How much should a student charge for cad work?

[unclefarkus]

Hello,

So I am doing some cad work for my father's landlord. He has given me 22 building plans that are on paper and wants them recreated in a nicer format digitally. They are really pretty simple - poche walls, add dimensions, toilets, windows and doors. It's kind of time consuming. Some buildings are very large office buildings. I told him I'd figure out how much to charge him. But I am really not sure what the rate per hour would be? I imagine it would be different for a student than an actual office. Plus I don't want to charge him an arm and a leg - he's my dad's friend. Any ideas? I want to tell him what I am thinking ASAP before I get too far along - just in case

[ihabkal]

seesm to me your dad's pal will be making a LOT of money off your back. Anything less than $20 an hour is not good imo.

Thanks,

Ihab

[frank1331]

I would figure out your total time and submit it as a total price, not an hourly rate. I wouldn't necessarily discount your rate just because you are a student. If you proficient with the software, the only difference between you and someone at a firm is that person is employed at a firm. Unless this is a school project, you shouldn't look the work as being student work. As far as a rate I think anything under 25 an hour is too low.

[John Dollus]

unless you have purchased a commercial license for that drafting software, charging anything would be wrong on many levels. also, make sure you have a legal disclaimer to protect you against litigation in the event there are any inaccuracies in the dwgs. after all, since the landlord is pawning off the responsibility of creating official documents of record, he's no longer respsonsible for damages resulting from those dwgs. 22 building plans is pretty shady to pass off to someone without a business license much less a tenant's son. family friend or not, tread carefully.

[unclefarkus]

I have an educational license. I don't really see a problem with charging because this will require a good bit of time which is what I am basically charging for. Additionally, I volunteered for the job when he was telling me about it one day asking if I could recommend anybody. Maybe that's what he was hoping? I don't know. What I'm drawing from is far from accurate to begin with. Most are hand drawings he did. Very few have been signed off by a licensed architect. I'm pretty sure he is just using them to show future leasers via printed copy and website what the spaces and dimensions look like. I don't think they are meant to serve as any kind of record. I'm unsure if that effects the legitimacy of it. My plans look better than the ones that the licensed architects have done (in my honest opinion, granted they are up to 20 years old hehe). I'm doing them as I can because I have studio and such to worry about first and foremost - so maybe charging a total is better. It's hard to keep track when you work on one here and there. Maybe do a rough guess of how much time I spent. Go from there.

[3dkiwi]

As far as i know you cant use an educational license to make money with. You will need to upgrade to a full commercial licence first.

 

You could ask the client to buy that for you as part payment.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Educational license is not a commercial license, and it is against the EULA to make money off of work you do with it. I would also re-read John's advice, it is very valuable in terms of the potential problems you are opening yourself up to.

 

The thing that is not clear to me is what the building plans are going to be used for? ...are these simply plans that will be used to show people the footprint of the building? ...or are these plans that will potentially be used for the construction or renovation? If the later is the case I would tread extremely extremely carefully, and then I would re-read John's post again.

[Tommy L]

Get a big fat disclaimer signed, basically saying that you did the drawings as an aesthetic exercise, not to be scaled, built from or even looked at by anybody...

All students do this kind of thing if they can get their hands on it. Its graft for good money instead of using all your study time working in a bar.

 

However, if there is any chance anyone will use these drawings for anything other than sales, stand back, it could be trouble.

[heni30]

Realistically speaking, here in Atlanta job ads are offering $12-14 an hour. There's a glut of out of work people out there.

[AJLynn]

Ask for 25 but be willing to come down to 20.