setup time over a larger volume.

When was the last time a supplier (mates excluded of course) gave you a piece of anything just because it was left over from another job?

thank you for the insight. I too am supposed to be retired.. twice...but I too keep working because I like this work and its exciting to get to create something new every few weeks.

I have no idea why we are doing off topic?

Take care .

Netmaker