How to calculate??

[Adriana Himanez]

Hello everyone, I am learning a lot from the forum, I have found a lot of information and tips to create meshes. My question is a bit more commercial.

How to calculate a custom mesh job?
Is there any kind of price base that should follow, a "how to charge" move, some standard or does it vary a lot from designer to designer?

I would love to hear from you.

Thanks a lot!! ?

[Kyrah Abattoir]

It's very simple.

1. Take the hourly minimum wage.
2. Multiply it by the number of hours worked on that job. (https://en.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/System/Project_Timer certainly helps)
3. From this point, raise your price, until you feel that you aren't demeaning yourself anymore.
4. Watch as most people end up turning you down because the reality was that they fully intended on exploiting you.

Regardless of your expertise you shouldn't do a PAID job (not a favor!) for less than minimum wage imho.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Adriana Himanez]

8 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

It's very simple.

1. Take the hourly minimum wage.
2. Multiply it by the number of hours worked on that job. (https://en.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/System/Project_Timer certainly helps)
3. From this point, raise your price, until you feel that you aren't demeaning yourself anymore.
4. Watch as most people end up turning you down because the reality was that they fully intended on exploiting you.

Thanks Kyrah!! Very similar to how I do in RL jobs, but have a fixed minimum wage to SL or designers simple calculate with base on their level of expertise? And have any differecnce when you charge a object than a clothe for exemple?

?

Xo

[Rolig Loon]

The sad fact is that many people in SL expect your work to be dirt cheap and assume that you are trying to gouge them if you suggest otherwise.   Part of that expectation is based on the prices that creations get in Marketplace, where you can obviously sell the same creation 50 times, make a meager profit on each sale, and still make a comfortable income from your work -- if you are lucky enough to sell 50 copies.  When you are doing custom work, though, that is a poor comparison because you are only selling the work once. 

It's easy to get discouraged about this, but my own solution has been to admit that I am not really creating things in SL to make money.  I am creating because I love to create.  This is my "fun" time.  If someone wants to pay me for having fun, I won't object, but I also won't get too upset about whether I am paid a fair RL amount for my time.  I offer a price based purely on how challenging I think the project will be for me or, with a client I have known for a long time, I'll ask what the client thinks the work is worth.  And we negotiate. These days I do less and less custom work -- I'm a scripter -- because I have other demands on my time, but the approach remains the same.

 

Edited September 4, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[ellestones]

when the work is full-perms to the buyer then treat it as a work-for-hire contract, and charge RL rates. When stuff is full-perms then the buyer can do what they want with it. Put it for sale on marketplace for instance

this said, personally I don't do contract anything or sell anything. If someone asks me to do stuff for them, I do it only if is interesting to me. Then who ever I do it for can give me whatever they think its worth to them, including zero. Friends can get more than one zero thing because friendship time. People I meet thru other people, like strangers, get one. One zero because if my time is worth zero to them then their time explaining to me what else they want for zero, is worth well.. zero 

[Fionalein]

If totally untrained you might need to practice a little until your minimum wage * time needed calculation works up, but you will have to practice anyways before entering the job market, as no one pays for mediocre skills. There is only one reason to work for less profit: you want the item for yourself - in that case even the smallest income is a welcome bonus ... but also in that case I would simply market the item myself and wouldn't create it for others.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Fionalein

[Kyrah Abattoir]

21 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

The sad fact is that many people in SL expect your work to be dirt cheap and assume that you are trying to gouge them if you suggest otherwise.   Part of that expectation is based on the prices that creations get in Marketplace, where you can obviously sell the same creation 50 times, make a meager profit on each sale, and still make a comfortable income from your work -- if you are lucky enough to sell 50 copies.  When you are doing custom work, though, that is a poor comparison because you are only selling the work once. 

It's easy to get discouraged about this, but my own solution has been to admit that I am not really creating things in SL to make money.  I am creating because I love to create.  This is my "fun" time.  If someone wants to pay me for having fun, I won't object, but I also won't get too upset about whether I am paid a fair RL amount for my time.  I offer a price based purely on how challenging I think the project will be for me or, with a client I have known for a long time, I'll ask what the client thinks the work is worth.  And we negotiate. These days I do less and less custom work -- I'm a scripter -- because I have other demands on my time, but the approach remains the same.

 

And that's perfectly fine (it's how I run my little store), but that's still not a reason to allow them to exploit you for their own profit.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Rolig Loon]

12 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

And that's perfectly fine (it's how I run my little store), but that's still not a reason to allow them to exploit you for their own profit.

I agree completely.  The moment I start feeling exploited, it's not fun any more.  Otherwise, I set prices I am comfortable with and don't sweat about it too much.  All I'm saying is that for me the L$ is secondary to the creation. ?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

I think from all the responses above should make it obvious that there is no standard.

Charge for what you think your time, the required effort, your level of interest, and the benefits are worth. If you are totally lost on where to begin, you can use the minimum wage in your area as a soft guide, and adjust that based on your confidence.

There are also other payment "models" such as giving them the final price up front and possibly charging them at least some of that price before you start, giving them an estimate first and then final price when you're done, asking THEM to give you THEIR desired price first, etc.

What you'll find is that people who are asking for custom work for their first time will probably expect to pay somewhere between the hundreds and couple thousand linden, not tens or hundreds of dollars as they probably should.

And by the way, don't get paid in linden if it's in large amounts. Set up a PayPal business account (upgrade from a regular account). It's free, LL won't take big cuts, you won't have to share your name as business accounts only show the business name, and transactions are easy to track. Send your customer an invoice detailing what they're getting, which they will then pay for and that way you can avoid some headaches such as the customer telling PayPal that they didn't get what they paid for, or they do a charge-back.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Adriana Himanez]

They were very enlightening points of view, on the one hand it was clear that there is no fixed basis, I believe that there is common sense in most cases.
I've seen a lot of complaints about the price a creator charges, so I wondered what would be a "fair price" because if it is to do at the level of the jobs I do in RL the cost really is high but because jobs are always high quality. I will start the activities here and try to reach a good term as to the cost benefit and from there test the market in SL.

Guys, I appreciate a lot for your time, always good have a line to follow when you start lost. 
A huge thanks!!! 

? 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

The thing is this is the internet, you'll always find someone who thinks it's too expensive, people haggle.

It's it's 300$ they will argue it's worth no more than 150$

If it's 1$ they will argue it should be free.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Addendum.

For custom works I strongly believe that there is no limit, you have to consider what it is, the work involved and what profit you expect them to do from your work, and then ensure what you get a hearty cut of that profit. When I do joint projects with other people we already do a 50/50 split to ensure that no one can complaint they where taken advantage of.

For products you intend on selling to end users however, I believe that 1000L$ is the cutoff point where it goes from affordable to expensive (if not ludicruously expensive). Premium accounts receive between 300L$ and 500L$ a week as their stipend so that's also a thing to keep in mind.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

Time > Money

Charge enough to ensure your time is valued, and enough to detour casual lookie-loos, unless you want to spend dozens of hours earning 50 cents lol.  Sometimes thats is quite fun and the right thing to do in a given situation, but generally speaking, let price be a fairly crafted barrier to protect your time and sanity.

There is something to be said about psychology of price, too low and many will perceive the value as lower somehow.  Too high and many people cant/wont afford it, which may be fine, if at least its enough customers to keep you active lol.

Being a RL biz developer I find SL's economy fascinating.  I have been looking and making a study of it for quite some time, its brilliant, and correlates to RL business in a lot of ways.  You can clearly see "best business practices" always pay off better, customer service, quality goods, etcetera.  The more professional you handle things the more people will expect (and want) to pay a bit more for the added luxuries and pro attention.

Ultimately it depends on your product/service, and the micro-market for that product/service, make a study of the areas you're interested in, you'll see a set price range, and established  expectations, etc.  There you can see where you fit in, how you can find parity with existing norms, and add your new creative inputs too.

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by Macrocosm Draegonne