quoted high, seen the light, do i go back?

[accu]

Hi

 

Being that this is my first post, i just want to say that this is a great forum/site that i find very informative and helpful.

 

I resently gave a quote to a Homebuilder for some renderings that he wanted (about 50 renderings) for all his new house plans. Now I quoted $1500-2000 for each. and that was a BIT too high for his liking and at this point was unable to get a more exact figure for what he wanted to spend, but it sounded like in the X.100s.

 

Now Im just trying to start out freelancing but i been using Viz/Max for quit a while now. and now a bit hesitant to give another quote to the next guy without know what this render on average goes for. Ive asked in the newsgroups and first few responces were around $300ish, which is a BIG difference then my quote (though i did put a lot of detail in my demo image i showed him, more then he need maybe).

 

I've attached a image of what i demo to him...he really like it but not the price.

 

Now for my dilemma, if my quote was way off and rendering of this such only goes for 300ish do i go back to him?....look really bad if i do though but its money. but 300ish+ seems a bit low tho, but thats just me.

 

what im trying to get is an idea or range of prices not necessary a exact number cause there isnt one but something to help to determine if i should put my pride aside and go back

 

 

thanks

[TheAllusionisst]

I see nothing wrong with wanting to make a profitable existance and if economically feasible not sell yourself short. Since you did a demo, take the hours that it took and multiply them times the hourly rate you need to make ends meet and then hopefully you can figure in some profit and overhead so that you can make a go at it and not live from paycheck to paycheck. Remember that you have the technical expertise and the hardware/software required for the job and that didn't come free and not just anyone can do it.

 

I won't go into my experience with developers but I would pursue relationships with architectural firms and other potential clientale. Remember everyone else is trying to make a profit and if they can lower your fee, that is potentially more money in their pockets. At the end of the day no one wants to work for $3.97/hour and that can happen if you lower your fee too much and you may risk lowering the value of your services in the eyes of your client. Just my take on it, there is a semi-monthly article at this site that covers this type of scenario and the other is much more qualified than I to give advise on this sort of thing.

[mbr]

I wouldn't do renderings for $300 (that's US dollars). That's just waaaay too low. But if he wants 50 of these, that's $15000 and that is a nice number. If you can setup a scene and reuse things, lighting, accessories, etc., then you can save a tremendous amount of time. You only need to build the front of the houses, too.

It's still cheap, though, you just have to decide if you need that money now. One rendering at that is worthless to you and won't get you a good client, but if you can talk him up, 50 x whatever you agree on can be a nice chunk of change (like if you did 50 at $1000, 50k for one project is pretty good). That's how I'd look at.

[Sawyer]

Yeah it is really the amount of work you do that determins the amount you get paid. If you chaged 1,500 and only worked 10 hours I think thats pretty steep. If someone came to me with 50 houses I would charge them less (per hr) than I would for one house. Even at 1k per image you would have made $50,000.

 

Honestly 1,500 - 2k (us $?) seems really high for that image. That was not that much detail or advanced lighting. But how long did it take? Even at 1k per image you would have made $50,000. I would think you would finish all of the series really quickly 1-2 months. If it were me I would go back and try $700 per image and then take the little lady out for a really nice dinner in Morraco.

[accu]

ya Im starting to think that $1000 (Canada)a piece would be reasonable for that amount. Just wish i had this chat before I had the meeting with him . now im mad at myself in how I approach this client, good lesson to learn although expensive lesson.

 

To be honest, when i heard that he wanted 50 it really threw me off cause i was expecting like 5-6 renders and i was prepared to offer him a multimedia package with QTVR and stuff. I heard 50 and i think i choked ahaha.

 

thanks guys

[mbr]

It is a tough lesson (one that's taken me a while to learn), but I hope you can still talk to him. I'd contact him asap as he could be shopping around. Just express your interest and all that sales stuff.

Really, once you have at least two computers set up, you could be doing an image a day. That's not bad, and it looks like an easy project (versus a 50k animation).