Last updated: 7th February, 2023
When starting a 3D rendering project for the first time, some of our clients - particularly those with lower budgets - wonder whether they should hire a freelancer from one of the many gig work platforms (such as Fiverr, Upwork, Guru, PeoplePerHour or Freelancer.com) or whether they would be better hiring a professional 3D rendering company such as the team here at Render 3D Quick.
To help answer this question, Jason, one of our owners, made a video explaining the pros and cons of working with a freelancer compared to an established 3D rendering company. This article summarizes his talking points. If you prefer to consume video content rather than reading, we’ve included the video directly below.
While you might assume we’re biased against freelancers, there are actually some situations where we think you’re better off hiring a freelancer depending on your needs, budget and required turnaround time.
For example, if you have 20 homes that need rendering in a building development, it’s going to take a lone freelancer forever to complete the project, compared to a company like ours with over 50 employees who can all be working simultaneously. If you have a small project, a very tight budget and don’t mind long turnaround times then you might be better with a freelancer.
In this article we’ll explain multiple factors to consider to help you decide whether a freelancer or 3D rendering company is right for your project.
Does a 3D rendering freelancer provide you with a guarantee?
Most of our clients are builders, developers or people building houses that want a rendering professionally done with a guaranteed turnaround time, price and quality.
For example, when working with us, if you're not happy with the outcome of your project, we'll give you your money back. This is a common practice for businesses, and our clients are generally very happy with the work we we do, so even though we offer guarantees we hardly ever have to use them. In this regard there’s a degree of safety in trusting an established North American business. We have a solid reputation and we want to keep it!
When working with a freelancer you're placing your trust in the hands of an individual that could be in a completely different country, who might not speak English as their native tongue, and who could easily disappear and leave you and your project in the lurch. They’re also much less likely to offer a guarantee, because they can only work on one project at a time, and will be personally out of pocket if they gave you back money you paid for a project they’ve spent many hours on. Because of this, much more vetting is required on your part to ensure you’re hiring a good freelancer, compared with an established company who has a solid reputation and track record.
Do you have any recourse With a Freelancer if there’s a problem with the project?
Generally any recourse for problems you have with a freelancer will come through the freelancing platform itself. That’s why it’s important to hire through the platform, Upwork for instance, rather than going off the books. Freelancing platforms usually have dispute resolution procedures which can mean you get some, if not all of your money back if the project doesn’t go as planned or the freelancer doesn’t meet their deadline.
Freelancing websites also have reviews allowing you to vet candidates before hiring them, however because there’s a limited amount of work a single freelancer can do, you are unlikely to find the breadth of client reviews you can with us for instance.
Is Your Budget More Suited to a 3D rendering freelancer?
What trade-offs are you potentially making for paying less?
When it comes down to it, the choice between using a freelancer and a professional company often rests on your budget.
3D rendering companies have higher overheads than freelancers, and so freelancing prices can sometimes (although not always), be lower than company prices (sometimes the economies of scale work in our favor).
Lower budgets often have trade-offs however. For example, if you need a rush job, a freelancer may charge more, due to having to re-arrange other projects. Rendering companies have bigger teams so we can handle bigger projects and we can do things quicker if you are on a tight deadline (or you just don’t want your project to drag on, which can sometimes happen with freelancers due to poor time management).
If you need your project done in 24 hours, because we have 50 rendering pros on our team, there’s a good chance we can do it for you within that short deadline. A freelancer by comparison might have three or four projects they're working on at once, and they can't focus on your project right now because it’s further down in the queue.
If you don't have a strict timeline then you might find it beneficial and more cost-effective to hire a freelancer.
Are there differences in quality between a 3D modeling freelancer and 3D rendering company?
Typically you can achieve similar quality in a project from a freelancer as you can with a 3D rendering company. To make sure you find someone good, thoroughly check their portfolios for consistency, as some freelancers will use 3D renderings they find through Google or on other websites in their portfolios.
It’s also possible that the freelancer you decide to work with does not have experience in the field of rendering that you need help with. For example, building cross section renderings serve a vary specific niche audience. They are far less commonly produced than regular 3D renderings. As a result, the freelancer you hire may not have the experience with the type of rendering you require to do a good job without a lot of refinements and project management on your behalf.
Other articles and pages you might be interested in:
Our main rendering services page is here.
Here you can find out how much a 3d render costs. With our in-depth pricing guide.
To learn more about house renderings and interior renderings you can explore these pages respectively.
Do 3D Rendering Projects With Freelancers Ever Fail?
It’s an unfortunate fact that sometimes projects with freelancers don’t work out.
In our experience, approximately 30 - 40% of the time a potential client who ends up working with a freelancer will come back to us due to issues with their project.
Issues that people have with freelancers usually boil down to:
Problems with turnaround time, where a freelancer says they’ll deliver by a certain time but don’t
Discrepancies between portolios and final renderings produced (eg. their portfolio images are great, but finished product is subpar)
The freelancer tries to charge more at the end of the project than was initially agreed upon.
These points are fleshed out more in the following sections:
Are 3D Rendering Freelancers Good At Meeting Deadlines?
Will A 3D modeling freelancer guarantee turnaround time on your project?
It general it depends on the freelancer. There are a number of reasons however why freelancers can have difficulties meeting deadlines.
For example, if you work with an international freelancer, they may be asleep while you’re awake and vice versa, making it difficult to communicate with them. They may not answer when you need them to.
Freelancers may also have other jobs or obligations, and be freelancing on the side, which can lead to issues with slow response times as they’re not 100% focused on client work like a professional company is.
They may be overwhelmed with multiple projects, and struggling to keep up, leading to delayed responses and missed deadlines.
Can You Trust the Portfolio of a 3D Rendering Freelancer?
This is probably the number one reason why clients who work with freelancers come to us. They tell us that the freelancer's profile was full of beautiful work, but what they delivered was very different from what the work looked like on their profile.
Sadly there are as many dishonest people in the world of business as there are honest ones, and many people have no qualms about using other people’s work in their portfolio when in reality their skills are subpar.
The other story that we commonly hear is that freelancers will try and scam their clients, telling them that if they want a certain level of quality it's going to be double the initial price, trying to force people to pay more once they’re already invested in the freelancer and the project and thought they had agreed on the price for the project.
How to Guarantee a Good Experience With a Freelancer
If you want to work with a freelancer, you don’t mind doing more project management and having slower turnaround times, we say go for it! We’re all about happy customers, and we don’t try and work with everyone, if you think a freelancer is a better fit, we’re glad for you, but we’llstill be here as a back up if you have trouble getting the project in the time or quality that you want it.
The following tips will help you to hire a good freelancer if you’ve decided to take that route:
Ask them to guarantee a specific turnaround time, and what they’ll do if they don’t meet the deadline (eg. give you some of your money back).
Set expectations in terms of the time it will take them to respond to your emails and inquiries. If they’re not willing to respond in the time you’re happy with, look elsewhere.
Thoroughly look through their portfolio, and ask to see more specific examples of the type of work you’re interested in.
Always use a freelancing platform that holds your funds in escrow until the project is successfully completed.
Following all those steps will give you the best chance of having a successful project with a freelancer.
How to Hire a 3D Rendering Company
If you’re unsure about hiring a freelancer for your 3D architectural modeling needs, and would instead like to hire a professional 3D rendering company we can help!
We pride ourselves on our super fast turnaround times (we’ll get back to you in 5 - 10 minutes of receiving your emails and can often deliver your project before our competitors even get back to you with a quote), high quality work, and affordable prices.
Fill out our quote request form, or give us a call on 1-877-350-3490 and let’s talk about your project!
Alex Smith
Manager & Co-Owner Render 3D Quick
Alex Smith is a manager and co-owner at Render3DQuick, with over 6 years’ experience project managing their large team of 3D rendering professionals. Alex is obsessed with architecture and is a CAD design specialist in his own right and an expert in the field of architectural visualization, 3D rendering, and virtual reality tours.
As the first point of contact when you get in touch with Render3DQuick, Alex loves sharing his knowledge and answering any questions you may have about architectural visualization or the latest technologies and techniques they utilize.
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn here.