Floor plans are produced before a home or building is constructed or when major renovations are planned. This guide discusses the purpose of a floor plan, where to have them produced and floor plan cost.

What is a Floor Plan?

A floor plan is a visual representation, drawn from above, to show a single floor layout in a home or commercial building. It is drawn to scale, such as 1:48 (1/4” = 1 ft.) or 1:24 (1/2” = 1 ft.) for precise planning of the layout and to understand furnishing size limitations.

3D Floor Plan Photo Render

What is the Purpose of a Floor Plan?

You might have a floor plan produced for one of many reasons:

Construction planning: A floor plan allows you to design the space to meet your needs. In commercial buildings, a floor plan is used to ensure efficient use of the space, show the relationship of work areas to one another, define traffic patterns and how to safely exit the area.

A floor plan is used similarly in residential construction. It allows you to define each room, its shape and size within the footprint of the home. It’s much easier and affordable to make changes at this stage than once construction has begun.

In both settings, the floor plan can include where furnishings, countertops, work machines and/or appliances will be located. This helps the planner to determine if space is adequate for the intended use.

Renovation planning: Before and after floor plan drawings are useful when remodeling the space to better suit your needs. It ensures that the changes planned will improve the layout functionally and visually.

When used for construction planning and renovations, the floor plan gives you the chance to experiment with different layouts until you settle on the one that will be serve your purposes.

Marketing: A floor plan is an essential marketing tool for selling a home or commercial building or leasing office space.

Posted online or used in printed marketing material, the floor plan allows prospective buyers and leasers to see what’s being offered. They can decide quickly if your home or building should be on their list to check out in person.

Convenience and safety: All commercial buildings post labeled floor plans in prominent locations to make it easy for people to get where they want to go. This includes clearly showing standard and emergency exits.

These are the most common floor plan uses, but there are others unique to each setting.

Floor Plan Types: 2D and 3D

You have two options, 2D and 3D floor plans.

2D: The most common and affordable floor plans are 2-dimensional plans. The image is “flat.” It often is labeled, either with words in each room or with numbers on the image with a key next to the image.

2D Floor Plan

Black and white plans can be made, but most are colorized 2D floor plans. Only interior space is shown in many, but others depict the landscape, walkways, driveway or parking areas immediately outside the walls of the structure.  

3D: These are often called photo-realistic floor plans because the digitally-produced image looks like a photograph. A 3-dimensional floor plan has depth too.

The realism of the 3D renderings offers better planning of materials for countertops and flooring, wall colors, furnishings and more.

Where Can I Get a Floor Plan?

There are two common sources for floor plans. The plans are created using the same software and look identical, but cost is very different.

Professional architect: Your local architect creates 2D and 3D floor plans as part of its suite of services, often as an afterthought to its main work of creating building plans and exterior elevations.

Embedded in the cost of the floor plan is the cost of doing business. That includes leasing office space, wages for office staff, local advertising, paying off educational costs and other expenses.

Online drafting service: These services specialize in 2D and 3D photorealistic floor plans. The 24hPlans team of draftsmen and Computer Generated Imagery artists has genuine expertise in floor plans of all kinds, bringing to life your vision for a home or commercial setting.  

How Much Does a Floor Plan Drawing Cost?

This table shows costs based on the type of plan and who produces it for you.

2D Floor Plan 3D Floor Plan

3D High Res.

Architect $550-$785 $725-$1,100 Add $25-$100
24 Hour Plans $295-$475 $495-$650 Add $25-$75

There are other cost factors besides whether the floor plan is created by an architect or online drafting service. These include the size of the drawing, the level of detail and its resolution.

Use the Chat function below or the Inquire button on our 2D and 3D floor plan pages to receive a custom quote on a floor plan that is affordable and of the very best quality.

2D offering: https://www.24hplans.com/product/2d-floor-plans/

3D offering: https://www.24hplans.com/product/3d-floor-plans/

Next Steps:

24hplans has team of highly-trained, professional architects and drafters who can prepare any kind of site plan in the shortest amount of time possible, so that you can easily obtain that building permit and get on with your project. Use the promotion code: 24hplans-20off to get a 20% discount off any package. — Please note this is a limited time offer, exclusive to the readers of our blog. This offer is not being advertised anywhere else.