Freelance pricing advice: Industrial bearing renderings + short animation

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1

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a freelance project where I was asked to create several high-quality 3D renderings and a short animation (5–10 seconds) of an industrial tilting pad bearing. The final media will be used on the manufacturer’s website.

The client provided a .max model (without textures), so I had to convert it, rebuild the materials in Blender, set up lighting, and render the shots.

I’d really appreciate your advice on the following:

  • What would be a fair price per photorealistic rendering?
  • How much would you charge for a short product animation (5–10 seconds)?
  • Would you recommend bundling (e.g., 3–5 stills + one animation), and what would be a reasonable total?

This is a commercial project for a real company, and I’m based in the EU (Germany), if that helps for context.

Thanks in advance for your insights!

2

Hello and welcome, first how much is the minimum salary in your country/state?

how many years of experience do you have currently?

are you a Generalist or Specialist 3d artist? (if so, specify what you know/manage in general or what area of specialization in 3d)

how many hours do you think it would take the model and else approximately from start to finish?

how many hours do you think it took you to do the animation setup?

3

The average salary in the country for the 3D industry is 4,000 euros. It took a full day to adapt the model for software, material selection, scene creation, animation settings, and rendering itself. About 8 o’clock.

4

That would be 25 eur per hour, 8 hours of work per day min/max, ~1000 eur per week.

now that’s the salary of a mid to senior 3d artist, while senior salary is usually more higher than that…

for your commission it means that it cost them if you are junior ~100 eur + tax/fees and if you are mid ~200 eur +tax/fees, however that can decrease or increase more depending other details/expenses…