Model once, render for years
The economics of 3D are not really about the price of a render against the price of a photoshoot. They are about what you own afterwards. A shoot gives you the frames you shot. A model gives you every frame you have not thought of yet.
New colourway, new packaging, a lifestyle scene in a different room, a top-down for the size comparison, a cutaway for the A+ module, a hero at a different angle because the category's conventions moved — all of it comes out of the asset you already paid for, in hours rather than by booking a studio again. The second product in a range is cheaper still, because the materials, the lighting rig and the scene are already built.
This is why the cost comparison usually looks wrong on the first product and obvious by the fourth. If you are pricing a single hero image and nothing else, photography may well win. If you are building a catalogue, it rarely does. We compared the two properly here.
When 3D is the only option, and when it isn't
It is the only option when the product does not exist yet. Pre-launch listings, crowdfunding pages and investor decks all need finished imagery before finished units — and this is the point in a launch where brands normally come to us.
It is also the only option for shots a camera cannot take: cutaways, exploded views, a mechanism part-way through its travel, the internal layers of a filter or a mattress. Those are the images that answer the question actually stopping the sale.
Where it is not the automatic answer: fabric, food, anything whose appeal is texture and imperfection, and products where a human interacting with it is the whole message. We will say so. A render of a knitted blanket that is slightly too perfect reads as fake, and a listing that reads as fake is worse than one with ordinary photography.
What we need from you
Less than people expect. Dimensions and a spec sheet, photographs from a few angles — phone photos are fine, they are reference rather than final art — the packaging artwork or a dieline, and material notes: matte or gloss, brushed or polished, the actual colour reference if you have one.
If the product is still a drawing, CAD is ideal but not required; a dimensioned sketch works. If you already have a model from your manufacturer, send it and we will tell you honestly whether it is usable or whether rebuilding is the cheaper path. Manufacturing CAD is often technically accurate and useless for rendering, because it has no materials and geometry built for tooling rather than for a camera.
You get the renders and full commercial rights on delivery. Say so at the start if you want the model file itself as well, since that changes what we quote — and it is worth having if you expect to need video later.