Why payment follows milestones, not the calendar
The question „what does it cost“ has a younger sibling that clients usually ask only when the first invoice arrives: when exactly is the money due, and what triggers it. An architect fee is almost never paid as a single sum. It is split into several payments, and that split is not an accounting formality. It is the mechanism that ties money to a verifiable result.
The difference between the two possible logics is larger than it looks. If payment is tied to the calendar, to an equal monthly amount for instance, the client pays for time passing regardless of whether anything is in their hands. If payment is tied to a milestone, every invoice is preceded by a concrete deliverable the client received, reviewed and approved. A change in the pace of the project then changes nothing about who owes what. And the pace changes almost always, sometimes waiting on an authority, sometimes on the client's own decision.
This logic protects both sides symmetrically, which is rare in payment terms. The client never pays for a promise, only for a delivered thing they can look at. The architect never develops the next phase on credit, because work on it starts once the previous one is closed and settled. This is precisely where most later disputes fail to appear: not because of the size of the sum, but because both sides knew from the start what the word „finished“ means in this project.
The performance phases as a client actually meets them
The sequence of design phases is settled in practice, and a client meets it in the same order almost every time. It starts with clarifying the brief and gathering information about the plot. Then comes the architectural study, which tests the concept: the massing of the house, its placement on the plot and the basic layout. After it comes the building permit documentation, which develops the chosen concept into a form the authority and the consulted bodies can read. Then the implementation project, which adds details, schedules of materials and the information a contractor needs. And finally author supervision, which runs throughout construction.
More important than the names is what all the phases share: each one ends in a deliverable that can be handed over, reviewed and approved. Approval here is an event, not a mood. It does not need a notarised document, an email naming the specific version of the documentation and the date of handover is entirely enough. What matters is that it exists and can be referred back to when, half a year later, two people remember the same meeting differently.
And that approval is what releases the payment. Not the sending of files, not the passing of a month, but the client's confirmation that the deliverable matches what was agreed. It is also the point at which the phase closes: what was decided inside it becomes the basis for further work rather than an open question we keep returning to.
| Phase | Deliverable | Approval event | Payment trigger | Share of the fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contract and brief preparation | Contract, clarified brief, plot information | Contract signed by both sides | Deposit on signature | a smaller part of the total fee |
| Architectural study | Plans, sections, visualisations, layout alternatives | Client picks a variant and approves the concept | Handover and approval of the study | roughly 10 to 20 % |
| Building permit documentation | Technical design for the authority including services | Client approves the set before submission | Handover of the documentation, or the permit itself | roughly 25 to 35 % |
| Implementation project | Details, schedules of materials and elements, setting-out plans | Client approves the detailing and product choices | Handover of the implementation project | roughly 30 to 40 % |
| Author supervision | Site meetings, assessment of changes on site | Minutes of the site meeting | Time spent or number of visits | billed separately, outside the base fee |
The shares in the table are indicative. They vary with the complexity of the project and with how precisely a given practice divides the phases, but their mutual ratio is stable: the price grows with the depth of detail, not with the number of months worked. The most expensive part of the work tends to be the part the client sees least.
The deposit at the start and why it exists
The deposit on signature raises the most questions, because it is the only payment before which the client has received nothing. It does, however, cover very concrete work that happens before the first drawing exists: the site visit, reading the zoning regulation and the limits it imposes, going through the documents the client brought, the first conversations about how they want to live in the house, and the first sketches, which usually get handed over to nobody. That phase is short, it is not free, and in a purely milestone-based schedule it would remain uncovered.
The second function of the deposit is organisational. By signing, the architect reserves capacity for the coming months and turns down other work for that period. The deposit is the signal that the intention is serious. The third function is psychological and perhaps the most important: from day one both sides know the collaboration has started, which changes the tone of the conversation compared with non-binding deliberation.
Two things belong in the contract. First, whether the deposit is deducted from the first invoice or settled at the very end. Second, what happens to it if the client abandons the project before the study is delivered. Both answers are legitimate in various forms, they simply have to be agreed in advance rather than searched for at the moment the collaboration ends.
When the client changes their mind
A change of brief is not a failure of the client or the architect. Designing a house is a learning process: the client gradually discovers what they actually want, and most good houses exist because they were redrawn several times. The question is therefore not whether the brief will change, but when. That is what decides whether it is ordinary work or new work.
A change inside the phase currently running is normal and it is in the price. While the study is being drawn, moving the staircase, rotating the layout or trying another roof form is exactly what a study is for. Likewise, during the implementation project, choosing a different floor finish or a different window type stays within scope as long as it does not change the structure. A reasonable number of revision rounds is part of the craft, and a serious offer allows for it.
A change that reopens an already approved and paid phase is something else. If the staircase moves after the building permit documentation has been approved, that does not mean redrawing one line. It means recalculating the structure, adjusting the service runs, reconciling elevations and schedules, and most likely dealing with the authority again. That work has already been done once and paid for once, and now it is being done a second time.
The difference between the two cases is not contentious as long as it is said out loud in advance. A contract stating that revisions within a running phase are included, and that reopening a closed phase is priced as new work, does not create a single extra conflict. Quite the opposite: it removes the one sentence that would otherwise be said at the worst possible moment, namely „but surely that was included“.
Two phases that run long after the drawings are finished
Clients usually picture the schedule as a road towards handing over the implementation project. Two parts of the process happen after that point, and they are the ones most often left out of the budget.
The first is the permit process. Submission is followed by a completeness check, statements from the consulted bodies, possible objections and time limits that are in the hands of neither the architect nor the client. This phase can take considerably longer than the drawing itself, and its duration cannot be promised in a contract. Building legislation has also changed: Act No. 25/2025 Z. z. has been in force since 1 April 2025, so the specific procedure is worth verifying with the relevant authority for the plot in question. If the architect handles the permitting legwork, it is usually a separately priced item rather than part of the documentation fee.
The second is author supervision. It runs as long as the construction runs, which means months or years, and its extent is set not by the architect but by the contractor and their programme. That is why author supervision is generally not charged as a percentage of the fee, but by time or by the number of site visits. It is the one item in the schedule that does not behave like the others: it has no single deliverable, no single approval event, and cannot be closed with one invoice. It is billed as it goes, most often monthly or after site meetings.
This asymmetry is honest rather than disadvantageous. A fixed sum for supervision would have to contain a reserve for the worst possible course of construction, so it would cost most clients more. An hourly or per-visit rate means that a smooth build costs less. When budgeting, therefore, allow for supervision with an estimated number of visits, not with a percentage.
What is and is not in a standard scope
A payment schedule only makes sense when it is clear what is actually being done in each phase. The table below sums up what tends to sit inside a standard scope and what shows up as a separate line item. The split differs between practices, so treat it as a list of questions for the first meeting rather than as a norm.
| Item | Standard scope | How it appears if outside |
|---|---|---|
| Architectural design and layout | Yes, the core of every offer | Does not happen |
| Coordination of structure and building services | Yes, within the permit documentation | External specialists recharged |
| Visualisations beyond the agreed number | A basic set yes, further ones no | Price per image or hourly rate |
| Land survey and site investigations | No, arranged by the client | Separate order with a specialist |
| Permitting legwork and dealing with authorities | By agreement, often not | Fixed sum or hourly rate |
| Bill of quantities and tender documents | By agreement | Separate item alongside the implementation project |
| Interior design and bespoke elements | No, a separate commission | Its own contract with its own schedule |
| Author supervision during construction | No, outside the base fee | Rate per hour or per visit |
Two items from the table are always worth clarifying. The bill of quantities decides whether contractor offers can be compared at all, and the construction budget is the part clients care about most, even though it is not directly connected to the architect's fee. Both are covered in more depth in the article on the construction budget and the bill of quantities.
What to agree before signing
A good payment schedule fits into four sentences. Every payment has a named deliverable in front of it. Every deliverable has a named approval event. Reopening an approved phase is new work, and the contract says so. Author supervision and permitting legwork are separate items with their own way of being billed. If those four things are in the contract, the rest can be settled in conversation. If they are missing, not even the lowest price makes up for it. The structure of the fee itself and the ways of calculating it are covered in the article on what an architect costs.