Im starting my own archviz business and heres the first render. I always worked in-house so if you guys have any advice on how to get any clients I will be thankfull. So far Fiverr and Upwork didnt work for me : architecture

My coworker moonlights with renderings. She started by doing rendering for a firm she worked at, and then left and continued to do renderings for the firm as a contract employee.

The renderings are requested by clients and the principal would say “we have a person we work with who does renderings, I’ll ask her for a proposal”. This is similar to any other engineer or consultant. She says to herself “ohh… I have to 3d model this house and then do x number of renderings… I think it will take me x hours… how about a lump sum of ~ x dollars”. She writes a proposal defining the work she’ll do and gives it to the principal who forwards it to the client. Many clients are asking for these renderings not to know what the project will look like for their understanding, but rather for marketing materials. Good renderings = lots of interest and fast sales for higher prices. They sign the proposal because they’re paying for a service that is just as integral to their business model as the structural engineer’s services are. Therefore its easy to get several hundred dollars for a medium quality rendering, per rendering.

Try to become the renderer for an architecture firm, or a couple. They will come back to you time and time again once they’ve had a few successful experiences because it is much faster and easier to work with someone who they already have a good working relationship with. You understand their expectations and will need to do less rounds of revisions. Its a win-win. The industry is busy right now. Even if they have the capability to render in house, they may want to outsource just to stay focused on design and construction drawing production. Try targeting firms that run on AutoCAD because it doesn’t have built-in modeling or rendering.

To get started, build a website with some quality work on it, as well as an instagram. Reach out to firms and say you’d like to work with them, check out your work on those platforms. Offer to do a first project at a reduced rate (not free). My coworker charges around $50/hour and builds the project in sketchup from PDFs or AutoCAD drawings, then renders in lumion.

Good luck!