there are a few professional renderers here, maybe they will have more concrete answer, but based on previous discussions here that is about right.

actually that seems about right in my experience... the one time that my old firm had someone outside the firm do a hand-drawn rendering for us it was $1500 an image... and this was around 5 years ago

seems cheap compared to who we've used locally - a really good watercolor runs close to 5K. we've used people who were less, but the quality just isn't the same.

for a hand drawing, and not knowing the level of detail, it seems ok.

and, on principle, what do you think they should be paid per hour and how many hours do you think it takes? if those numbers correlate to her fee....

that seems on the low side. what media are they going to be produced in?

The water colors that I bought few years back were in the $3-$5k range for complex urban scenes of parks, water fronts, and a condo.

seems on the low end to me. rendering requires a lot of time and a deft artistic hand...and $1500 really isn't that much money any more.

That's on the very low side. Too many variables we don't know for anyone to make a reasonable conclusion


I'd be cautious about posting company information on here like that. I don't think many companies would like that - imagine if developers came on here asking if an architect's fee was appropriate. There are many things we don't know - scale, complexity, accuracy of your model, time frame, etc., etc.


I'd suggest not posting information like this. Ask about a price, if you must (I still think that is not something most companies would like broadcasted - you asked them for a quote, they gave it to you, not Archinect), but leave the company and the persons name off of a public forum. This is from someone that writes quotes and gives proposals out all the time for my company, I'd be pretty put off if I found my name and proposal posted in a forum like this.

I imagine that this is a thinly veiled advertisement.

I'm sure there are A TON of unemployed people right now who would produce nice drawings / renderings for FAR less than that...

I don't know too much about hand drawn renderings but I would guess it should run competitively with a 3D rendering:

For computer renderings, it is $3000 to $4500 for a single view by a firm here... The high end firms will be more, maybe between $5000 to $8000 for one image... A cheaper renderer might do it for as low as a couple grand...

These days there is increasing competition from cheaper Chinese Firms which will do a single rendering for maybe $600 to $1200 depending on the firm...

I think a hand drawn view, $1500 sounds about right, ya probably a little bit low... If you already have a 3D model, you can actually even ask a 3D rendering firm to do them for you... There are a number of techniques with computer renderings to do generate renderings that have the hand drawn or water color or painted look to them... Firms can make them look almost exactly like a hand drawn image, it might run lower cost too because that type of rendering is quite a bit easier as far as materials and lighting goes... You should check out their portfolios first though...

I had an old school rendering artist (not an architecture firm) do a hand rendering for $750 of a small but complex building. He was very, very good and fast. I gave him the plans and elevations. I bet he did it in about 4 hours. I could never do it for that price, that's why I stick to what I'm good at, which is not hand rendering.

hand rendering is a lost art and should be respected....... 3drenderings tend to get tooo plasticy....

check out biolinia.com they have some quality photoshop renderings... good stuff

I don't know about hand-drawn illustrations, but prices for 3D renderings dropped considerably in the last 24 months. Firms that were charging $5k per rendering are now down to $1k-$2k, and freelancers like me end up surviving on $300-$600 per rendering in New York. Chinese and Indian firms charge a lot less, something like $150-$500 per rendering, and their quality has gone up a lot.

Also, I like the style of hand-drawn illustration, but it is a dying art especially with this recession. At least in 3D rendering you can modify things later on, but in hand-drawn illustration you are stuck with one version. I think for hand-drawn illustration $1000-1500 is enough, even thought it takes countless hours to draw (3D also takes long time, its not just click of a bottom).

Totally agree with Zug.

I think a nice way term to describe hand drawn architecture is 'calligraphic'. In my opinion, architects shouldn't worry too much about having the skill of re-producing photographic images. If I wanted to make a photograph, I would've been a photographer.

Barry Lehrman,

They described their process to me a bit for the 'loose' rendering. Basically, they're gonna use my AutoCAD model, create a wireframe view, printout the wireframe view, hand trace the image with a marker, scan the image, import the file into CorelDraw and add some shading/color etc.

I suppose this process can have some calligraphic element but it's not the how I learned perspectives in school. We drafted our perspectives from the plan and elevations.

AT - the point of the rendering is there is no building to photograph. While I agree that some hand drawn images are beautiful, perhaps some are even 'art', they have a limited appeal to the regular world (ie most people want to see what it'll really look like, vs. a beautiful water color).

I present things to clients like this: want something to frame and hang on your wall, go with the water color. Want to sell your project or get approvals, go with a photoreal rendering.



Zen - I don't know of any vast reductions in rendering pricing. No business can survive reducing their pricing structure by 80%. What companies are you referring to.

$300-600 for a quality rendering is pretty absurd, to be honest. If you are producing quality images like that, I'd love to see them (send me an email).

trace's comments sounds right.

at that price we might stop doing renders ourselves too. sounds insane.

arch technician out of curiosity why do you care about the process? drawing from plan and elevation was if you don't recall a very tedious and time consuming process. but anyway if you don't like the process of people you hire why not do it yourself since you learned the drill in school? then decide if your time is worth it next time round.

It's helpful to try to figure out how many hours of a person's time the renderings will require. If you hired a person at a firm to do it, you'd figure about $100 per hour for a somewhat experienced artist or architect, once overheads and profit are taken into account. So you're buying under 2 days of work at $1500 per rendering. Seems quite reasonable to me.

For master plans we've paid more than that and about $500 for every change. It is what it is. For larger A3 sizes we've dropped close to 15k

Must apologize for reviving an old thread.  Since this thread is now a couple of years old, I would like to know how fees for a quality architectural watercolor rendering compare today.   Are prices still generally the same, have they grown tighter?  What is the average going prices for a quality watercolor rendering today?  ( In the US )

i wish more of us architects charged and demanded such rates for our work... we all seem to short change ourselves which hurts our profession in the end. 

We are not a professional rendering firm, but will do renderings for clients as a service. To this end, we bill it the same way we would bill any project - with our standard hourly rates. It could be as low as $65/hour for an intern grinding it out or as high as $145+/hour for a principal; it depends on the client's expectation who completes the rendering. If it is going to be a more permanent exhibition-type piece, a principal or skilled renderer; for more mundane marketing, an intern can probably handle it. A renderering could take anywhere between 8 hours and 80 hours depanding on the level of detail. Between the billable rate and the hours to complete, voila! You have a price estimate.

$145/hr??  hahahaha wtf.. this is so wrong.  I mean most architects don't even make $145/hr to build real buildings, and viz artists get paid that much for a fancy rendering.

Nothing wrong with the rate, just seems how much worth people give to architects

Those hourly rates seem consistent with the architecture firms I worked at in the past.  75 for intern rates, and 150+ for principles.  Need to remember that those rates factor in the cost of doing business, and also that they may not be getting a consistent stream of work, so you need a higher rate to make up for it, so that's not what your really taking home when all is said and done.

I have been asked to render again. I have not done these in years what are pricing for elevation nicely rendered, loose interior vignettes  verse working drawing.

I usually cheat my self so I am looking for what others have paid..

This is a good thread for freelancers. I cheated myself sometimes before just because I didnt have a starting point.

How can you find work as a freelancer?

sketchup, maxwell, photoshop voolaaah!

$1500? For this?

maybe show us some samples... But I would think the price is on the low end.  A skilled artist could easily charge upwards of $5000 to $10000 / rendering.  For large firms going after big projects, it could be the difference between getting the $300 million dollar contract or not.

I can do that same job at a more competitive price. I can provide renderings, animations, and drafting services. I am currently a Revit draftsman in the healthcare architecture field and working towards becoming a certified Building Designer.