Engineering drawing cost
What does an engineering drawing cost?
About $730 of engineering time for a typical production drawing: 3.9 hours to make it, 2 to check it before release and 2.3 more in revisions, at a loaded $90 an hour.
Where most parts are simple it is nearer $600; where most are complex, nearer $880. The hours are Drafter’s working figures, because nobody publishes them, and the hourly cost is built from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Every number is below with its source.
The working
One typical drawing, line by line.
| Line | Hours | Cost | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Making it | 3.9 | $350 | 0.5 h for a simple part, 3 h standard, 10 h complex, in a typical mix of 20/60/20. Drafter’s working figure.1 |
| Checking it before release | 2 | $180 | Drafter’s working figure.1 |
| Revising it after release | 2.3 | $200 | 1.5 revisions of 1.5 h each, redrawing and re-checking. Drafter’s estimate.2 |
| One drawing | 8.2 | $730 | At $90 an hour, below. |
The hourly cost
By part mix
Simple parts cost less to draw, complex ones more.
Checking and revisions stay the same; making the drawing is what changes with the part.
| A team whose drawings are | Simple / standard / complex | Hours | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mostly simple parts | 50 / 40 / 10 | 6.7 | $600 |
| Typical | 20 / 60 / 20 | 8.2 | $730 |
| Mostly complex parts | 10 / 50 / 40 | 9.8 | $880 |
For a team
25 engineers, 1,500 new drawings a year.
- Hours a year
- 12,000
- Of the team's hours
- 27%
- Full-time engineers
- 6.8
- A year
- $1.1M
An engineer is available about 1,800 hours a year once holidays, vacation and sick days come out.4 Published surveys put the share of engineering time spent on drawings nearer a third, 33% and 32%, both published by or for software vendors.5 These figures come in under that.
What the figure leaves out
Two costs that cannot be checked from outside your company.
Errors that reach the shop. A drawing that goes out wrong costs scrap, rework, inspection and schedule. It is real, it varies by industry, and it is not in the figure above.
Tolerances tighter than the part needs. Cost-tolerance studies find machining to IT5 costs about six times IT13.6 Engineering changes as a whole take about 30% of engineering work in one survey and 31% of R&D capacity in another; the revision line above counts only redrawing and re-checking.7
Questions
What managers ask about the cost of drawings.
- How long does it take to make an engineering drawing?
- Drafter's working figure is 30 minutes for a simple part, 3 hours for a standard one and 10 for a complex one, plus about 2 hours to check it before release. We found no published figure, so these come from conversations with engineering teams. Change them to yours in the savings calculator.
- What does an hour of engineering time cost?
- About $90, loaded. A mechanical engineer's median wage is $50.05 an hour (BLS, May 2025). Wages are 69.2% of what professional staff cost in pay and benefits (BLS, June 2026), which makes about $72. A quarter on top for desk, software and management makes $90.
- How much of an engineering team's time goes into drawings?
- On these figures, a team of 25 engineers releasing 1,500 new drawings a year spends 27% of its available hours on them. Published surveys put it nearer a third: 33% of design time (Tech-Clarity, 2017) and 32% of engineers' time at build-to-order firms (Cincom, 2007), both published by or for software vendors.
- What does Drafter change?
- Drafter makes the drawing from your CAD model: about 4 minutes to a production-ready drawing, and 95% less drafting time. The savings calculator works through what that means for your team's numbers.
Sources
- 1. Drafter's working figure, from conversations with engineering teams. We found no published figure, so change it to yours.
- 2. Drafter's estimate. We found no published figure, so change it to yours.
- 3. A mechanical engineer's median wage is $104,110 a year, $50.05 an hour (BLS, May 2025). Wages are 69.2% of what professional staff cost in pay and benefits (BLS, June 2026), which makes about $72 an hour. A quarter on top for overhead (desk, software, management) makes $90, Drafter's working figure. BLS wages · BLS pay and benefits
- 4. 2,080 hours, less 8 paid holidays (BLS, 2025), 16 vacation days after five years and 7 sick days (BLS, March 2026), is about 1,830. The Social Security Administration's worked example of a working year is 1,776.5. BLS holidays · BLS leave · SSA
- 5. For scale: surveys put it near a third, 33% of design time (Tech-Clarity, 2017) and 32% of engineers' time at build-to-order firms (Cincom, 2007), both published by or for software vendors. Tech-Clarity · Cincom, as reported
- 6. Drafter's working figure, and a conservative one: cost-tolerance studies find machining to IT5 costs about six times IT13, about a quarter more for each grade tighter (Armillotta, 2020). Armillotta
- 7. For scale: engineering changes as a whole take about 30% of engineering work in a German survey (Fricke and others, 2000, cited by Jarratt and others) and 31% of R&D capacity in a Danish one (Langer and others, 2012). This line counts only redrawing and re-checking. Jarratt and others · Langer and others
Change any of these to your own team’s in the savings calculator .