Before a single sod is turned or a wall goes up, you face one of the most important decisions of your entire building journey — and most homeowners make it without fully understanding the consequences.
Do you hire an architect or a draftsman?
It sounds like a question about design preference. In reality, it’s a question about budget, timeline, and how much clarity you already have about what you want. Get it right and your project flows. Get it wrong and you can find yourself with overdesigned plans that blow your budget before construction has even begun.
In this episode of Builders Beyond Borders, Paul from Independent Builder Solutions in Canberra and Hugh from New Real Homes in Melbourne break down the real differences — and what they mean for your hip pocket.
The Three Options Most People Don’t Know They Have
Most homeowners think the choice is binary — architect or draftsman. But Hugh points out there’s actually a third option that sits right in the middle: the building designer.
Building designers bridge the gap between the two. They bring more creative input than a pure draftsperson, but typically at a lower cost than a registered architect. For many renovation and extension projects, they’re the sweet spot.
Understanding all three options is the first step to making the right call.
When a Draftsman Is the Smart Choice
If you already have a clear picture of what you want — even a rough sketch, a Pinterest board full of ideas, or a vision you’ve been refining for years — a draftsman may be all you need.
“A lot of our clients have already got some of these designs and ideas,” Hugh explains. “We can go, okay, between a draftsperson and a building designer, we can save a bit of cost for the clients and just get things moving really quickly.”
Draftspeople are skilled at taking a well-defined brief and turning it into detailed working drawings — the technical documents that builders and tradespeople actually work from on site.
If you know what you want and just need someone to draw it properly, this is your most cost-effective path.
When an Architect Is Worth the Investment
Architects earn their higher fees when you have a vision but not a plan — when you know roughly what you want to achieve but need someone with real creative expertise to figure out how to get there.
“Their artistic flair really comes into it,” Paul says. “They can design something that’s specific to you, taking your ideas and your vision — that’s their skill set.”
Architects have trained for years to think creatively about space, light, materials, and form. If your project involves complexity, a tight or unusual site, or you simply want something extraordinary, an architect can deliver results a draftsperson can’t.
The trade-off is cost. Architects charge more — and if you want them involved throughout the entire build, not just the design phase, you’re generally looking at a fee of around 5 to 10% of the total project cost on top of everything else.
Should Your Architect Manage the Build Too?
One thing many homeowners don’t realise is that architects can stay involved throughout the construction process — not just during design. They can act as a third-party check on the builder, helping to manage variations, review progress, and ensure the design intent is being honoured on site.
“It gives you that third opinion,” Paul notes. “They’re there to make sure the builder is doing the best possible job and not overcharging, and to give advice on how to handle issues as they arise.”
For complex projects with a high likelihood of unforeseen challenges, having an architect in your corner throughout the build can be genuinely valuable. For a straightforward project, it may be an unnecessary cost.
The decision comes down to project complexity and your own confidence in managing the process.
The Quantity Surveyor Question
Architects often engage quantity surveyors (QS) to assess whether projected costs are realistic. It’s a sensible step — but it doesn’t replace the builder’s own estimating process, and it’s important to understand why.
Quantity surveyors are precise when it comes to measurements. They’ll get your square metreage right, your dimensions right, your material volumes right. Where they can be less reliable is on actual costs — because those depend on current supplier pricing, subcontractor rates, and market conditions that vary significantly by region and by trade.
“You still have to check it yourself with where you’re buying your materials and your subcontractors,” Paul says. “It doesn’t cut out the builder from the estimating stage.”
Hugh adds that he’s seen QS estimates vary substantially from one to another on the same project — which means any QS estimate should be treated as a useful benchmark, not a fixed figure.
Why Builder Quotes Can Differ by Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars
Here’s where it gets confronting — and where many homeowners make their most expensive mistake.
On the same project, it’s entirely possible to receive one quote for $1.1 million and another for $1.5 million. A $400,000 difference on identical plans. How?
The honest answer is that one of them is likely missing something. Either inclusions have been left out, allowances are too low, or something in the scope hasn’t been picked up. In rare cases, one builder may simply be overpriced — but nine times out of ten, a dramatically low quote is a warning sign, not a bargain.
“I’d be just as concerned about the low one as I would the high one,” Paul says. “Because something might not be right. Something could be missed.”
The danger isn’t just getting a nasty surprise mid-build. If a builder has priced a job too low and can’t complete it profitably, they can go out of business. And if your house is half-built when that happens, you’re in real trouble.
“That’s going to cost you twice as much,” Hugh says simply. “If you’ve got a house half-built and he’s not there anymore.”
How to Choose Value Over the Cheapest Price
So how do you actually make a good decision when you’re staring at quotes that differ so dramatically?
Paul and Hugh suggest a few practical steps:
Get references. Whether you’re choosing an architect, a draftsperson, or a builder, ask for references from previous clients and actually call them. A short conversation with someone who’s been through the process tells you more than any website or portfolio.
Ask for detailed, itemised quotes. A single number on a page tells you nothing. A line-by-line breakdown tells you everything — what’s included, what’s not, what’s a provisional allowance, and where the risk sits.
Look for clusters, not outliers. When builders who regularly work together or with the same architects quote a project, their prices tend to land in a similar range. If one quote is dramatically lower or higher than the rest, ask hard questions before making a decision either way.
Understand that cheap now often means expensive later. The cheapest quote is the one most likely to generate variations, disputes, and unexpected costs. As Paul puts it, “the cheapest price is not always the best price — it can be quite the opposite.”
The Bigger Picture
The architect versus draftsman decision is really just the first in a long series of choices that will shape your building experience. But it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Start with the right design professional for your needs. Get preliminary costings early — ideally with a builder involved — so you know whether your vision and your budget are actually aligned. And don’t let a low price convince you to skip the due diligence.
Building is one of the biggest financial commitments most people ever make. The decisions you make at the very beginning — before a single plan is drawn — have consequences that last for decades.
Take the time to get them right.
Listen to the full episode of Builders Beyond Borders on our podcast page. Got a question about building, renovating, or working with tradies? Send it through — it might be covered in a future episode.
