RebusFarm questionable billing model - anyone same experience?

[Guest Roni Tosun]

Yesterday I had to render a single frame in 8000x4500 resolution. My deadline was 17:30. I submitted the project to the rebus farm at 12:00 because my local computer needed more than 15 hours for it to render, therefore I was unable to meet the deadline by myself. I submitted the project in the standard priority level 1. After 5 hours of rendering (17:00) 25 render points were used up, the rendering was not finished yet. I therefore upgraded the priority to level 7. At 20:00 the rendering was finished and 270 renderpoints were used. When I contacted support to find out why 250 euros had been spent within an hour, the support explained to me that the entire rendering time from 12:00 to 20:00 was billed at the rate for priority level 7, even though I had been rendering and waiting for 5 hours on priority 1.

I find the billing model very questionable. How can you go and bill your customer something he didn’t profited from. The customer was sitting and waiting for the whole day. The customer just missed his deadline. Rendering on priority level 1 for 85% of the time and you go and bill him 100% on priority level 7. For me it’s just frustrating, spending that much money for one single frame and still not be able to meet the deadline.

What do you think about that type of billing model?