Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Drafting Service Revenue Benchmark
Preparation of technical drawings and models for architects, engineers and builders, without stamping the design.
Average Drafting Service Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The 2022 Economic Census counts every drafting service with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing one by the other gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment below.
≈$683,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
3,198
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $2.2 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $2.2 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 3,198 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $683,000 per employer establishment. This is one of the smaller populations on this site, so the average rests on fewer businesses than most pages here.
Scope: Drafting services, NAICS 541340. Classified separately in group 5413: 541310 Architectural Services; 541320 Landscape Architectural Services; 541330 Engineering Services, and 4 further codes. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.
Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed July 2026
Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group
Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services, NAICS 5413, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.
62.0%the year-five count as a share of the starting count
Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 58.7 to 66.3 percent. This benchmark covers Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services, NAICS 5413, as a whole, and this category accounts for 3,198 of the 119,256 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈35% |
Payroll share of receipts, Drafting services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 35.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll. Drafting hours are the product, so the ratio follows what drafters are paid against what clients pay for a set of drawings.
Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes, payments to drafters engaged as contractors and owner compensation, which matters in a trade where overflow work is routinely subcontracted.
Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data
How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid employees per employer establishment | 4.3 |
| Employer establishments per firm | 1.01 |
Scale and ownership, Drafting services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
The average establishment employed about 4.3 people, and the industry counted 1.0 employer establishments per firm.
These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.
Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis
Drafting Service: the risks behind a tidy average.
Before you rely on this benchmark
- Who stamps the drawings? A drafting service prepares documents, and sealing them requires a licensed architect or engineer, whether employed in house or brought in. Where a client needs a sealed set, an architect or engineer must be involved, which changes both the fee and the classification.
- How much work arrives as overflow from other practices? Some practices lean on overflow work, which may fall away when the practices upstream slow down, so a busy year can reverse quickly.
- What share of production is subcontracted? Payments to contract drafters are not payroll, so a practice that leans on freelancers shows a low payroll share without being lean.
- Which software and standards does the client require? Platform and layer standards vary by client, and the cost of matching them falls on the practice rather than being billed separately.
- How are revisions priced? Design changes arrive late and often, and a practice that absorbs them rather than billing them can work harder in a busy year for the same money.
Explore More on BusinessNES
Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.
Data Source Notice
This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.
Sources and Methodology
Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.
The Census counts employer establishments, meaning a business with paid staff. A drafter working alone is not included, and this trade has many of them.