How much do you charge for a 3d model ?

System

(originally by: account removed by request)

i've had a recent situation where a guy is developing his video game, he asked me could i make him a weapon (rifle gun) and hands holding it (its for first person shooter game). I didn't know what to answer, so i told him i'll contact him and let him know about price.
My question is not just about this case....its about generaly prices of 3d models. So i was wondering is there any "pricelist" for 3d models ???????
or is there any criteria under whom i can charge my 3d modeling services ????

thanks in advance

Brian "Panda" Choi

If it's a custom weapon and assets, quote him your hourly/daily rate.

If it's just a generic weapon and hands, he could jusut get it somewhere online.

aesir

I charge by the day.  So if someone wants a cost for a project, I estimate how many days it will take me.

Your day rate should reflect how much you want to earn per year.  What's the minimum wage where you live?  Make sure it's at least double that.

Elithenia

When you are looking at doing things freelance, you have to remember that you're not only asking for a 'living' wage, but the price needs to cover insurance and things as well.
This is an interesting read: https://medium.com/@noahbradley/100-day-7e8acad8ce0f 
But it should be noted that with $100/day you'll make $26,100 before taxes. 
However, that means making $100 EVERY DAY.. and still making less than the american median skilled job. https://medium.com/@noahbradley/minimum-wage-artists-4f8e00024a4

I agree with Brian "Panda" Choi and @aesir.

If it's a custom weapon and assets, quote him your hourly/daily rate.

If it's just a generic weapon and hands, he could jusut get it somewhere online.

aesir said:

I charge by the day.  So if someone wants a cost for a project, I estimate how many days it will take me.

Your day rate should reflect how much you want to earn per year.  What's the minimum wage where you live?  Make sure it's at least double that.

I do day rates as well.. Easier for both the client and yourself I feel like.
Check the minimum where you live. And check how much YOU could live on, minimum (rent, food, licenses etc) and then at least double it. 

my account was removed all i got was lousy tshirt

i live in bosnia, i can't tell a guy my hourly rate because he wouldn't believe me. I can tell a client im working on "hey,i worked on your model asset for 5 hours (but i actually do it in 2)", no one is a fool. And no one wants to bother with some tracking devices online..... So , it just doesn't work that way. That's why i need a pricelist. Maybe it doesn't exist, all these freelancing have disadvantages that's why it sucks, best option is to find a job to work for a company ,remote or relocated.

pigart

There is no pricelist. Every model is different and everyone works at different speeds. Just charge hourly / daily and give the client a good time estimate.
You are lucky if you live in a country with a very low cost of living. Your hourly can be triple, quadruple or etc of the minimum wage.

Mad_Llama

It all depends on level of skill and his requirements. If you're just starting charging something low is fair until you reach a higher skill level when you can charge industry standard rates. If you're working with people locally it should reflect your local salaries, but working remotely / freelancing you should charge standard rates for your level of skill. Otherwise you're making it harder both for you and everyone else in the industry by lowering the rates.  
Standard rates 30 - 50$ per hour I'd say is professional level. Anything lower is medium to low, unless you're living and working locally in a country with low salaries (like I am )

Jakob Gavelli

You're actually in luck if you live in a country with low cost of living as pigart said. Try explaining to a client that the reason you're so expensive if because you get taxed for 50% of your income, need to add 25% ontop of the price for VAT and then your rent is 1000 dollars a month. ^^ 
(I get why this is and I'm not trying to be snotty about it but yeah,it's annoying sometimes even though there are obvious benefits!)

You really should charge a daily rate. If the client is very picky about exact hours, exact days and want to keep tabs on you then that doesn't sound like a very professional client to me. There is no pricelist so drop that thought. What you need to think about is that you are providing a SERVICE by creating a customized asset someone wants. You can't possibly compare that to a asset-store asset or something like that. They are purchasing YOUR time and YOUR skills, not simply purchasing an asset. I think it helps to think about it like that anyways!

Neox

account removed by request said:

i live in bosnia, i can't tell a guy my hourly rate because he wouldn't believe me. I can tell a client im working on "hey,i worked on your model asset for 5 hours (but i actually do it in 2)", no one is a fool. And no one wants to bother with some tracking devices online..... So , it just doesn't work that way. That's why i need a pricelist. Maybe it doesn't exist, all these freelancing have disadvantages that's why it sucks, best option is to find a job to work for a company ,remote or relocated.

It works exactly like this. Obviously if you bullshit your client he might find out and gets pissed and goes somewhere else. Just be honest and charge a honest rate.

There is no pricelist for assets.

An asset can be between a day or months of work, it all depends on the style, quality, complexity, amount of iterations and so on.
How could you possibly work with a flat deal with that in mind?
I mean if there is enough mass you can possibly negotiate a flat deal. Say you gotta do 20 similar assets, some might be simpler some might be more complex. You will tell them a range that it will take to complete and might end up with a median amount of money for the entire batch.

Make sure you get paid in regular timeframes, if you take a job in and do dozens of assets and get paid at the end of the contract you might run out of money before you are at the end.

Elithenia

yeah to follow along with what @Neox said, I've been told to always try to get 25-50% upfront, before you start working. As that will make sure that both you and the client are into the deal. And you need to set up a contract...  
There's been times when the client has run off without paying, as well as the freelancer just taking the money and leaving. 

my account was removed all i got was lousy tshirt

in my country minimal month salary is 529 BAM (which is 323.51 US dollars)
avarage month salary is 800 BAM (which is 519.20 US dollars)
so one working day (8 hours) is arround 20 BAM (arround 12 US dollars)
one hour would be 2.5 BAM (which is 1.53 US dollars)

The client is not remote, he's from here but also i would like to know what would be hourly rate  if i work remote.

Elithenia

For the figures you gave:
800BAM for a month (should be around 165 hrs for a month's work) = 200BAM/Week = 40BAM/Day = 5 BAM/hr... 
1 Working day = 8 Hrs... = 40 BAM
This is not including working weekends btw. I'm calculating on basis of being an accountant xD 165-167 hrs is what is used for us to calculate a month's hours for salary... Can be different in your country

Depending on your living expenses, how much insurance, health package, food etc that you need to have as well, I would say at least double your rate to 80-100BAM/day and 10 BAM/hr. 

I don't know your level of work, but try to work out how much you would NEED to survive. and at least double it (think about taxes, insurance and everything added to that)
Then if the client is local, work with local prices. 
If the client is remote.. work with an international rate. 

I would say to not go too much below $100 per day ($12.5/hr), at least if you're going international. But. Everything is dependent on where you live, what you can survive on, how many extra things you have to pay for (software/licenses, health, insurance, rent, dependants/kids/family etc) and your level, as well as your connection to the client. Some people offer discounts for how often the client asks for work from them. Some have an extra charge for the first time work... Some charge extra for speedy work.. 
Remember to factor in changes, communication and such as well when you are drawing up how long it would take you to do the model. 

Neox

account removed by request said:

in my country minimal month salary is 529 BAM (which is 323.51 US dollars)
avarage month salary is 800 BAM (which is 519.20 US dollars)
so one working day (8 hours) is arround 20 BAM (arround 12 US dollars)
one hour would be 2.5 BAM (which is 1.53 US dollars)

The client is not remote, he's from here but also i would like to know what would be hourly rate  if i work remote.

This is something we can not answer. You know your cost of living, we don't. If you work local you will likely earn local.

Get good enough to compete internationally and you should make that monthly minimum in a day or two. Thanks to the internet you do not have to work for local companies, you have a much further reach now. Use it

igi

If your client is local, give local rates. If your client is international, give international rates. This is what I did in the past. You can contact with some local 3d artists to get a picture of your local rates. In both cases do not give a rate below acceptable rates otherwise you'll contribute to a race to the bottom which will damage the market, even the local one.

ArNavart

You might also scare the client off, by throwing all this calculations, contract, life insurance, your pension when you'll get 65 yo etc.  on him,  if he is new to all this. Personally for me, all this hourly, daily rate never worked, simply put you should feel the right price in your guts, your feelings will never lie to you. If this is the first time, you were offered a paid job, I'd advice,  taking the job and doing it, for a negotiated price. Why? Well, a gun and pair of hands  are relatively small things, once the job is done ask yourself couple of questions and give them honest answers:
Did I guessed correctly how many days it will take?( if not, reasons? )
Is the client content with the quality of the work?
Am I content with the quality of the work?
Am I content with the amount of payment?
I'm sure for 99.999999% you'll give the right answers. And you know, after couple of such jobs, when someone in the middle of the night wakes you up and asks: "Hey dude, how much would you charge for X or Y?",  you'll know exactly what to answer.

...so i told him i'll contact him and let him know about price...
I think you didn't gave the right answer here. My answer would be: "Generally I do that kind of job for about $...., but it may go higher or lower depending on this and this, oh, almost forgot and this." This kind of answer gives two advantages, first, let him talk, while you think and later you can be more flexible in your answer, second in my experience in 8 cases out 10, individual clients expect more that initially  was agreed( don't ask why, I dont know, it just happens), so with this approach, I could easily raise the price if it happened, because the client has been more specific in his requirements.

EarthQuake

ArNavart said:

You might also scare the client off, by throwing all this calculations, contract, life insurance, your pension when you'll get 65 yo etc.  on him,  if he is new to all this. Personally for me, all this hourly, daily rate never worked, simply put you should feel the right price in your guts, your feelings will never lie to you. If this is the first time, you were offered a paid job, I'd advice,  taking the job and doing it, for a negotiated price. Why? Well, a gun and pair of hands  are relatively small things, once the job is done ask yourself couple of questions and give them honest answers:
Did I guessed correctly how many days it will take?( if not, reasons? )
Is the client content with the quality of the work?
Am I content with the quality of the work?
Am I content with the amount of payment?
I'm sure for 99.999999% you'll give the right answers. And you know, after couple of such jobs, when someone in the middle of the night wakes you up and asks: "Hey dude, how much would you charge for X or Y?",  you'll know exactly what to answer.

...so i told him i'll contact him and let him know about price...
I think you didn't gave the right answer here. My answer would be: "Generally I do that kind of job for about $...., but it may go higher or lower depending on this and this, oh, almost forgot and this." This kind of answer gives two advantages, first, let him talk, while you think and later you can be more flexible in your answer, second in my experience in 8 cases out 10, individual clients expect more that initially  was agreed( don't ask why, I dont know, it just happens), so with this approach, I could easily raise the price if it happened, because the client has been more specific in his requirements.

The point of calculating how much you should charge for work is not to drop all of this information on the client, that would be silly. It's to help you figure out how much you should charge for a single asset. This should absolutely not be driven by gut feelings.

You should absolutely 110% have an hourly/day rate that you can communicate to the client, and you should absolutely 110% have a time estimate for how long the work should take, this is something that should be communicated to the client so there is a clear understanding of the work involved. If you can't sort these basic concepts out, you're going to have a lot of problems working as a freelance artist.

Day rate * expected time to complete asset = your baseline rate for a fixed price job. Experienced artists will factor in time for revisions or other complications into the time estimate as well.

Your hourly/day rate should be based on the numerous factors discussed in this thread. This number is usually given to the client before any serious discussion begins.

The time estimate should be based on numerous factors as well, including technical specs, design complexity, art style, quality expectations, software requirements, revisions, etc. A rough figure here may be given early on, and a more accurate quote given when more information has been received from the client about the job.

To the OP: typical international rates tend to looks something like this:

Low end Chinese/Indian/other developing nations artists: $100 USD a day
Entry level US/EU artists: $150-200 a day
Mid level (at least 5 years experience, great portfolio) US/EU artists: $250-300 a day
High end (10 years exp, exceptional portfolio, well known) US/EU artists: $400 and up

This can vary quite a bit too depending on the type of work (character artists tend to make a bit more than prop artists for instance), and the level of work you're capable of doing/how much demand you have. Since your cost of living is very low you could easily charge $100 a day and be very competitive price wise vs US/EU artists. If your quality output is on par with industry standards you could (and should) charge more as well.

A single gun might take somewhere from 4 days to 14 days for a moderately experienced artist to complete depending on complexity and other factors.

ArNavart

EarthQuake said:

ArNavart said:

You might also scare the client off, by throwing all this calculations, contract, life insurance, your pension when you'll get 65 yo etc.  on him,  if he is new to all this. Personally for me, all this hourly, daily rate never worked, simply put you should feel the right price in your guts, your feelings will never lie to you. If this is the first time, you were offered a paid job, I'd advice,  taking the job and doing it, for a negotiated price. Why? Well, a gun and pair of hands  are relatively small things, once the job is done ask yourself couple of questions and give them honest answers:
Did I guessed correctly how many days it will take?( if not, reasons? )
Is the client content with the quality of the work?
Am I content with the quality of the work?
Am I content with the amount of payment?
I'm sure for 99.999999% you'll give the right answers. And you know, after couple of such jobs, when someone in the middle of the night wakes you up and asks: "Hey dude, how much would you charge for X or Y?",  you'll know exactly what to answer.

...so i told him i'll contact him and let him know about price...
I think you didn't gave the right answer here. My answer would be: "Generally I do that kind of job for about $...., but it may go higher or lower depending on this and this, oh, almost forgot and this." This kind of answer gives two advantages, first, let him talk, while you think and later you can be more flexible in your answer, second in my experience in 8 cases out 10, individual clients expect more that initially  was agreed( don't ask why, I dont know, it just happens), so with this approach, I could easily raise the price if it happened, because the client has been more specific in his requirements.

The point of calculating how much you should charge for work is not to drop all of this information on the client, that would be silly. It's to help you figure out how much you should charge for a single asset. This should absolutely not be driven by gut feelings.

You should absolutely 110% have an hourly/day rate that you can communicate to the client, and you should absolutely 110% have a time estimate for how long the work should take, this is something that should be communicated to the client so there is a clear understanding of the work involved. If you can't sort these basic concepts out, you're going to have a lot of problems working as a freelance artist.

Day rate * expected time to complete asset = your baseline rate for a fixed price job. Experienced artists will factor in time for revisions or other complications into the time estimate as well.

Your hourly/day rate should be based on the numerous factors discussed in this thread. This number is usually given to the client before any serious discussion begins.

The time estimate should be based on numerous factors as well, including technical specs, design complexity, art style, quality expectations, software requirements, revisions, etc. A rough figure here may be given early on, and a more accurate quote given when more information has been received from the client about the job.

To the OP: typical international rates tend to looks something like this:

Low end Chinese/Indian/other developing nations artists: $100 USD a day
Entry level US/EU artists: $150-200 a day
Mid level (at least 5 years experience, great portfolio) US/EU artists: $250-300 a day
High end (10 years exp, exceptional portfolio, well known) US/EU artists: $400 and up

This can vary quite a bit too depending on the type of work (character artists tend to make a bit more than prop artists for instance), and the level of work you're capable of doing/how much demand you have. Since your cost of living is very low you could easily charge $100 a day and be very competitive price wise vs US/EU artists. If your quality output is on par with industry standards you could (and should) charge more as well.

A single gun might take somewhere from 4 days to 14 days for a moderately experienced artist to complete depending on complexity and other factors.

I'd be glad that all of it worked for me, you know, I'd be a rich person by local standards. However, charging a client in the country with $10 - 12 per day salary ( which is also true for my country ) $100 per day, will yield  "Duuude...  wtf?" answer. So far I was able to charge local clients more by not mentioning anything at all about daily rates, just a single final price. Also to keep the prices low I've also adapted to free softwares' pipeline( blender, gimp, xnormal etc. ), along with the paid ones, which gives even more flexibility price wise. As for international clients, and in couple of cases, established companies from EU, UK, Russia, their  offers were between $100 - 200 per week ( or lower ) and the amount of work were suggesting full time engagement( or even more ), some of the offers were sent directly by lead artists. I'm working to reach the price - range that you mentioned, but unfortunately I'm not there, yet.
So all in all, my point here was and is to provide alternative opinion, based on my own experience. Which is, get your hand dirty, have a taste of it, gain some experience. 

EarthQuake

The rates and prices I mentioned above were for the international market, because the OP asked specifically for that information. For local work, you're going to have to charge closer to local rates, no way around that.