Work and fee

[glorybound]

OK... we know we don't make enough money.

I have a contact who is inquiring about illustrations, both interior and exterior, for 6-8 $8M projects over the nest 2 years.

These will be high quality images (or at least my personal best) so how would you go about bidding this work to make it worth your while? Any creative solutions I can suggest like unlimted for a percent. You know, I can leave my day job

[tricky]

This is one of the toughest things in the world. We thought this would be easier after being in the business for 15-odd years. There is no answer I'm afraid. Just a big balancing act:-

How much do you want it (you want it more, make the price less)
How complex is the scheme (more complex, more money)
How much time available (less time = more money *caveat* you can only charge for the quality you can deliver)
How desperate is the client (more desparate usually means more money)
Is it good for your portfolio? (similar to first point: if it is interesting, you may consider lowering fees)
Are other people pitching on it? (This is the killer. Many one man wonder companies can produce images very quickly and charge very little. They will not be as good as what you can deliver, but in the end, the client only sees the fee, not the finished product)
....

etc
etc
etc

[simmsimaging]

I don't do arch-vis work, but the problems of quoting are universal IMO. Ultimately you need to figure out how much you want to make by the hour on the job and work it out from there. Hourly is the simplest "lowest common denominator" approach that I have found, and from there you can translate that into day rates, job rates, etc etc to suit your clients. Locking quotes to a fixed block of hours has an advantage of making it very clear when the job is going over and above so you can adjust your billing or at least warn your clients, and know where you want to draw your own line on things.

The other advantage I see to quoting just as blocks of hours is it makes "changes" or "revisions" an unimportant concept. People just buy hours and they can use them however they want. If that means changes, then fine - and I don't have to track "what was quoted" versus what is *actually* being done on the actual project and try to figure out "what is included" in the original quote etc. Far simpler this way.

Figuring out the hours needed to at least ball park the job is tough though. The way I tend to do it now is to look a job over and suggest a budget of hours for the work based on original description/layout. The clients are then free to book me for those hours or more or less as they see fit. That way it's ultimately up to them how much work they sign on for and it leaves them responsible for making sure that the job doesn't scope-creep beyond that. People don't love it, but it does seem to work okay for me.

In the end I quote jobs as "recommended time budget: X hours" and note that additional time may be billable at studio rate of x $/hour


b

[glorybound]

I usually charge $300.00 a day so I quote on how many days it will take me. This is side work so I can take it or leave it, but it might be an opportunity to keep me busy full time. I would also like to do good work, get paid a good fee, and use it to get more good paying work. The work I do now (day job) is usually given to me late on a Monday for a Tuesday morning meeting and never gets past a gray scale model. I currently work for a builder who employs architects and I am not sure they appreciate high quality illustrations; they seem to be happy with Revit shaded views if it is free.

6-8 $8M jobs might be enough for me to walk from the day job and do freelance work with a years schedule already filled.

[dlparisi]

I usually charge $300.00 a day so I quote on how many days it will take me. This is side work so I can take it or leave it...

If this is truly side work, in that it is just to cover your time, then $300 sounds fine. If instead, you'll actually be using your own software, hardware, paying accountants, paying taxes, paying insurance, factoring in downtime, etc. etc. then $300 sounds way too low IMO. If you don't think the client can afford that much (or will go elsewhere where they can get it cheaper) then balance it against what tricky says above. I think it's best to start high and whittle it down from there.

[glorybound]

It is side work, but I do use my own hardware/software and I do pay taxes on it. I have a hard time charging more that $600.00 - $1,200.00 per still so I try to find a way to model and render in 2 - 4 days.

[MoonDoggie]

First stills always cost at least $1200, with additional being cheaper

[flino2004]

If you charged 600-1200 before will be very difficult to get more than that...you have to educate your client how much represent what you do.....I prefer taking time for me and my family instead to do an underpaid job!
negotiation is a fight, sometime you win sometimes your client...but you have to be carefully who is grabbing your balls and for how much!!!.(it'a very dirty fight).

[dlparisi]

So the projects are about $8 million each and they can't spend more than $1200 on a rendering (that's .015% of the total)? How much are they paying the architect, like $25,000???

As for other ideas... If the projects are similar (i.e., you can reuse pieces from one model to the next) you can front load it so the first one is higher priced and then it drops down after each one. Another options is to do some sort of risk sharing where you do the initial image for less than normal with the understanding that once the project is closed or sold you get more (there is always the risk this will never happen though so weigh it carefully).

[glorybound]

I thought of a percent, but the numbers were not making sense. I haven't even seen the project yet so I am not sure of the complexity. I'll share more when I find out more. Thanks for the feedback.

[ajroane]

One should remember also that when working a full-time job for a good employer there are usually benefits associated with your hourly wage or salary. If you become self-employed you need to make up for this or it will hurt you in the long run. For example, if you have been making $30/hour with vacation, sick pay, 401k retirement, health insurance, bonuses, taxes, etc...you need to make sure you are making at least $45/hour self-employed just to break even with what you were making before, and this isn't even taking in to consideration the overhead expenses of hardware, software, etc, as was mentioned earlier.

Regards,

Andrew

[mikeh]

learn how to say "no".
You can't bid intelligently on such minimal info. It will only be grief and hard feelings in the end. For PR sake, let it go until you have better info or give them an hourly fee with ballpark estimates that are clearly identified as "ballpark" .
Even a max number with a not to exceed will be serious problems with bad feelings when you hit that max.
mh

[EricCamper]

I'd say the $300.00 sounds MORE than fair, for on the side work... If your employer allows that kinda thing. Trust me... in these days, running my own division here at the firm, I have had plenty of chances to make some side cash, but with layoffs and what not... I think that me bringing in work will pay off in the long run... But this is always the case... Clients with "vague" wishes always scare me a little... I would hate to get over my head in a project, that I am not qualified or even worse, cant afford to complete...

Saying "no" that is MY problem as well... I would rather have work, than none at all, but then you risk the client wanting that price every time. What kinda projects are they?