Can You Tell—At a Glance—Which Projects Are Profitable?
Most architecture studios work in stages: concept design, design development, technical drawings, construction admin, and handover.
Fees are typically fixed for each phase—but the time your team spends isn’t always so fixed. A quick call during concept. A last-minute drawing update before submission. A site photo request during construction. Most of it never gets logged.
That makes it hard to answer a simple question: Is this phase still profitable?
But here’s the trap:
You know what’s coming in. You don’t know what’s going out.
Your team works across multiple projects. They chase emails, answer calls, revise documents, update reports—all often without logging any of it.
The result? You’re not really sure if you’re winning or losing.
And that’s the part no one talks about: You’re the one steering the business—but you feel like you’re guessing. You’re not sure where the margin’s going. You’re not even sure if it’s there.
And when you can’t see profit—you lose it.
You might spend 2x the time you budgeted, without realising it.
You might burn your top staff on low-margin jobs.
You might think a project went “fine”—until your cashflow says otherwise.
Design firms often track fees. But they rarely track true cost per project.
Not because they’re careless. But because:
It’s hard to capture soft effort (calls, thinking, prep, etc.)
Work is shared across multiple people
No one wants to fill out boring timesheets
So costs stay invisible. And invisible costs = disappearing margin.
What does best practice look like?
In consulting, law, or product design—industries with similar billing models—teams often:
Assign one person—if you can—to keep an eye on how much time is being spent compared to what the fee allows. If resources are tight, even a quick monthly review by you—as the studio owner—can be enough to spot issues before they spiral.
Log time weekly—even just rough hours—in a shared Google Sheet or Notion table. Keep it simple enough that the team will actually use it
Set benchmarks for each phase—how many hours you expect to spend based on past projects
Regularly check: Is this job still in the green?
You don’t need perfect data. You need just enough to see the signal.
Start here:
Set a rough hourly cost for your team (can be blended)
Use phases (e.g. concept design, design development, technical drawings, construction admin, handover) to estimate hours vs. fee
Check monthly: Which projects are way off?
You’ll quickly spot:
Where the team is overspending effort
Which clients pull in more support than scoped
Where profit is leaking—before it’s too late to do something about it
You designed the building.
Imagine if you could also design a system that tells you—clearly and calmly—whether each project is healthy or hurting. You’d stop guessing. You’d know which projects need attention. And you’d stop margin loss before it happens.
