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Pricing

What RCDD design work costs — and how the number gets made.

We don’t publish a rate card, and here’s the honest reason: scope drives the fee, and pretending otherwise produces either padded numbers or change-order surprises. What you get instead is a fixed-fee proposal from a short scoping call — the number you accept is the number you pay.

What moves the number

Six things that actually drive an ICT design fee.

When you know what the fee responds to, you can shape the scope before the proposal — and you'll recognize a padded quote from anyone, including us.

Scope breadth

Drop counts, telecom rooms, buildings, and systems in play. A single-TR redesign and a campus OSP refresh are different animals, and the fee tracks the animal.

Deliverable depth

A peer-review markup costs a fraction of a full construction-document package with specs, BOM, and standards traceability. We scope to what the project actually needs — not the biggest package we can sell.

Schedule compression

Normal-course work is priced as such. Compressing weeks into days is possible and honest about costing more — and we will tell you when the deadline is achievable before taking the fee.

Coordination load

How many trades, consultants, and AHJ touchpoints the design has to be reconciled with. Coordination is real design work; it gets scoped, not smuggled in as change orders.

Construction-phase involvement

RFI response, submittal review, and live video walks during construction can be in the base fee or a separate CA scope — your call at proposal time.

Revision allowance

The proposal states what review cycles are included. Owner-driven scope changes are change orders — defined ones, priced before the work, never surprises on an invoice.

The path to a number

Three steps, no mystery.

01

Scoping call

Thirty minutes, free. Bring drawings, a spec, or just the problem. You’ll usually hear a verbal range before the call ends.

02

Fixed-fee proposal

Written scope, deliverables, milestones, and the number. What’s included is itemized; what would be a change order is named in advance.

03

Milestone billing

Payments track deliverables through the client portal. No hour-tracking theater, no end-of-month surprises.

Pricing FAQ

The money questions, answered straight.

Because we’d either pad it to cover the worst case or lowball it to win the click — both dishonest. ICT design fees are driven by scope: drop counts, rooms, buildings, deliverable depth, schedule. A 30-minute scoping call gets you a real fixed number instead of a marketing number.
You bring the scope — drawings, a narrative, or even just the floor plans and a goal. We walk it together on a short call, define the deliverables, and you get a written fixed-fee proposal with milestones. The number you accept is the number you pay; scope changes are priced as defined change orders before the work happens.
On the scoping call, yes — once we see the scope, you’ll usually get a verbal range on the spot, confirmed in the written proposal. What we won’t do is throw blind numbers at a project we haven’t seen; that’s how change-order businesses work, and we’re not one.
Project work is fixed fee with milestone-based billing — you know the cost before work starts. Retainers reserve monthly capacity for firms with recurring needs. White-label overflow for other design firms can run hourly, weekly, or per-package, whatever fits your pipeline.
Whatever exists: architectural backgrounds or floor plans, any owner specification (Division 27 especially), the project schedule, and what the deliverable needs to accomplish — permit set, bid set, or review. Less than that works too; it just means the call does more of the discovery.
Milestone-based: the proposal ties payments to deliverable milestones, invoiced through the client portal as each lands. W-9 on file; 1099 or corp-to-corp invoicing for firms.
No. The scoping call is how we both find out if the fit is right. If we’re not the right shape for your project, we’ll say so on that call and point you somewhere better.

Related: engagement models · in-house vs outsourced math · full FAQ

Next step

Get your number.

One scoping call. A real fixed fee, in writing, usually with a verbal range before we hang up.

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