Freelancing Rates

[helium3]

Does anyone have any idea what the normal rate for free-lance cartography work is? I'm thinking about submitting a bid (steeply discounted thanks to my lack of experience) but I don't know what's a reasonable price.

-Aaron

[ravells]

Sorry, no idea. I do this as a hobby. I would have thought that there is no 'hourly rate' but more of a fixed price depending on the complexity of the brief, but this is pure guesswork on my part.

[Gamerprinter]

As a graphic designer, I charge $45 per hour.

That said, maps based on size and complexity should be priced by the job. Often I tell myself, if I were more experienced, I should be able to create a given map in X hours.

The more I create maps, that better I can judge what the time should be.

However, at this time an overland map is faster to create than an interior or dungeon map.

I would charge to create an overland 24 x 36 map about $90
I would charge to create a detailed interior/dungeon/city map at double that.

Of course it really depends upon the amount of expected complexity, the more complex, the longer it takes to map, the more its going to cost.

I know that many professional cartographers take 20 hours on average for a 24 x 36 battlemap at 1 inch = 5 feet (that's $900 at that rate).

How much to pros charge - I have no idea, the above is my guess at my rates

[RPMiller]

Here are some interesting results based on some Googling for cartography jobs:
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/...an/Hourly_Rate
http://listproc.ucdavis.edu/archives...0703/0008.html

And here are a couple sites for members of our boards:
http://www.mapsandmore.com/maps/index.html#rates
http://www.kacurtis.com/ (You'll need to contact him - Unless he sees this thread)

And I found this rather interesting Cartography forum:
http://www.cartotalk.com/index.php?act=idx

[Chaosmark]

While RPMiller did give some good links, I think the first two need a disclaimer of sorts.

Those jobs were both for map manipulation it seemed like. For the type of cartography we're looking at in this thread, it requires a bit more creative capacity and work. So, adjust the prices as needed.