If a potential client owns a $20K 3D printer....
polycounter lvl 10
Would you bid your top rate right away or would you start with your "best" offer.
Potential client is one person who own an Objet24 for small scale toy parts printing. Not a boutique, just a home based dude with this printer.
Potential client is one person who own an Objet24 for small scale toy parts printing. Not a boutique, just a home based dude with this printer.
Replies
Personally I now stay away from the 3d printing scene. Too many people are too excited about what can be done with a 3d printer. They want to get involved because they see an opportunity to do production at a lower cost, but dont understand the process of 3d modeling, so they dramatically underestimate the prices for our work. People wanting full characters for 100 or less, when I quote them in the thousands, they act shocked, and when I explain to them how those numbers just dont work, several have actually got upset with me.
Obviously this is just the amateurs, but there is a frenzy around 3d printers right now so I'm staying out of the water. But a guy who invests 20k into a printer is definitely going to understand more about the process and seems like he'd be a pretty reliable client.
Anyway, already had a phone chat and have googled enough info (he likes to blog :poly124:) to know and be confident what's a fair rate or what my best low rates is gonna be.
Your rates need to be self-set and you need to stick with them.
Not gonna work for me. I prefer keeping my "plate full" as much as I can and build my client list and work portfolio. And being flexible with rates allow me to do so.
Then don't say that on a public forum where clients could be?
Serious? You think they're all children and stupid?
Not everyone's got the budget for standard rates. It's both parties job to find their match in the market.
Negotiate like a pro and balance the pros and cons. You won't grow as freelancer if you just stick with what salary surveys say you're supposed to earn.
I leave room for a client to bargain. Im okay losing $250 if I can easily bank $1000.
Nobody gets into business to do a thing one time. I think Randy in cryptomonicon said that. The guy didn't buy a 20k printer for this one job, he obviously plans to use the thing over and over again.
If you underbid him now, you're underbidding him for all future work, which is definitely something you want to take into account. It is very hard to suddenly start charging a client more for something you have already done at a lower price, and likely to cause frusteration on his part or yours if the relationship continues.
I would say that there are reasons to underbid, but they are quite rare. I have underbid to get ahold of new tech or nex gen stuff, underbid to work on a project that gives me more freedom, and also a couple times for people who have helped me in the past. One thing I do make sure of is that the people who are getting cheaper work are aware of it, so there are no misconceptions that this is what work typically costs.
I totally get why freelancers don't like other freelancers to underbid, and I would generally discourage it, but there are no real concretes in business. My dad used to say "Don't grasp at the pennies and the dollars slip through your fingers." I understand why you would go 1/4 under because it nets you 3/4th's that you might otherwise not have. I would counter however that it might be a better use of your time finding work which pays professionally, rather than spending it doing work for under what you are worth.
All that said, I personally feel like that's your business, not ours - though in general I wouldn't mention this practice around a freelance or business centered crowd like polycount.
Just leaving this thread with this...you can learn a lot of freelancing info pertaining to the 3d printing biz by checking out the offers in the Shapeways forum and finding who's getting the most action.
Good night :thumbup:
I know middleware companies set their prices according to project or studio size and budget. So a smaller studio making a download only title might get quoted 25k for a license, while the big publisher owned studio doing a triple-A game will get quoted 100k for the same thing.
Do you feel this is different? Or is this just as "unfair" as a freelancer doing the same thing?
I do believe i bit the wrong end of the stick here. I thought you were trying to over milk him as in overcharge him from the get go and were looking for advice to how to do so. Silly miscommunication, ysalex summed it up nicely ;').