how much must you charge?

[Guest royterr]

is there any ressources/info regarding how studios charge for arch/viz projects?(not salarys)

 

how much for exemple does a cutting edge company charge for an outsanding wlakthrough? is it calculated by resolution/film lenght/quality.....?

[Devin Johnston]

There isn't one fee you should charge it all depends on what your costs are and where in the world you live. People in China for instance charge a couple hundred dollars for a rendering where someone in the US might charge a few thousand. My advice would be to figure up all you hard costs plus how much profit you wish to make in a years time, then you'll have some idea of where you should start. If you just doing this on the side and not really depending on it to make a living then charge as much as you think you can get away with.

[Guest royterr]

i see.

a fiew thousands for an animation?

i heard that companys like alpha vision (montreal) charge from 200 000 to 1 000 000 dollars for a 5 minutes wlakthrough.

[Devin Johnston]

Your right however animations that cost that much are more akin to small FX movies than what most people would think when they hear architectural animation. They have large budgets because they are working on high profile very complex projects that require teams of people to complete. You can't really compare that to what the average freelancer or small 3D firm could do.

[wasteland giant]

go on the internet and source some quotes if you really want to know.

[AndyC]

Its a simple calculation to be honest. A firm has predetermined charge out rates for each staff level. Someone will then work out what needs to be done, who are the best people to do it, how long they will need to do it. So their time x their charge out rate, plus management, expenses, consultants, tech requirements, engagement and day to day project expenses is the number. You then look at how much you want/need the job and discount accordingly or load the project if you can forsee situations or timing that will require additional thought.

 

Projects can grow up to half a million dollars, but they are not common. Think about how many hours that is. Even at an average of 150 an hour that's over 3000 hours! That's one hell of a project! (Or a very expensive consultant.)

 

Clients will pay those fees, but they buying a lot when they do this. The firm thats doing the work is probably sitting in an office with at least that amount in equipment, maybe 2 or 3 times that amount. So its not all profit!

[Jimy]

Work out how long it's going to take you. Double it. Add some overheads in there and hey presto!

 

Either way don't undercharge if you can; it happened in the Architecture profession and now they're all poor and overworked.

[Noise]

The costing presently (credit crunch) is firmly dependent on your location and therefore I cannot put a price to your situation. Costing is easier for stills but when it comes to animations - they are much more tricky. The reason they are more difficult is due to many factors mainly, the prospective clients perceived value of the work they want done. There is a certain amount of educating of new clients to the value of our work, this also has to take into account your abilities of communication to convince them of your worth.

 

There is a definite strata to the costing from different companies and freelancers. Some are expensive and some are very cheap - you need to balance your costing with regard to how much work you need and the quality of your work.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Noise

[archigineer]

There's no one-size-fits-all formula for that.

 

It all depends on the following factors:

 

1. Your professional status
   
2. Amount of time spent on the job
   
3. capacity to pay of your client
   
4. Total input expense
   
5. Novelty of the project/concept
   
6. average charging in you city or country
   

[BVI]

I get this question often and its an easy one to answer.

 

Calculate your hourly rate and multiply by the amount of hours it will take to create the image/s. You will need to have an idea on what is fair to the client and yourself in terms of time spent vs fee.

 

Lets use a single image as an example. I know it will take me 3 days (including a crit session/changes etc) with the client to produce a 3D image. Thats 8 hours per day x 3 = 24 hours. Sure, some projects may take twice as long, and some may only take a day, but you need an average to work with.

 

Calculate your fair hourly rate; take into account your overheads, sundries and your fixed and variable costs (averaged) per month, divide by 160 Hours - if your rate is $150 an hour, then the fee for a single rendering would be $3600 per image. If your rate is $50 per hour then your fee would be $1200 per image.

 

There are other models you can use to cost a project, such as, charging overall fees for modelling/texturing/lighting and then a small price for each render, but once again, this should boil down to you hourly rate.

Edited October 23, 2009 by BVI

[Soulw4xer]

Great thread!

[danb4026]

One problem that I see is that none of these scenarios take into consideration periods of "no" work. If your working steadily then it is simple to figure out an hours wage to cover expenses and your desired profit. But if you have to compensate for unknown periods with no work, how do you figure out what to generally charge?