Steel Detailing Rates: What Outsourced Detailing Costs Per Hour

Vertex charges $15–20 USD per hour for steel detailing in SDS/2. The hourly rate for a package is set when it is estimated, based on how complex the steel is, how much miscellaneous steel it contains, how many revisions are expected and how tight the schedule is.

Detailing hours cover the work of producing the package:

• Building the SDS/2 model from the design drawings, including connections input to the Engineer of Record's design
• Producing shop drawings, erection drawings and submittal packages
• Generating bolt lists, material takeoffs and NC files from the model

Hours are estimated from your documents before work starts, so the total is not a surprise. The rest of this page explains what moves the rate, how it compares with keeping the work in-house, and the costs outsourcing adds that do not show up on an invoice.

Four factors move a package within the range: connection complexity, miscellaneous steel density, revision volume and turnaround pressure. Complete contract documents and established shop standards pull the other way. A repetitive building with standard shear connections sits near $15 per hour; a package of skewed moment frames, unique stairs and a compressed schedule sits near $20.

Thermal breaks are a good example of complexity. Detailing a bolted connection through a structural thermal break means recalculating bolt stack-up, showing bushings and washers, detailing pad holes separately from steel holes, and sequencing loose parts, which is why structural thermal break detailing sits toward the upper end. Dense miscellaneous steel detailing does the same, because unique parts each need their own detail and check.

An in-house US steel detailer is estimated to cost about $45–$90 per productive hour once salary, benefits, equipment and non-project time are included, before any software seat. That compares with $15–20 per hour outsourced. The figures below are illustrative industry estimates and assumptions, not quotes and not claims about any company; use your own payroll numbers.

The arithmetic: $77,000 divided by 1,700 hours is about $45 per hour; $126,500 divided by 1,400 hours is about $90 per hour.

The idle-time difference

The bigger difference is not the hourly figure. An in-house detailer's cost continues when the backlog is empty between bids or during a slow quarter. Outsourced hours are billed only when there is a package to detail. For a shop whose detailing demand swings with bid season, that matters more than the rate itself.

Outsourcing adds costs that never appear on the detailer's invoice: your project manager's time reviewing drawings and answering questions, onboarding the detailer to your shop standards, written communication across a time-zone offset, and the cost of rework if drawings reach the shop with errors. A fair comparison with in-house detailing counts all of them.

• Review time. Someone in your company still reviews submittals and answers scope questions. Plan for it.
• Onboarding. The first package carries setup: piece-mark conventions, connection preferences, sheet templates and NC format.
• Communication lag. Questions sent in the US afternoon are answered during the team's working day in India, which is the US night. Same-hour answers are limited.
• Rework risk. A drawing error caught in the shop costs far more than the detailing hours saved. This is why the quality control sequence matters more than the rate.

The guide to outsourcing steel detailing covers these risks in detail, including when outsourcing is the wrong choice.

Steel detailing is commonly quoted three ways in the US: per hour, per ton of steel, or as a fixed fee for a defined scope. Each puts the risk of scope growth on a different party. Vertex publishes an hourly rate, and hourly is its published basis for quoting.

Per-ton pricing is simple to compare but can mislead on misc-heavy work: a ton of stair and rail parts takes far more detailing than a ton of repetitive beams. When comparing quotes, check what each includes: erection drawings, NC files, bolt lists, revisions, checking and submittal packaging.

Package cost is the estimated detailing hours multiplied by the hourly rate agreed for that package. The example below is hypothetical and exists only to show the arithmetic; it is not a typical package size, and real hours depend entirely on the scope and documents you send.

In practice, complexity changes the hours as well as the rate, so a more complex package would usually carry more hours too. That is why the estimate is prepared from your documents rather than from a per-sheet or per-ton rule of thumb.

Send the documents the detailing will be built from and a clear statement of what you need back. An estimate prepared from complete contract drawings, specifications and a defined deliverables list is far closer to the final hours than one prepared from a partial set or a verbal description.

• Structural and architectural contract drawings, with addenda and RFI responses to date
• Specification sections for structural steel and metal fabrications
• The scope split between structural and miscellaneous steel
• The deliverables you need: shop drawings, erection drawings, SDS/2 model, NC files, bolt lists, material takeoffs, submittal package
• Your shop standards and NC file format, if they exist
• Target dates for the approval submittal and fabrication release

Use the project inquiry form or email the package. The steel detailing process page shows what happens once a package is accepted.

Vertex publishes its rate because fabricators comparing detailing partners want the number before they spend time sending drawings. A published range, with the factors that move a package within it, lets you decide quickly whether the economics work. It fits the rest of the approach: the software and the team's location are stated openly too.

Many detailing firms quote only after reviewing drawings, which is reasonable when pricing per ton or as a fixed fee. An hourly rate can be published because the uncertainty sits in the hours, and hours are estimated from your documents. For the broader industry picture, including per-ton and fixed-fee pricing, see how much steel detailing costs.

All rates are in US dollars.