Planning drawings startup business

[Loofah01]

I'm in the early stages of starting an architectural drawing / drafting business. It's not going to be sold as architecture, I'm not a trained architect, but I can use CAD and in particular autocad architecture (recently learned!) so want to offer the service of drawings for the purposes of planning applications.
After a time I'll train a bit and offer BR drawings too.

I'm based in the SE and wondered what you expectations of the service might be and what you'd be willing to pay?

The idea is not revolutionary or convoluted, simply to offer required drawings for planning applications. I can also offer a measuring service if the client wants.

We used a similar sounding company for a planning application a few months ago. We decided to use them for their planning expertise (they understood permitted development, what was likely to get planning permission, etc) and they had an architect on staff to do the drawings. We werent bothered about having a 'real' architect but probably would have wanted someone with some sort of credentials. I think we paid 250 for the planning application to be done for us and 450 for the drawings, plus a bit more for the survey where the architect measured everything. There were a lot of companies to choose from so I expect you'll have lots of competition. The company we used replied quickly, weren't too salesy, and were helpful even before we appointed them - that's why we chose them over the others we spoke to.

We're in the SE, on the border between London and Kent.

That's brilliant info, thank you!
Bit more than I was going to think about charging so probably about right with me being new and all that.
I'm not expecting to retire on this, probably just as well given the competition, but need some level of income as covid has destroyed it completely

You don’t need to be an architect to run your own architecture business.

It’s all well having CAD draughting experience but to submit Planning applications with the likely chance of securing approval, you would need to familiarise yourself with Planning polices, rules and guidance. Clients would rely on you to brief them on that as they wouldn’t particularly know the rules themselves.

One of my pet hates about ‘Planning’ designers is you can often find their schemes do not work when applying the Building Regulations to them thereafter. This can result in re-designs and revised Planning applications.

Assuming you do not have specific Planning and/or Building Regulation knowledge, I’d start off by offering CAD services to those who still use pen and paper. In being a CAD Technician, you don’t need to limit yourself to architecture either. Branch out into M&E as well.