Sep 7, 2026 · 1 hr 13 min · 16 segments
Ep 209: Understanding Residential Contracts breaks down five ways architects charge for residential work, along with the tradeoffs of each.
Andrew HawkinsHost
Alexander BostwickGuestSo just to get into it, why fee structures are different is every professional service industry eventually has to ask and answer the same question.
Architecture answers this question badly, or at least inconsistently from my standpoint.
And most of the time it's because the work itself resists a single unit of measurement.
For example, a kitchen remodel and a ground-up custom home might both take six months of my attention to do.
You don't know, and there's no reliable way to know which it's gonna go until you're kinda into it.
And that uncertainty is the reason multiple contract structures exist in the first place.
That's my jump-off point because as a architect, this is one of those things to where if I was talking to you and you're a homeowner, let's say I use percentage of the cost of construction.
And they go, "How much do you charge?" And I give them a number, and they're like, "Well, you could just spec more expensive stuff, and you make more money." And I go, "No, that's not how that works, and here's the reason why." Or they might say, "I'll answer all these questions.
Yeah, and it takes, I'm waiting on them for two months, or people say, "I make really fast decisions."
So just to get into it, why fee structures are different is every professional service industry eventually has to ask and answer the same question.
Architecture answers this question badly, or at least inconsistently from my standpoint.
And most of the time it's because the work itself resists a single unit of measurement.
For example, a kitchen remodel and a ground-up custom home might both take six months of my attention to do.
You don't know, and there's no reliable way to know which it's gonna go until you're kinda into it.
And that uncertainty is the reason multiple contract structures exist in the first place.
That's my jump-off point because as a architect, this is one of those things to where if I was talking to you and you're a homeowner, let's say I use percentage of the cost of construction.
And they go, "How much do you charge?" And I give them a number, and they're like, "Well, you could just spec more expensive stuff, and you make more money." And I go, "No, that's not how that works, and here's the reason why." Or they might say, "I'll answer all these questions.
Yeah, and it takes, I'm waiting on them for two months, or people say, "I make really fast decisions."
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