[glebe digital]

For my part I think herve's not too far off............the modeling on that scene isn't too complex, could be quickly put together if you had the full brief and mood-boards at your fingertips........$500 for first render + £100 per additional.

It's all about 'turning jobs around' within timescales that suit the given budget..........if my client has $500 then he gets precisely that amount of my time, I just have to tailor the project deliverables to meet the agreed budget.

I do a reasonable amount of archviz and my margins are pretty good.........however it's largely down to keeping a clear focus on the timescales available to each budget.

[macitect]

Appreciate all the input guys.

@mattia - my wife is Italian - getting money out of Italians can sometimes be like pulling teeth, I know! Make sure you fight to get paid reasonably!!!

@glebe - are you talking $500 or £500? If you are talking £500 then we are speaking in the same ballpark, if not I really think that (even if I was MUCH faster) $500 is not enough money for the work put in.

I understand that if 3D is professional work then it is all about turn around - but judging by what my associate pays for renders when he sends them out I think you'd be selling yourself really short at $500.

I suppose that if it only took me 2 days to do all the modeling and texturing $500 would be on the very bottom edge of reasonable - but with all the iterations and detail they wanted (not all apparent in these images... ) I don't think I would charge less than $2000 for these.

A curse upon all the hungry young wolves who use pirated software to undercut and devalue our work!!!

[kami]

hey.
your renders are really nice! with that quality I wouldn't charge less than $1000 for one image (espacially with all the modelling work and custom furniture etc.). Since the other images are just more or less different angles / lightning situations I would consider $2000 a fair price for all the images. But it's not very expensive. I could image going up until $5000 depending on how many tweaking and revisions you had to do.
cheers,
kami

[glebe digital]

Yes, $500 is around £250, which is roughly my daily rate.
With the full brief in front of me [& with the design freezed] the modeling is about a day's work..........obviously changes and later additions will up the price, but a clear brief and I'd nail it in 8hrs.

My last gig was to model & texture around 50% of L'oreal's product range, painful work but with a big crate of make-up by my desk, it was done in three days.


edit: btw I should add that these renders are very nice indeed........It's not my intention to detract from them at all, they're pretty sweet.

[caryjames]

Glebe: I hear what you are saying about turn around but consider this....

* If you are like me you have a multi thousand dollar computer. Mine cost $4500 with an academic discount of $1500. Most people around here toss figures like $8- 10K for their machines

* Never mind the countless hours I spent learning to render not including the time spent learning 3D modeling.

* So the modeling is a day's work... if you are really fast
* Then the rendering set up is at least a day's work and that is if you already have the materials. Then depending on how fast your computer is and how good you want the final image you have that tied up for a few hours.
* Never mind overhead like phone, high speed internet, rent........


I don't want to tell you how to charge but anyone getting those renders for $400-$500 is getting a RIDICULOUS deal!!!! . And I suspect that L'oreal has more than a couple of bucks to throw around .


Just my 0.02 cents of course but those renders were PRO and I would charge accordingly

[dilbert]

I have to agree with caryjames. The larger international companies I've worked for always do their billing through a project director who usually has no idea whatsoever how much time an image takes, or what it's worth, they just have an overall budget and deadline to deal with. The key is in the initial contact where you have to gauge the client's needs verses what he's willing to invest in the project, verses how quick he wants the result. If you start out doing stuff on the cheap just to attract clients, it's difficult if not impossible to raise your rates later, and you'll always be living week to week trying to get jobs.

Glebe's daily rate seems low to me, but that might be what his market can support. I use a benchmark of $120/hr in my initial quote for modeling/engineering, and then inflate that with the amount of render time required to complete all the images. Never feel guilty about asking for the world as you have no idea what your client's budget is. The last project I did, I quoted $12,000 for about a solid weeks worth of work (40 hrs). I thought the quote was a little inflated, but the client didn't even bat an eye, so I probably was quoting under what he had been authorized to spend. Thats' the perfect scenario, you get more than you think you are owed, and the client looks good in front of his boss as he's spent less than he was already authorized to spend

One last thing. In my experience, the best artists are usually the ones who are struggling to make money because they treat their work as art and not business. IMHO, the way you sell yourself as a business is 90% of what makes you money, especially with larger clients.

[Mattia Sullini]

uhmmm.....i definitively have to emigrate.....

[dilbert]

uhmmm.....i definitively have to emigrate.....

I don't think it's necessarily location as my bigger clients are based in Asia, it's more to do with what you offer as a package, and the niche market that you're in. Fancy 3D renders in Maxwell usually account for about 5% of the time spent on a project for me. It's like icing on the cake for the client. They get to see their final product on screen before they invest a penny in manufacture. The biggest thing is giving them a design that they love, and more importantly can manufacture. This means providing engineering drawings and IGES files along with the renders. I'd be out of business if I was just making pretty pictures

That's another thing to consider when you decide on software. In consumer product design and manufacture, poly modeling is not going to get you anywhere. You need to use a software that gives the client a file to their manufacture tolerances that can go directly to production once the design is approved. This also requires a general knowledge of manufacture process so that you don't design something that is physically impossible to build. All of these things tie into the price that you charge the client for your service.

[Hervé]

uhmmm.....i definitively have to emigrate.....

again, and as I said earlier, it all depend who you are, where you live, what type of clients...

House renders goes from 500 to 5000... no fixed prices... and this thread demonstrates it very well..

.. now as for having clients overseas, it's nice, but more dangerous... >$<

[dilbert]

.. now as for having clients overseas, it's nice, but more dangerous... >$<

Herve, you are bang on the money with that comment! I've learned my lesson through painful experience. These days it's 30-50% up front before any work begins.

[Hervé]

... at some point , I ask 2/3 upfront..

[Fernando Tella]

Lately, as an architect, I'm getting offers from Uruguay. They only ask around 250€ for making 3d views and don't look bad!

[Hervé]

Lately, as an architect, I'm getting offers from Uruguay. They only ask around 250€ for making 3d views don't look bad!

This is more or less what I've heard... If WE can fish new clients over the internet.. people from poor countries can also go fishing... and for once we all use the same Harpoons...

... and I paid for my Maxwell License, but most of these newcomers just don't...

Go tell my nephew Julian to pay whatever he finds for free on internet.. he'll tell you.."go away fool..!"

h.

The fact is that a New-York.. or Paris appartment is expensive to rent for us.. and so you have to ask $2,000 for these renders...

Now Imagine you re-locate in a bamboos house on a beach somewhere in Thailand or Philippines... you could then also ask only $250 per render.. and youll be eating Lobster at each meal... hehe..

h

[Hervé]

....... And I suspect that L'oreal has more than a couple of bucks to throw around .

well ask around you.. this is where you make the mistake... the bigger the company.. the less they'll pay...

[glebe digital]

Bruce Lee was once asked 'how can I get my kick as fast as you?' and the answer that came back was 'kick faster'.
So in some ways, if you can model quick enough, most budget constraints can be acheivable in some way............if this hypothetical $500 gig came up, would you take it on or drop it? Personally I'd find a way of doing it in 8-10hrs and have the money.

You'd be surprised who's really got the juicy budgets........and the big corps have marketing teams, who have their own fixed budgets that they have to work within.........as service providers we need to dovetail into our client's working practices if we want to develop these clients and get the return business.

Herve's comment about bamboo houses etc....totally spot on. I have no mortgage, own my own place, no debts & since I work from home my business running costs are pretty low..........my day-rate keeps me pretty comfortable, and I think it's a fair wage for someone to pay.........also I'm competing with others over the internet, so I've gotta keep costs competitive.

When I was working in London [as an employee], the company charged me out at £650/day!........go to Framestore and it'll cost you £2k/day for one guy.

Charging the client according to 'how fat his purse looks' is surely ethically & morally bankrupt? What justification is there to charge in that way? If a sub-contractor did that to me I'd be way pissed.........your day-rate should not be a piece of elastic, but a steel-rule that allows you [and your clients] to quantify a project effectively.

Also, let's remember we're all in subtly different industries; one might be a product designer, or in the jewelry biz, archviz etc......all these areas have a different price-point so quantifying what's a good price and what's not is probably sophistry.