If you've never had to hire an architect before, it can be difficult to know what the average cost of architect fees should be.

Unfortunately, some architects aren't the best at communicating with clients, which can give you false expectations about your budget and lead to expensive design revisions down the line.

Don’t let these stories deter you. Let them inspire you to find an architect with great communication skills! 

When you hire an architect, we aim to help you spend less, not more, by helping you make informed decisions.

In this article, we're exploring:

• What determines architectural fees 
• What determines total project costs
• What services you get when you hire an architect
• How good communication with your architect saves you money

The Average Cost of Architect Fees

When you are interviewing most architects and ask how much your project will cost to design, they'll likely tell you, "well, that depends."

And it really does! Every architectural project is so different and will therefore incur very different costs. It all comes down to the complexity and size of your project. 

How Architectural Fees Are Different From Project Costs

The cost of architect fees don't include the total project cost. They are solely the fees for the architect’s part in the project, which you can find in the part of your contract that talks about the scope of work.

Project costs will include things like the actual construction cost, permitting costs, as well as any outside consultant’s fees.

The Most Common Consultants We Work With at DFDG

Structural Engineers: Structural engineers help us ensure the safety of your property's design development, especially if there are large openings in your building.

Mechanical Engineers: Mechanical engineers help us with sizing and the type of equipment we need to fulfill your building plans - especially in remodeling projects, where you may want to switch from gas to electric, for example.

Landscape Architects: Landscape architects help us design the space surrounding your property while maintaining compliance with local building department codes and regulations.

Interior Designers: Working with an interior designer helps our architects blend your home or property's design with the interiors.

While we perform some interior work ourselves for things like flooring, countertops, and walls, we'll hire an external interior designer for other work like decorating, furnishing, and accessories.

Contractors: At DFDG, we don't work on residential projects unless we initially collaborate with contractors. The final construction cost architects charge will be greatly determined by this collaboration.

“The role of the contractor is so much more than just the person who coordinates the subcontractors and gets the project physically built. They’re attending design meetings from day one, listening to what our client likes and doesn’t like, helping us prioritize product ordering for items with long lead times, and giving us accurate cost estimates.”

• Damian Farrell

Principal & Founder

Breakdown of Architectural Services

Below is a breakdown of what you typically get when you hire an architect. 

Initial Consultation

This is usually a paid initial consultation to lay the groundwork for your project and develop a good understanding of your needs, wants, budgets, and timelines.

At DFDG, we go all in at this discovery stage to learn as much as we can about you and your project long before we begin drawings.

Feasibility Studies and Site Survey

In this site survey and feasibility study, we'll get a literal lay of the land and understand the topography and natural elements associated with your property.

Project Planning

During the project planning phase, the goal is to make sure all of the team members, project management information, and the project files are put together and finalized.

“Pulling that team together at the very beginning is critical. It helps everyone stay empathetic with the client’s goals, needs, and very importantly, their budget. Matching the right people with the right experiences at the right time is what helps our projects stay on track.”

- Damian Farrell

Principal & Founder

Design Development

Also included in our architect's cost is the time we spend on concept development and creating your architectural drawings using cutting-edge 2D and 3D architecture design technology and Building Information Management software.

We’re also collaborating with consultants to manage construction costs, creating an efficient design and building process, and putting in a ton of hours behind the scenes to get your architectural design just right.

Construction Documentation

Before the construction process begins, we create highly detailed construction documents including your building plans and design and informative instructions for your construction team.

Permitting

During the permitting stage, where your contractor sends our architectural drawings to get planning approval, our architects will make themselves available to answer any questions local building authorities have about the design.

Construction Administration

The final cost for our licensed architects includes the cost of construction administration. This stage is when our architects oversee the construction process and ensure your contractors are building to your exact preferences as outlined in the design.

We will perform several site visits and inspections to ensure your project is progressing nicely, there are no building errors, and your contractors know what they're doing.

3 Ways Good Communication Lowers Design Costs

When you hire a good architect, they should help you lower your costs. The key here is to hire an architect with good communication skills.

How does good communication with your architect lower the cost? We’re exploring the 3 key ways below. 

1 - Starts Your Project Off On The Right Path

Having everyone involved in your architectural project on board from the beginning helps us streamline communication and get the information we need to give you more accurate costs.

By bringing on your contractors and other consultants from the beginning and diving deep into your design needs, we start the project off the right way, with a clear idea of both costs and your goals.

At DFDG, we take these initial consultations very seriously and go to great lengths to gather as much information and detail as possible. The more we learn about your needs, wants, and budget from the start, the more on-point and fast our design process will be. 

According to a RIBA survey of architecture clients, the most common reason for budget overspending was ‘briefing issues’ - suggesting architects need to be clearer early on if the client’s expectations don't match the budget. 

Early and in-depth communication is key to minimizing construction revisions or mistakes down the line. 



2 - Ensures A 2-Way Dialogue

Good communication with a licensed architect makes all the difference. If you can trust your architect to listen to your needs and put you first, you'll have an easier time getting exactly what you want out of your residential or commercial design. 

It's important to feel like you can voice your opinion, share ideas, and collaborate well together. Open communication from the beginning brings clarity to the design process, construction process, and overall architect costs. 



3 - Transparency Lowers Construction Cost

Communication drives our linear process from design to construction. If we miss something during the design development phase, you can bet it will cause a major issue during the construction phase and increase the construction cost.

Whether it's something your architect didn't communicate to you or vice versa, something that may seem small can become a big problem later on. Being as open and transparent as possible about your needs, desires, and opinions will help you avoid this. 

In this new world of supply issues and long lead times for building materials, having strong communication processes from the beginning helps us identify exactly what materials we need from the start, rather than down the road when it can cause delays.



What You Can Do to Ensure Good Communication With Your Architect

From an architect’s perspective, there are some traits we look for in a client that contribute to good communication. These are: 

• Understanding value
• Trusting the experts
• Trusting the process
• Asking questions
• Being realistic and honest about the budget from the beginning

Understand Value

When you hire an architect, you look for their expertise and guidance. One of the key hallmarks of good communication practices is working with clients who understand and appreciate the value of an architect's experience and role.

Trust The Experts

If you don't trust your architect to have your best interests in mind, or to make the best use of your budget and save you money where it makes sense, then why hire an architect? That's what we're here for. 

For example, you might have a dream of having a hot tub out in the woods on your property. But, have you thought about what it will be like to trudge back to your house soaking wet in the middle of winter? 

We know what your idea will look like when it’s built and can ask the right questions to guide you to the best design. We have seen and heard it all. If you don’t trust us and our expertise, you could end up with a design that makes you unhappy or costs you extra money...

Trust The Process

If you don't have faith in the design process, you'll most likely encounter communication problems that lead to revisions, changes, and spending more money than you need to. 

Ask Questions

We love when our clients ask us lots of questions, about our process, architect fees, and anything that gives you more clarity about our work and why we do it. There really are no stupid questions in architecture. 

In fact, we wish all of our future clients could spend time asking our past clients questions so they know what to expect.

“I think the biggest challenge is that people who haven't worked with an architect before likely won’t fully understand the value of the service. 

The combination of talent, creativity, and expertise and ability to show possibilities, manage cost, and enable contracts to build the property to precise detail may be lost on some. 

That’s why we love having our new clients speak to past ones to gain trust in our process.”

-Damian Farrell

Principal & Founder

Being Realistic and Honest About the Budget From the Beginning

It’s our job to help guide you when developing your design wishlist and making decisions. We will let you know when your dreams don’t match with your budget. Sometimes we can help you find a similar, lower cost option for something on your wishlist that doesn’t line up with your budget.

For us to do this, we need to know what your budget is during the first steps of the design. Being realistic and honest will keep you from being disappointed, which is one of our main goals.

What Your Architect Should Do to Ensure Good Communication with You

Now, what communication qualities should you, as the client, look for in your architect? Here are some of the key aspects of our communication processes that have helped us improve collaboration and clarity with our clients, contractors, and consultants. 

• Communicate with everyone - so we're all on the same page
• Frequent check-ins – we don't let anything sit. 
• Be responsive - we aim to tell you if there's a problem within an hour
• Keep communication organized – we take notes for reference
• Include two of our team members in conversations - we do this so nothing gets lost or missed

Why It's Important To Include Everyone In Communication

Over 30 years ago, we once worked with a couple. While the husband was busy at work, the wife took over the design planning with our architects. He wasn't involved in all of our design meetings, revisions, and discussions - and was only receiving daily updates.

When he saw the estimated cost per square foot for his residential project, he wasn't happy and didn't want to continue, despite us putting in the work to design his wife's dream forever home. 

Now we include everyone in any communication about the project to avoid these types of situations. It’s our goal to have no one have unrealistic expectations or big surprises.

“I think at its most basic level, the DFDG method of communicating with clients is as simple as making sure that everyone who needs to know the information is on that piece of communication.”

- Damian Farrell

Principal & Founder

Ready To Hire An Architect Who Understands The Value Of Good Communication?

We hope this article has given you a little more insight into how architects charge for their design services, the factors contributing to the architectural fee structure and total project costs, and why communication is so important for lowering costs. 

If you're interested in working with our architects on your next residential or commercial project, we'd love to hear from you.

At DFDG, we've been enhancing how people experience buildings and interiors for over fifty years. Our superpower lies in creating simple solutions for complex challenges and designing buildings that last a lifetime and enrich the human experience. 



If you'd like to learn more about our process or talk to our architects about an upcoming project, please get in touch.