How much should I charge? (1st time doing freelance)

CelebrenIthil

Hello everyone, I am in need of your counsel.

I just got asked as a modeler for a low-poly project but it will be my first time being paid for it. I've been asked for how much I demand for various items and I sincerly do not know! I am equally terrified of overselling or underselling myself.

I am being asked my price for a character around 800tris, and also give a cost estimation for a bundle of 4 prop samples, ranging from 200 to 700 tris and sharing a 1024 texture.

I know the prices differ from person to person, following skill but I am without any guidelines right now. I guess maybe it could help you guys assess how much I am "worth" if I show you a few sample of what my work looks like:

http://www.celebrenithil.com/Artwork/ENDI/3DChar_Detective_Wire.png
http://www.celebrenithil.com/Artwork/3DStills/images/Countach.png
http://www.celebrenithil.com/Artwork/ENDI/3DObj_Props_iPhone.png

They are waiting for my response so all of my thanks to anyone providing me with a response swiftly. I really appreciate any input/advice/tips you guys can give me!

Cyrael

If you do a bit of searching there are several (and by that I mean no less than 10) threads dedicated exactly to this topic. Basically it boils down to how much you value your own worth. Find that value in a project basis or breakdown by hour, and we can't be the judge of that, only you can. Some people value themselves much higher than others. It is a very very subjective realm, and also differentiates based upon company and project.

Mark Dygert

Typically the answer to this questions goes something like this.

Think of an hourly rate, figure out how long it will take to do the job, give yourself some padding and breathing room and submit that figure to them.

Don't forget to calculate changes and rework and get the number of corrections and changes in writing otherwise they'll never leave you alone. First round of changes are free, next round will cost XX amount.

OR

Figure out what your total living expenses are for a month, divide that by how many hours you plan to work, this gives you an hourly rate to charge to just scrape by.

Example: If your monthly bills are 2,000 and you plan to work 120hrs you will need to charge roughly 17 per hour to scrape even. Considering you might not have 120 hrs of work and at some point someone is going to collect taxes, you will need to charge a bit more than your overhead.

Say 25 per hr X 20hrs actual work = 500
(keeping mind your padding so you state 40 hrs and give yourself the whole week just in case things fall apart.)

If you can line up 5 contracts like that you not only survive this month but you bank 500. Which is good because next month you might only have 3 contracts. You can also eat into your profit margin quite a bit to get things rolling and establish a new contact, just make sure they know its lower than your normal fee.
Now you can play with those numbers anyway you see fit and there is a lot that factors into that, its just one example.

You shouldn't look to make a years salary off of 1 contract unless that will take you a whole year to complete. You need to temper your price to your clients budget/expectations. If clients don't like the prices you either need to pull in more work, lower your overhead (get a roommate, move in with your girlfriend or parents) or find some better clients...

Freelance can be a crazy nightmare, stay cool, keep a level head and try to keep your costs as low as possible.

Also being as transparent as possible with clients goes a long, long way. I've heard a few people say and seen it work, "This is what my costs are, this is what I have to charge to eat and make rent, if that doesn't work I'm sorry I'll try and help you find some other talent that doesn't mind working for less"

haiddasalami

Tonnes of stuff in this thread.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81413

Blaizer

Yep, you need to stablish your daily rate or hour rate.

And for God's sake, don't charge less than 30$/hour, it's the minimum of the minimum for a freelance.

CelebrenIthil

Thanks a lot both of you. I did do a quick search but yeah, I'm in a bit of a panic and I kinda hoped someone could give me some guidelines about "per model" pricing than the monthl/per hour pricing. It was probably wishful thinking on my part tough, as I guess everyone do end guessing how much they charge for X object by doing the "find a rate per hour, try to assess how much time it'll take you"... I'm a beginner to freelancing, and when I was doing my studies I didn't quite pay attention on exactly how much time it took me to do things. I always got them done on time but I really have a hard time sitting down and thinking "this is gonna take me x hours, and this is gonna take me y hours..."
I guess I should have paid more attention to my production speed back then.

I tried looking at sites that sell individual models like Turbosquid to get a quick idea but that's not like asking real people, either.

Anyways, thanks again even if you guys aren't able to pull magical nummbers out of your hats, I'm just so unsure of myself and hoped there were some sort of settled data I could use as a basis.

EDIT: Woah more replies while I typed. Thanks for the numbers and the link, I'mma go check right away!