A written scope and fee for the work ahead, with what's included and what isn't.
You have a number in front of you and it is larger than the one in your head. Before deciding what that means, it helps to know there is nothing to measure it against. The Institute's own guide for homeowners says plainly that architects' fees are a matter for negotiation and there is no standard basis for calculation. There has been no fee scale in this country for about twenty years. The figure you have been given is one person's estimate of how many weeks your house will take them.
Which is why the percentage is the least useful way to look at it. An $18,000 fee on a $300,000 renovation reads as startling. The same $18,000 described as four months of drawing, a council application and a documentation set thorough enough that three builders can price the same thing reads differently — and it is the same money.
What follows is what each stage buys, what makes a fee rise, and where an architect is genuinely poor value.
On a small job my fee does not shrink with the build. That is why modest projects feel badly priced.
There are three ways architects charge and clients will meet all of them. A percentage of construction cost is traditional but rises as the build price rises, which sits awkwardly with the person trying to keep it down. A fixed fee per stage is known before you commit. An hourly rate covers what genuinely can't be scoped.
Control. Knowing you can stop at the end of any stage without owing anything further removes the sensation of stepping onto a conveyor belt, which is what most people are actually afraid of when they hesitate over a fee.
A single percentage figure with no stage breakdown, so it's impossible to tell what's being bought or where the money goes. Exclusions surface later as 'that was always extra', which is where most of the resentment in this industry is generated.
I present the offer in person rather than emailing a PDF, because a fee proposal read alone is only a number, and I would rather you could ask the question at the moment it occurs to you. Fixed fee per stage, quoted before that stage begins, and $95 an hour plus GST for anything genuinely outside it. You are never committed to the next stage until you have seen what it costs. That is the entire point of breaking it into stages.
There is no set rate, so treat any single number carefully. The ranges published around the industry sit at roughly 8 to 15 per cent of construction cost for a full service, less for drawings only, and higher again on character or heritage work where the approvals are harder. What a percentage hides is scale. The fee for a modest extension is not much smaller than for a large one, because the paperwork barely shrinks. The more useful question is what the fee covers stage by stage, and what happens if you stop.
Less, and it is a legitimate way to buy. Published figures for a drawings-only service run at around 6 per cent of build cost, roughly half a full service. What you give up is the second half of the job — coordinating the engineer, certifier and consultants, comparing builders' prices on the same set of documents, and having someone on your side once construction starts. Plans-only tends to work where the project is simple and the builder is known and trusted. It tends to go badly on a difficult site with a builder chosen on price alone.
A fixed fee per stage is easier to live with, because you know the number before committing to the stage, and nothing beyond it is owed. A percentage moves with the build cost, which means it rises at exactly the moment you are trying to bring the build cost down. The Institute's agreement adjusts a percentage fee progressively against the forecast cost of works, then again against the final figure once it is known. Neither approach is dishonest. Ask which parts of the service are quoted which way, because proposals often mix them.
Because most of the work is not proportional to size. A modest rear addition still needs an accurate base drawing, an overlay check, a full set of construction drawings, an engineer coordinated in, a Building Approval through a certifier and a builder's questions answered for the length of the build. The sheets are smaller. The number of them is not. That is why very small projects feel badly priced in fee terms, and it is the honest reason an architect is not always the right answer for a small, simple job.
Ask for the number in stages, with the exclusions written beside each one, then judge it against the whole cost of the project rather than in isolation. On a typical renovation, for every $100 spent, roughly $85 goes to the builder, $8 to the architect, $4 to consultants such as the engineer and surveyor, and $3 to council fees, the certifier and insurances. Those proportions are indicative and they move. The eight dollars is the part that decides how accurately the eighty-five gets priced, which is the argument for it.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.