Ask five people what a house plan costs in Kenya and you will get five answers an order of magnitude apart. That is not because anyone is lying. It is because “a plan” describes at least four different products, sold by four different kinds of people, carrying four different levels of accountability. Price only becomes comparable once you know which one you are buying.
The three routes people actually take
- A full architect engagement. Fees are conventionally a percentage of the build cost, and the engagement covers far more than drawings — brief, design, approvals, tender documents, and supervision on site. For a modest residential build this is the most expensive route and also the most complete one. You are buying a professional’s time and their liability, from first sketch to last snag.
- Catalogue plan sellers. Roughly KES 5,000 to 60,000 for a plan drawn once and sold many times. The cheap end is usually a set of pretty images with no dimensions you could build from. The expensive end can be genuinely competent. Almost none of it is stamped, almost none of it was drawn for your plot, and almost none of it comes with anyone who will answer the phone when the fundi asks a question.
- A print shop set. The fastest and cheapest option, and the one that costs the most later. Unstamped prints, often traced from something else, sometimes with a stamp that does not belong to the person who drew them. A county will reject it; a bank will not lend against it; and if a wall cracks, there is nobody of record.
What a stamp legally is
A stamp is not decoration and it is not a formatting step. In Kenya, architecture is a regulated profession: an architect registered with the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors signs and stamps drawings as the architect of record. That signature is an assumption of professional responsibility for the design. It is why a stamped set is admissible to a county and an unstamped one is not, and it is why a stamp cannot be bought separately from a review — the person stamping has to actually stand behind what is drawn.
Which means the honest way to read the price of a stamped set is: how much of it is drawing, and how much of it is judgment? A set that arrives at the architect complete, dimensioned, code-checked and internally consistent costs them hours. A set that arrives as a mood board costs them days. Same stamp, very different fee.
What county approval needs beyond the architectural set
This is the part most sellers leave out. The architectural set — plans, elevations, sections, schedules — is one of the packages a county submission needs. A structural engineer’s drawings and calculations are another. Depending on the county and the scheme there may be more: drainage approvals, an environmental report, planning fees, land documents. Anyone who tells you one purchase gets you an approved building is selling you a surprise.
So when you compare prices, compare scopes. “Stamped” without “by whom, for what, and what else do I still need” is not a specification.
Where the KES 29,500 stamped set fits
Chimbuko’s Stamped Set is the complete architectural drawing set, reviewed, amended where professional judgment requires, and signed and stamped by a BORAQS-registered architect from our network, with printed copies, the stamped PDF and the DXF delivered. It is not cheap because the review is thin. It is priced there because of what the architect receives: a set that is already dimensioned, already checked against Kenyan residential code rules, already internally consistent between plan, elevation and schedule, with a bill of quantities attached. The expensive part of drawing a house has already happened. What remains is the part only an architect can do.
And we say the same thing on the pricing page that we say here: county submission also requires a structural engineer’s drawings. We are building that add-on. Until it exists, your architect can advise on the structural package.
Five questions to ask anyone selling you a plan
- Is it dimensioned? Ask for millimetres on the drawing, not room names on a picture. A builder cannot price a picture.
- Who stamps it, and are they registered? Ask for the name and the registration. Verify it. A stamp you cannot trace is worse than no stamp.
- Was it drawn for my plot? Orientation, slope, setbacks, gate position, services. A plan that ignores your site will be redrawn on site, badly.
- What else do I need for approval? If the answer is “nothing”, walk away.
- What happens when I want a change? Get the price of a revision in writing before you pay for the first drawing.
A plan is the cheapest part of a house and the one that decides the cost of everything else. Buy it like it matters.