r/Architects

Hello friends!

I've got a question about how I should set my fees...

For context, this is for freelance work that I do for local investors who need drawings for permits on single-family residential renovation projects. So, nothing that's new construction and not stamping anything.

I typically charge a flat rate of $800-$1200 depending on size/scope and that covers my site visit and drawing deliverables. (My gut has been telling me this is pretty low, but I'm only half way through my licensure exams, so part of me feels like I can't charge more)

Depending on the municipality, I will sometimes have to make revisions per comments from the plans examiner, and sometimes I will have to make revisions based on design changes from the owner.

My flat rate fees aren't really covering the additional work that I'm doing in these instances.

I'm not sure how to recover the costs for this work. In my opinion I think I'm probably on the hook for changes due to code/plans examiner, but it's really hit or miss on how intense these revisions tend to be. As for owner design changes, I feel it's reasonable to charge for these.

Should I increase my flat rate to cover 1-2 rounds of revisions? Or take it on a case by case basis, meaning I would charge for each revision depending on the reason.

Again, this is all kind of fast and loose and I don't usually set up contracts with these clients, so I'm just looking for some advice on handling my business/feel a little better about possibility increasing my overall fees.

Thanks in advance :)

Everyone has always told me that architecture is a small world and word spreads. I’ve been at my second arch job for a little over a year and a half. I’ve tried hard to work hard but I keep getting marks on my drawings and we are required to make manufacturing extraction documents and I always miss one thing. I’ve made checklists and overall improved my accuracy but it’s never 100% perfect and I’ve been told by my a manger anything less than 100% is unacceptable. The company is a door manufacturer and has an in house arch team. It was the only job I could get at the moment. The work is boring and I feel I’m stagnating in my other skills. But I worry my bad performance at this job will taint my other chances and I’ll be blackballed out the industry because I can’t measure up. I don’t know what else to do. I feel helpless and I’m starting to have mental health issues. If you can’t make it early on in your career is there no hope? Should I give up? Will I permanently have a bad reputation?

Been 8 months, first job straight after getting my BA. Oh my god I'm so clueless. I can use softwares fluently (kinda? altho i still learn new things about revit's constraints everyday, like just having a cohesive and clean revit file a whole other topic) but man, how anything works or why they change something 3 times a day is beyond me. I get stuff explained to me and i do it EXACTLY how it was explained, but somehow something always has to be off and im like why tf is this like this now😭 and ofc days or weeks after im done modeling something (literally as it was explained to me), someone remembers some sort of regulation that is broken and then it's just going back and fourth, never ending loop. Ofc people forget one of the billion aspects they have to consider when planning, totally normal, but oh my god this field is a fricking ocean. I feel like an AI sometimes. Worst part is the amount of overtime i do but when i wanna look back at what im doing all week, it's really not that much (or not so visible, like revit cleaning and fixing and modelling and annotations etc) 😭😭 While everyone is really nice and patient with me, i cant help but feel like that im gonna get fired at some point cuz there's too much i don't know🤣

Hey guys, I am supposed to be starting work part-time next week. My GF’s cousin is an architect and he’s taking me under his wing so I can get into the field. Where I live, there isn’t much opportunity and it was difficult just getting an internship in order to graduate, let alone finding a job.

Well, the issue is I took my last architecture class in May 2025. It is now May 2026. The gap is due to needing an internship (like I mentioned above) and it took me 6 months to find one in order to graduate. I graduated in November of 2025. But, my point is, outside of my 3 month internship where I barely learned anything, I have been working a minimum wage job at a grocery store for a year now because I have bills. Surely i’m not the only person who’s had a relatively large gap between finishing school & starting work… so I’m hoping you guys could offer some advice for getting back into the flow of things without seeming insanely lost.

I’ve already begun watching “Balkan Architect” to refresh some revit stuff. But I’m just terrified of being in the work force since I’m not fresh out of school anymore

Is architecture in college really as hard as people say? Im interested in taking it but I keep hearing theres a huge workload, sleepless nights, and nonstop plates/projects. Will I still have time to play games and have free time or does architecture basically take over your whole life?

Location: SE Michigan, United States

This is for anyone in the SE Michigan area. Is the big name of U of M worth the money? Like, would merely graduating with an m.Arch from U of M give me an upper hand? My parents live 15 minutes outside downtown Ann Arbor, and we used to live in Ann Arbor so I'm familiar with the campus and city.

Also, does Detroit Mercy, being a Catholic school, mean some employers could reject my application for merely graduating there? I am not religious but my fiancé and I live maybe 10-15 minutes away.

If an employer had to choose between two candidates, one from U of M and one from DM, would they be more likely to pick one over the other?

Are there significant positives and negatives between the two universities?

I am in Arizona, US. I'm currently working with a smaller architectural firm (maybe 5 designers) to come up with plans for remodeling my 1970's ranch style home to add a second story (~1300sqft) and a smaller main floor addition (~300sqft). I'm not a professional builder by any means, but have done major remodels on 5 homes as well as an owner/builder on a 1200sqft new construction personal home.

I started the engagement with them at the end of December and they sent someone out the first week of January to take measurements of the existing house so that they could draw up an as-built plan and begin the work. We went back and forth to work out the floor plan through March and the experience was overall decent with my only complaint being that it would usually take a week to get a response back from them. At the end of March we were settled with the floorplan and design and they were going to send it off to a structural engineer to size any foundation changes and beams for the second floor, we were told at that point that we should be able to submit for a permit by the end of April.

I reached back out mid April to double check that we are still on schedule, and apparently the engineer had been on an extended vacation and wasn't even going to look at it until the following week. Okay, sure. We finally got a complete set of plans back at the end of April to review before submitting to the city for permitting.

Upon reviewing the plans, I realized that they had drawn up all of my interior walls as 2x6 instead of the 2x4 that they actually are and were expecting 6x6 posts in several of these walls to hold up the floor system above. I sent them some detailed notes about this and we are working through it.

Due to a lack of overall dimensions listed on any of the floorplans that we approved, I also didn't realize until this final review set that they mis-measured the existing house. Being off 3-4" on most of the interior measurements on the existing first floor, while annoying, can likely be worked around. They were, however, short by 2' 7" in the overall structure in one dimension...

I got a copy of the as-built plan from them (after some delay) and went through the major measurements and the interiors under where the second floor will be. I updated the dimensions listed and sent them back over. They're now reviewing it.

TLDR: after working with an architect for 5 months on a total 1500sqft addition (mostly second story) I realized that they mis-measured my existing house by 2' 7" in one dimension and 4" in the other.

Am I crazy for thinking this should be going much smoother than it has been? Is there anything you would suggest that I could do from my side to help the process along? I'm at a bit of a loss at this point and the amount of faith I have in my architect is dropping by the day.

I don't often venture into interior design and finish selection in my architecture practice but when I do I can usually hold my own. This time I've been stumped as I have a client asking specifically for a Belgian Bluestone flooring in a flagstone format. I understand that sourcing this kind of flooring is not as simple as picking a product from a ceramic tile manufacturer, i.e. "Daltile, Tundra Rectangle Stone, Color Code: SS72, 12"x24" in Running Bond."

As I understand it, you have to source it from a quarry? Who is the middleman I ought to be looking for to help me source something like this? The few interior finish reps I've reached out to have came back with ceramic tile suggestions and that's just not going to work. Thanks in advance for any guidance and direction from this community.

https://preview.redd.it/n6dvx6ta832h1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcf3260a5d2d4d79da53cfccd59fd8ddf43a9f6c

Hello fellow architects

I am an architectural designer at a big corporate arch firm who has 4.5 years of exp doing education/science/healthcare projects in LA area.

I am studying for ARE, and passed 3 exams so far. I don’t see myself working in Arch industry forever and want to switch to developer side if I can.

Is it better to have an architect license as a developer? Or it doesn’t matter?

So I am a senior is high school (graduating this week) 😼. And even though I’m attending university for CM I really wanted to be an architect and study architecture. The issue was that the accredited schools I applied to didn’t offer very good scholarships and aid and my family isn’t very well off. So my plan right now is to get my undergrad in CM, work in the field for a bit, and then go back for my master’s in architecture. I know it’ll probably take like three years but I’m willing to do it since I’ve wanted to complete a Master’s degree anyways.

So I’m curious is architecture firms have any use for people who studied CM. Because I would still like to work as an architect, I want to be in an architectural/design heavy environment instead of committing to a construction management job.

I’ve read that there are multiple positions and roles in architecture firms that do estimation, budgeting and what not so I just want to know if someone with a CM could realistically go into one of those positions and continue their education from there.