CAD As-Built Drawing Services

What As-Built Documentation Includes

As-built documentation is the measured record of a building as it actually exists today, not as it was originally drawn. On a renovation, retrofit, or coordination project the original design set is often missing, decades out of date, or never matched what the trades built in the field. As-built drawings close that gap by giving the project team a single source of truth for existing conditions they can design, price, and build against.

A typical as-built drawing services package is assembled around the decisions the documentation has to support. The most requested deliverables are listed below.

Because we capture the building first and draw from that record, the same scan can also feed a 3D model later without a second site visit. If you are still deciding which sheets you actually need, our guide on what should be included in as-built drawings walks through plans, elevations, sections, RCPs, and how to scope exclusions before drafting starts. For renovation work specifically, the existing conditions documentation for renovation projects guide explains how to choose between point clouds, CAD, and models around the design decision in front of you. For heritage and landmark work, where ornament and irregular geometry drive scope, see our notes on as-built documentation for historic buildings.

As-Built Drawings vs Record Drawings

These two terms are used interchangeably on job sites, but they are not the same document, and the difference matters when you are deciding what to commission.

A record drawing is the closeout deliverable a design firm assembles from contractor markups at the end of construction. An as-built drawing, in the sense most buyers mean when they search for it, is an independent measured record of the building as it stands today. When the original documentation is gone or untrustworthy, you want measured as-builts, not a redline package. Our deeper comparison of as-built drawings vs record drawings breaks down responsibility, accuracy, and when each one is the right call.

CAD vs BIM As-Builts

The single biggest scope decision is whether you need flat 2D CAD drawings or an intelligent 3D BIM model. Both can start from the same point cloud. The right answer depends entirely on who opens the file and what they do next.

CAD as-builts are the faster, lower-cost path when a team simply needs accurate sheets to design over. BIM as-builts cost more to produce but carry data, support clash detection, and become a living asset for facilities and future phases. Many projects use both: a coordinated Revit model with 2D sheets exported from it. Our scan-to-BIM services page covers model scope and LOD, while the as-built documentation work here can deliver either, or hand a registered point cloud to your own modeling team.

Accuracy, LOA, and What "Survey-Grade" Really Means

Accuracy is the part of as-built documentation buyers most often get wrong, usually by under-specifying it. The useful framework is the USIBD Level of Accuracy (LOA) standard, which separates two ideas: how precisely a point was measured (measured accuracy) and how precisely a drawn element represents it (represented accuracy). A point cloud can be captured to a few millimeters while the drawn wall is simplified to a looser tolerance, and both can be correct for the intended use. Scope language should state the LOA target up front so the deliverable matches the decision it supports.

It is worth being clear about price here: there is no neutral pricing benchmark for as-built work. Standards like USIBD LOA and the GSA BIM guides define accuracy and deliverable expectations, not dollars. Anyone quoting a single universal cost per square foot is hiding the variables, not removing them.

Scan-Based Measured Documentation, Not a Stamped Survey

Field 3D laser scanning is where WeAre Capture is strongest. We capture existing conditions with a Trimble X7 laser scanner, which records up to 500,000 points per second and covers roughly 15,000 square feet in a typical scan day of up to about 12 hours on site. The result is a dense, dimensionally measured point cloud that we register in house into a single coordinated dataset, then use as the basis for every drawing or model. Registration is delivered in standard exchange formats including E57, RCP, and RCS so the data drops cleanly into AutoCAD, Revit, or a third-party workflow.

One important boundary: this is scan-based measured documentation, not a licensed land survey. WeAre Capture is not a licensed land surveyor and does not provide stamped boundary, ALTA, or topographic surveys or set legal property lines. When people search for survey-grade scanning, what they usually need is high-accuracy measured building documentation to a defined LOA, which is exactly what scanning delivers. If a project genuinely requires a stamped survey for a property boundary or legal record, that is a licensed surveyor's role and we will say so. For the measured as-built record itself, the scan is the authoritative basis.

What Affects the Cost of As-Built Drawings

As-built drawing services are priced on the work involved, not a flat rate, because two buildings of the same square footage can differ by an order of magnitude in effort. The honest model has three cost centers that combine on most projects.

By building type, a small space under 10,000 square feet often lands around $1,500 to $4,000, a mid-size office around $4,000 to $14,000, a warehouse around $18,000 to $55,000, and a hospital around $20,000 to $60,000. The drivers behind those ranges are area, site complexity, how much mechanical and ceiling detail you need captured, the required LOA, the output format, and the schedule. Our breakdown of what changes the price of as-built drawings explains each driver so you can scope to budget before requesting a quote. Field scanning is our in-house strength; drawing and CAD production is delivered through vetted modeling partners, with WeAre Capture managing the capture, registration, and quality control end to end.