Most outsourced drafting is bought in one of two ways: a fixed price against a defined package, or a dedicated resource paid monthly. Both are legitimate. They suit different situations, and choosing on price alone usually means choosing wrong.
Fixed price per package
You define the deliverable, the supplier quotes it, and the number does not move unless the scope does.
Works well when: the scope is genuinely clear, the work is a one off or occasional, you need budget certainty to quote your own client, or you are testing a new partner.
Watch for: scope creep arguments. Everything hinges on what was defined at the start, so an hour spent writing a precise scope saves an awkward conversation later. Fixed price also gives the supplier an incentive to work efficiently, which is good, and to interpret scope narrowly, which needs managing.
Dedicated resource
You retain one or more people for a month at a time. They learn your standards and stay with your work.
Works well when: you have continuous flow rather than discrete packages, the scope shifts frequently, you want capacity available for whatever lands that week, or you value someone who knows your conventions without being told each time.
Watch for: paying for quiet periods. If your pipeline is genuinely lumpy, you will feel this. It also needs someone in your office to keep the resource fed with work, which is a real management overhead.
The efficiency curve nobody mentions
A drafter working continuously on your projects gets meaningfully faster over a few months. They stop asking about title blocks, they know which details you reuse, they anticipate the way you like sections annotated. On fixed price work with rotating staff, you pay for that learning repeatedly and never bank it.
This is the strongest argument for a dedicated arrangement once volume justifies it. The saving is not in the rate, it is in the ramp.
A practical progression
Most offices land somewhere sensible by following the same path. Start with a small fixed price package to test quality. Run two or three more to confirm consistency. Once you find yourself sending work most weeks, move to a dedicated resource and keep fixed price for anything unusual or one off.
Whichever you choose, define these
- What a revision includes before it becomes chargeable
- Notice period on a monthly arrangement
- What happens to your files if the arrangement ends
- Who reviews the work internally
Getting the model right matters less than getting the terms clear. Ambiguity is what costs money, not the pricing structure itself.