Drafter cost calculator
Start from the BLS median salary for your metro, and the calculator returns the loaded cost of a hire, the cost of each productive hour and the hours at which a salaried seat pays for itself.
The results appear here when the page's script loads.
An estimate from public data; the benefit share already includes Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation, and recruiting time is not included.
How the calculator works
The method is the one in the cost guide, with every input open to change.
- Salary. The defaults are the May 2025 median annual wages for BLS occupation 17-3011, the drafters who prepare building and civil drawings, from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey: $66,150 nationally, $76,630 in Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, $77,170 in New York–Newark–Jersey City and $58,800 in Chicago–Naperville–Elgin. A drafter who can take a multifamily set through CDs in Revit usually earns above the median, so replace the figure with the offer on the table.
- Benefits. In the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey for June 2026, benefits were 30.0 percent of total compensation for private industry workers. Total compensation is the salary divided by one minus that share. The benefit share already includes the legally required items, so the employer's Social Security tax (6.2 percent of wages up to $184,500 in 2026) and Medicare tax (1.45 percent) are shown as a part of it, from the IRS rates, never added twice.
- Software and equipment. Left at zero on purpose. Revit is sold per user per year, cloud worksharing needs its own subscription for each person in the model, and the workstation and desk are the practice's own figures.
- Productive hours. Paid hours minus leave, times the share of time spent on project work. The defaults (2,080 paid hours, 120 hours of leave, 80 percent on projects) are the guide's worked example and give 1,568 productive hours.
- Break-even. Enter a variable rate from a quote, and the calculator divides the loaded annual cost by it: the number of hours of work a year the practice needs before the salaried seat costs less.
A worked example
The Los Angeles defaults, with no software figure entered:
| Step | Figure |
|---|---|
| Median salary | $76,630 |
| Total compensation at a 30.0 percent benefit share | $109,471 |
| Of which employer Social Security and Medicare | $5,862 |
| Productive project hours, (2,080 minus 120) times 0.80 | 1,568 |
| Cost per productive project hour | $69.82 |
| Break-even at a variable rate of $87.28 an hour | 1,254 hours, 80 percent of the productive year |
In every metro in the table, a productive hour costs close to twice the median hourly wage before software and equipment. A rate 25 percent above the hire's loaded hourly cost still needs steady work for 80 percent of the year before the hire is the cheaper choice.
Reading the result
The numbers favor a hire when the pipeline is deep and steady: several multifamily sets in CDs at once, year after year, keep a seat busy. They favor variable capacity when the work arrives in waves, because a salaried seat costs the same in a slow quarter as in a busy one. Lower the project share to 70 percent to see a year with a slow quarter: the cost per productive hour rises on the same salary.
Two things the calculator cannot price: the months a new hire spends learning the office template, and who holds responsible control when someone outside the office draws the set. The standards handoff guide covers the first, and the responsible control guide the second.
When the comparison points to variable capacity, the useful figure is the price of a delivered package, fixed from its sheet list before work starts. That is how TECTO Studio prices construction documents.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 17-3011, national and metropolitan area estimates.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, private industry workers.
- Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates, 2026.
- TECTO Studio, What a drafter costs a small practice in 2026.