What Do House Plans Cost in Portland, ME?

House plans are the one thing on this site with a fixed price rather than a range. Conceptual Drawings are $1,250 flat. Detailed Drawings are $2,500 flat. Most sets are turned around in about a week.

There is no range to qualify here and no averaging to explain. These are published prices and they are the same in Portland as in every other town I serve.

I draw these myself, and the house plans service in Portland sets out the tiers. What a drawing set includes statewide works the same way.

What does each drawing tier cost?

Two free revisions on every tier. If a code office sends the drawings back, revisions are unlimited and free.

Conceptual Drawings ($1,250) and Detailed Drawings ($2,500) are drafting and design services. They are not architectural services and are not prepared, reviewed, stamped, or sealed by a licensed architect. They are not engineering services and do not include structural design or structural calculations. Our liability for these drawings is limited to the amount you paid for them. Architect-Sealed Plans are prepared and sealed by a licensed architect and are priced separately.

What does the first tier buy?

The conceptual set is a complete, buildable description of the house:

• Title sheet with the project address, the sheet list and the general notes.
• Floor plans, dimensioned, with every wall located and every opening tagged.
• Elevations of each face of the building, drawn flat, with heights dimensioned.
• Roof plan showing ridges, valleys, hips and overhangs.
• Foundation plan with footings, walls and any step in the grade.
• Door and window schedule, a table where every opening gets a mark, a size and a type.

In many towns that is enough to price the job and enough to submit for permit.

What does the second tier add?

The detailed set keeps all of the above and adds the sheets that answer how rather than what:

• Cross sections cutting the building open to show how floors, walls and roof stack up.
• Construction details at the joints where money and water both get lost.
• Plumbing and electrical layouts, putting fixtures, drains, devices and lighting on the plan.
• Framing callouts naming what carries what.
• A site plan placing the building on the lot to scale.

The honest rule: a simple rectangle on a straightforward lot does not need it. The moment the building has real complexity, or the site does, the detailed set stops being an upgrade and becomes the thing you needed.

What is not in the price?

This is the part that catches people, because the drawings are flat-priced and the things around them are not.

• Permit fees, which are the city's and are calculated on your project.
• A land survey, if your town wants a surveyed plot plan rather than a drawn site plan. That is produced by a licensed land surveyor and paid to them.
• A soil test and septic design, on any unsewered lot. That is a licensed site evaluator's work and it frequently decides where the house can sit.
• Structural engineering, where a project genuinely needs it.
• The Architect-Sealed tier, which is priced separately and is prepared and sealed by a licensed architect.
• Existing conditions measuring, on a project involving a house that already stands. That work happens before anything can be designed on top of it.

None of those are hidden charges from me. They are separate professionals doing separate work, and I will tell you which ones your project needs before you spend anything.

What if the town rejects the plans?

Permit-approved guarantee block. Renders from _guarantee-block.md.

The short version of the commercial terms, because they are frequently misunderstood.

Two included revisions are design changes you ask for. You look at the drawings, you want something different, and two rounds of that come with every tier at no charge. A round can contain as many changes as you like, which is why it pays to collect them rather than send them one at a time.

Revisions after a code office returns a set are a separate matter and they are unlimited and free. Those are not counted against your two, because a set coming back from review is my problem rather than yours.

What I cannot do is sit in the chair at your town office and make their decision for them. Nobody can. What I can do is stand behind the drawings until they clear, and refund you if they never do.

Why does the price not change by town?

A drawing set is drawing work. It takes what it takes whether the lot is on Munjoy Hill or in North Deering, so there is no Portland premium and no rural discount.

What does change by town is which sheets your code office wants. Portland runs a full-time permitting operation that has seen every building type in the state, and it publishes what it expects. Ask Portland Permitting and Inspections for their submittal requirements before the set is finalised, because drawing to their list rather than a generic one is what turns three submissions into one.

If your address sits inside one of the city's local historic districts, there is a design review ahead of the building permit, and that changes the order of your whole project rather than adding a step at the end.

Who does the drawing?

The design work is done by our draftsman and designer. That is a real trade and a skilled one.

Where a project genuinely needs a licensed architect, that is the Architect-Sealed tier and it is an actual licensed architect doing it. I am not going to blur those two things, because "architect" is a protected title in Maine and the difference matters to you as much as it does to them.

A statewide fact worth carrying into your comparisons: Maine does not license general contractors or builders. Plumbers and electricians hold state licenses, and so do land surveyors and site evaluators. A drawing set is what lets you compare three uncredentialed builders on equal terms, which is most of why it is worth buying before you collect quotes.

Is paying for plans worth it?

Set the price against what it removes.

Three contractors quoting your project without drawings are pricing three different buildings. One assumed nine-foot ceilings, one assumed a full basement, one assumed the cheapest windows that meet code. Their numbers are not comparable, and none of them is wrong, because nobody told them what to price.

With a real set, three builders price the same thing. The difference between their numbers becomes information about them rather than noise about the design.

Plans also force the decisions early, on paper, where changing your mind is free. Moving a wall in a drawing takes ten minutes. Moving it after it is framed takes a change order.

Frequently asked questions

How much do house plans cost? $1,250 for the conceptual set and $2,500 for the detailed set, both flat, with the sealed tier priced separately.

Is that really a flat price? Yes. It does not change by town, by house size or by how many revisions the code office asks for.

Which tier do I need? Conceptual for a straightforward building on an open lot. Detailed for anything with real complexity in the building or the site, and for anything going out to competitive bid.

How long do house plans take? About a week for most projects. Your own thinking time between drafts is usually longer than the drafting.

Can you modify plans I bought online? Yes, and it is a common request. It is usually cheaper than starting from scratch when the layout suits you and the shape is sensible.

What if my code office rejects the drawings? They get revised and resubmitted at no charge, as many times as it takes. If approval never comes, you are refunded.

How do you get plans started?

Tell me the address, what you are building, and whether anything is already drawn. The address decides the review and the review decides the set.

More on the service: house plans in Portland, ME · drafting and design across Maine · builders and trades in Portland

Before you build: what a house costs per square foot here · hiring a Maine builder without getting burned