New year and my blood pressure already rise...

[stevesideas]

In principle I agree that you need to hold your value as best you can, but one thing I don't hear a lot of is respecting the market demand. Rates are a balance of what we think our time is worth, and what the market is willing to pay - regardless of our opinion of the value. My feeling is that sometimes you actually need to lower your rates if you are priced out of the market, and rates are falling for most of our type of services. It is not a temporary blip IMO - and that illusion or misperception can be lethal to your career.

If you do not keep your rates in check with the market you will soon find yourself without any work.

I'm not saying Luke should have taken that job -there are limits of course! - but to say that one should just 'advertise' and find better clients is a bit naive. It can be true in a limited way but it's no magic bullet. I know people who are literally world class artists that do work for the biggest budget clients (multi-national clients and global campaigns) and it is not unusual for them to be working at lower rates these day, sometimes much lower.

/b

I have to agree. Keeping check on costs is something you should do on a regular basis. If you have 5 jobs come in and you don't get any of them I think you definitely need to lower your costs...even if it is whilst you build up your work. Keeping your costs high because of pride isn't going to do you any favours and in the scheme of things and I'd rather lower my costs for some jobs to get the money coming in than not because of pride or "lowering the appreciation" of 3d artists. At the end of the day I love my work but I also need to make money. Also, maybe targeting an audience in different areas may be an idea. UK and USA are good places for sure. There is still plenty of work around and I would say payments are still good when compared to some other countries where you might be getting enquires from.

[stevesideas]

p.s. I think you should lower your costs a lot more...that would make me happy

[stevesideas]

if you lower your fee, it would be very difficult to charge full price later.

Not entirely true...it would depend on future work from that client. It might be worth stipulating a reduced cost for the first job and then explaining the time taken and future work costs.

[lukx]

p.s. I think you should lower your costs a lot more...that would make me happy

for you EVERYTHING

[glorybound]

it's all subjective. If you get good and are able to work fast, you might be able to lower your fee. I have learned the software and studies the art. I have good, fast, hardware that I can rely on. I can work twice as fast as I could last year, so if needed, I could lower my fee. The problem you might find is having to work harder to get that next job.

[flino2004]

it's all subjective. If you get good and are able to work fast, you might be able to lower your fee. I have learned the software and studies the art. I have good, fast, hardware that I can rely on. I can work twice as fast as I could last year, so if needed, I could lower my fee. The problem you might find is having to work harder to get that next job.

I desagree with you Bobby, if you work hard and you are faster on top of that you probably invested in hardware to even have faster rendertimes why you should charge less.... If you work fast doesn't mean that you hour cost less or even the same than the guy who is average in speed..you have to be more expensive in my opinion... the benefit is in your favor as well as you client because he get quality faster.
If you think in that way you are under value your work yourself more than your client and losing confident to charge what you have yo charge.

[priad]

totally agree with Flino2004, the speed need to be awarded by money every time, saving time is always the target for all clients and us. so @ the end saving time save money for your client but to save money after he needs to pay more before eheheh...

[glorybound]

What was once hard and slow becomes easy and fast, once you get good. You can't charge more because you are slow. Mechanic use a book to quote prices. If the mechanic is fast they make money, but if they are slow, they'll loose money. If I hired an inexperienced mechanic to change my starter and it took him 4x as long, why should I pay for his inexperience?

I guess that was my point

[simmsimaging]

This issue of price vs speed is one that comes up a lot in various ways. I think the only sensible answer is to price your work by the hour. If a job takes you 1/2 the time it used to take, then it makes sense to charge something like 1/2 what you used to charge. Your rate should already be accounting for hardware and software update costs - if it's not then your rate was problematic to begin with.

There is a constant tension between a sense of what a job is "worth" versus the time required for you to do it. There is a pressure from clients to drive prices down, but that's *always* been the case: they just didn't have as many options in the past. There is also a sense of investment/entitlement for us artists that says "why should I do the same job for less?" It's hard to adjust to, but the reality is that we have to adapt our price to be in relation to the work done and the demand. A job that takes less time now simply is not the same job. It *is* worth less, in my opinion anyway.

In any case, I strongly believe in tying my job rates as strictly as possible to time. That's the only way I have found to make consistent sense from job to job, and as the market and my ability to produce work evolves. (or de-volves ) YMMV.

/b

[glorybound]

the more experience you have, the more you should make, in theory. You can do jobs faster and better, which means, on to the next job. I simple look at a job and calculate how many days it'll take me to do it. I usually charge 300.00 a day and anything less isn't worth my time.

[Morne]

I usually charge 300.00 a day

Hmmm so if I charge 290.00

[lukx]

the more experience you have, the more you should make, in theory. You can do jobs faster and better, which means, on to the next job. I simple look at a job and calculate how many days it'll take me to do it. I usually charge 300.00 a day and anything less isn't worth my time.

I guess some people charge this amount in Yens

[Infrared digital]

The problem we are experiencing presently is clients changing the completion date. If we quote for a project and factor it in for 3 weeks (for example) that the client has originally requested - it is achievable but, when they start allowing the project to extend past the originally agreed deadline then it beings to affect us. We are currently looking at ways to avoid this but it has been a problem last year and beginning to happen again this year.

[AJ Jefferies]

If a job takes you 1/2 the time it used to take, then it makes sense to charge something like 1/2 what you used to charge.

I might be misinterpreting your point Brett, but I strongly disagree with the notion that if something takes you less time, it's worth less.

I do agree that time is the only way to consistantly quote, but if a task takes you less time due to investment in your skills/staff/set-up then your rates should increase to reflect that. Granted, I am talking skilled tasks here (modelling, texturing, re-touching) not technical speed increases, such as rendering...

Extrapolating your idea at it's most basic level - those that are faster & more efficient at their jobs would end up earning the same amount as those that are not.

[Neilg]

I'm with you on that. if you are faster at your job (ie better) you get to make more money.