Product rendering pricing

The short answer

Split the job into three layers: the model (one per product), the look (materials, colourways, the lighting setup), and the images (each camera, scene or animation). The model is the biggest cost and depends almost entirely on what the client gives you. Colourways and extra angles are cheap once the model and the look exist. Price each layer from your hours, then present it to the client as a price per product and a price per extra image or variant.

What the client sends decides the price

The first question on any product job is what you are building from. It changes the modelling time more than anything else in the brief.

Write the input into the quote as an assumption: "Price based on clean CAD for each product. Modelling from photos is quoted on request." If the CAD turns out to be a mesh export with ten thousand loose parts, you have something to point at.

The look: materials and colourways

Once the model exists, the next layer is the material set and the lighting. A good material setup for a matte plastic shell, a brushed aluminium part and a printed logo takes real time the first time. A second colourway of the same product is a material swap and a re-render. A tenth colourway is minutes of setup and some render time.

This is why colourways should be quoted as their own line at a much lower price than a new product. Clients with large ranges understand this immediately, and it is usually what wins the job against a studio that prices every variant as a fresh image.

The image types

Different deliverables use the same model very differently. Price them as separate image types:

• Packshot: product on white or a flat colour, one or several angles. The cheapest per image once the studio setup exists.
• Lifestyle or context scene: the product in a kitchen, on a desk, outdoors. Needs a scene built or bought, dressing, lighting for the mood. Often three to five times a packshot.
• Exploded view or cutaway: separating the parts and arranging them readably. Depends on part count and how clean the CAD is.
• 360 spin or turntable: a rendered sequence, typically 24 to 72 frames for a web spinner, or a short video loop. Cheap in labour if the packshot setup exists, expensive in render time.
• Short animation: product reveal, feature callouts. Priced like motion work, per shot or per second.

A worked example

Fieldwork Render, a three-person studio, is quoting an e-commerce kitchenware brand: 12 products (kettles, toasters, grinders), each in 3 colourways. For every product and colourway they want 3 packshot angles on white. On top, 4 lifestyle scenes using a selection of products and one 360 spin per product in the main colour. Clean CAD is supplied. These figures show the method, they are not market rates.

At an hourly cost of 50.00, the hours look like this:

That is 14,700.00 in studio time. Render farm time for the spins is quoted at 400.00. With a 30% margin the job comes to about 19,630.00, which after rounding the unit prices is presented to the client as 19,660.00:

The setup and the rounds are folded into the per-product price. The client can see that a colourway costs about a sixth of a product and that dropping one lifestyle scene saves 1,150.00. That is the structure they will use to cut scope, so give it to them.

Volume pricing for catalogues

Large ranges are where product rendering makes money, because the setup is spread over many images. You do not need a discount table. The structure above already gets cheaper per image as the range grows. If a client asks for a volume discount on top, give it on the per-image lines, not on the model line, because model time does not shrink with volume.

For an ongoing catalogue (new products every season), quote the studio setup once and then a fixed price per new product and per colourway for the year. It saves both sides a quote every month.

Reuse and usage rights

A product model is valuable after the job. The client may want it for their configurator, their AR viewer or the next campaign with another studio. Decide before you quote:

• Are you delivering the renders only, or the model files too? Source files are a separate, priced line.
• Where can the images be used: web shop, marketplaces, print catalogue, packaging, outdoor advertising? Packaging and billboards are often priced higher.
• For how long, and is it exclusive?
• Can you show the work in your portfolio, and from when?

The contract checklists cover the licence clause. For the shared-work logic on architecture rather than products, see how to price archviz images.

When the client compares you with a photo shoot

Brands often weigh CGI against a studio photo shoot. For one product in one colour, a shoot is usually cheaper and faster. CGI wins when there are many colourways, when the product does not physically exist yet, when the same images need updating every season, or when the angles have to match across a whole range. Say this plainly in the pitch. It is a better argument than a lower price, and it tells the client which of their jobs to send you.

Common mistakes

• Pricing every colourway as a full image. You lose to the studio that does not.
• Quoting before seeing the CAD. Ask for one file before you commit to a per-product price.
• Leaving retouch out of the hours. Labels, reflections and logos always need a pass.
• Giving away the model files with the renders.

Doing this in OIO

In OIO the catalogue job is one project. Each product, or each group of colourways, is a ticket on a kanban or a timeline, so you can see which of the 36 variants are done. A freelance modeller gets a link to the ticket for their products; they read the brief, download the CAD, upload the models and mark it done without an account or a seat. The client follows progress on a password-protected status link that lists the tickets and their status.

The quote lines carry a quantity, a unit and a price, so "24 x extra colourway" reads the way the client checks it, in any currency, and the invoice comes from the same project. Freelancer costs and render farm time go on the project in their own currency at the day's rate. Write quotes with the quote template if you are not using OIO. More on OIO for 3D studios.

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