What are Realistic rendering times?

[bobacom]

Hi all, first post here but thanks to all for the great help contained in this forum.
I mainly do stills work but have to quote on a large animated flythrough. From exterior to interior taking in 4 distinctly different areas, I think 3 mins should cover it. I know it would be a mamouth render so I'm wondering what I should be aiming for in minutes/frame. I'm going to use an online renderfarm so trying to figure out a cost. We only have 2 workstations so wont even try to render on those. Any ideas or tips please?
Cheers
Rob

[Clifton Santiago]

it really depends on the work quality, and expected turnover. I consider 30 min or less per frame on a dual-quad node to be reasonable. At that rate a commercial farm can crank through 3 minutes of animation in 2 or 3 days. When submitting a price quote for a 3 minute animation I would normally add £2-3 K to cover render farm costs.