Most quote requests start the same way. "We need renders of our product. How much?"
I can't answer that from one sentence, and it isn't because I'm being cagey. The price lives in the files you're about to send me. A clean CAD model of a single part is an afternoon of set-up. A scanned prototype with no drawings is a different job, even if the final image looks identical.
So here's what I ask for, what I do with each thing, and where people trip up. (If you only read one section, make it the one called "What I'd actually send".)
A CAD model beats everything else
If you have the part in CAD, send that first. STEP is my favourite format because it carries real surfaces instead of a mesh of triangles, so I decide how finely it gets tessellated for each shot. A hero image at 4000 pixels needs a smooth curve on a bottle shoulder. A small thumbnail doesn't. With a STEP file I choose. With an STL somebody else already chose, and they usually chose badly.
Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Inventor, Onshape and Creo all export STEP without drama. I model in Fusion 360 myself, so anything you send reaches me as STEP or Parasolid and I don't lose sleep over it. If you're unsure what survives the trip between systems, the page on SolidWorks-compatible CAD from Fusion 360 goes through it.
One caveat. A model built for manufacturing is rarely built for rendering. It may hold every screw thread, an internal PCB and 40,000 faces on a knurled knob nobody will ever see. That's fine. I strip what the camera can't see, and that clean-up is part of the quote, not a surprise on the invoice.
When all you have is a drawing
Last spring a sauna maker sent me a single PDF drawing of a barrel sauna. Overall dimensions, a door position, a note saying "thermowood, 42 mm staves". No 3D file, no photos, nothing else.
Could I build it? Yes. It took longer than a job from CAD, because every curve had to be rebuilt from the sections on the page, and I asked three questions about the glass door before I trusted my own geometry. I said so up front. The sauna visualization page lists EUR 250 per model with a first render about three days after I receive your files, and I confirm the timing once I've looked at what actually arrived.
A good drawing is enough.
A vague one is a conversation, and conversations are cheap when they happen before the work starts, not after the first render.
STL, OBJ and scans: usable, with strings attached
Meshes aren't useless. Plenty of products only exist as STL because that's what the 3D printer wanted, and I can render those. The trouble is that a mesh is frozen at whatever resolution somebody picked on export. Too coarse and a curved surface shows flat facets in a close-up, and no lighting hides a faceted bottle shoulder. Too fine and I'm pushing three million triangles around for a part with a single curve.
Scans are the extreme version. They arrive with noise, holes and a surface like orange peel at 1:1. I can clean one up, or rebuild the part properly over the scan, but that's modelling work, not rendering work, and it should be priced as modelling work. If the scan only feeds one background-free image, a light clean-up is sometimes enough.
My rule is simple: STEP if you've got it, STL if you must, and never a screenshot.
Reference images: two good ones beat twenty
People love sending a Pinterest board. I get why. Words like "premium" and "clean" mean something different to everybody, and a picture settles it. But twenty images pulling in twenty directions settle nothing.
What actually helps is one image for the lighting mood, one for the setting or background, and, if you can, one photo of the real product so I can match the material. A photo of the brushed steel or soft-touch plastic is worth more than a paragraph of description. Is the finish matte or satin? Does the grain run across the part or along it? I can usually guess. I'd rather not.
What I'd actually send
If a friend asked me to assemble the ideal package for a first quote, I'd tell them to attach these five things and nothing else:
- The 3D model as STEP, or the PDF drawing if there is no model.
- One line on where the images will live: web shop, brochure, crowdfunding page, trade show banner.
- How many images you need, and whether they have to match as a set.
- The output size, because a white-background hero at 3000 px square is a different render from a lifestyle scene for a banner.
- One real photo or material sample, plus brand colours as hex codes or a Pantone reference.
Nothing here needs to be polished. I'd rather see a messy folder with the right five things than a perfect one with 80 files and no brief.
The mistake: sending everything
This surprises people. Sending every file you own doesn't speed up a quote, it slows it down. Three revisions of the model, two supplier drawings that disagree and a render from a previous freelancer? Now I have to work out which one is true before I can price anything.
Send the latest model and say it's the latest.
The same goes for assemblies. If you want an exploded view, I need the assembly structure, not one merged body. A STEP exported as a single fused solid can't be pulled apart into a useful exploded layout, and it happens more often than you'd think. Check before you export: if the part tree in your CAD shows separate bodies, the file should too.
Units, scale and other small disasters
Early on I received a bracket modelled in inches and treated it as millimetres. It landed at 1/25th of the size I expected, and I only noticed because the screw heads looked like dust. Now I check the bounding box against the stated dimensions before I do anything else. It takes two minutes. One overall dimension in your email ("it's about 140 mm long") saves me from guessing.
Colour works the same way. A hex code beats "dark blue". A Pantone reference beats a hex code if the product is printed, because screens lie.
What happens after you send it
I open the files, check them against the brief and reply with a price and a timeline. For most single-product jobs the first render is typically back about three days after I receive everything. I confirm that after I've looked at your files, not before.
If you sell on marketplaces, listing images and A+ content have their own size rules, so tell me where the pictures end up. And if you're still deciding between a render and a photo shoot, my post on packaging rendering versus photography covers the trade-offs.
When you're ready, send the files through the contact form and I'll tell you honestly what the job needs.