3D Model Commission Prices for Characters, VTuber Models and VRChat Avatars

Price a 3D model commission from the hours it takes, not from the lowest listing you can find. At $60 an hour, a textured stylized prop comes to about $240, a textured head or bust to $600, a full-body static character to $1,200, and a rigged 3D VTuber model with face tracking to around $2,100. Charge extra when the client wants commercial or exclusive rights, and set your prices after fees: on a $600 commission you keep $480.00 on Fiverr, $542.55 on Etsy, $552.30 on VGen and $552.00 to $582.00 on our plans.

Those numbers are worked examples, not a market survey, because nobody publishes reliable averages for character and avatar commissions. What follows is the method behind them, a price sheet you can adapt, the add-ons that most 3D artists forget to charge for, and what each place you might sell through actually leaves you.

How much should I charge for 3D model commissions?

Charge your hourly rate times the honest number of hours, then round into a few fixed tiers. The rate is the part most artists get wrong. The US employed median for special effects artists and animators, the federal occupation that covers character and game modelers, is $49.06 an hour, or $102,030 a year, according to BLS wage data published on O*NET. A full-time freelancer who bills 1,200 hours a year and pays the whole self-employment tax needs $91.44 an hour to take home the same.

Most commission artists are not there yet, and many take commissions alongside a job or a degree. That is fine, but it should be a decision rather than an accident. Upwork's hiring page shows $17 to $30 an hour for 3D modelers, and that range is drawn from contracts worldwide, so matching it from the US means working for less than a mechanical drafter's $34.40 median. The sheet below uses $60 an hour as a middle point. Swap in your own rate and your own hours, which you can time on your next three pieces.

If you would rather work from your own inputs, the 3D modeling rates calculator splits modeling and texturing hours, adds a revision buffer, applies a license multiplier and shows what each platform leaves you. It is built for client work as well as commissions, and the same page turns the result into three packages clients can order.

How much does it cost to commission a 3D model?

A simple textured object usually costs a few hundred dollars, a stylized character in the low four figures, and a rigged, animation-ready avatar more than that. The spread is wide because "a 3D model" covers anything from a 500-polygon sword to a character with 52 facial blend shapes, and the hours move with the detail, not with the subject.

That is also why a good commission sheet names what each tier includes rather than just a price: style (stylized or realistic), whether textures are hand-painted or PBR, the polygon budget for games and social VR, the file formats delivered, the number of revision rounds, and whether a rig is included. A client comparing two artists can then see that the cheaper one is quoting a static, untextured mesh. The commission sheet maker builds that layout for you, and our art commission prices guide covers the same thinking for 2D pieces.

How much does a VTuber model cost?

A fully custom 3D VTuber model is one of the most expensive commissions in this space because it bundles three jobs: the character design, the model, and a rig with the facial blend shapes that tracking software reads. At $60 an hour and 35 hours, that is $2,100, and a complex outfit or hair physics pushes the hours up. Many artists sell the pieces separately: model only, rig only, or model plus rig, so a client who already has a design or a model can buy only what is missing.

Keep 2D and 3D apart on your sheet. A Live2D VTuber model is a layered 2D illustration rigged in a different program, and the skills, hours and buyers overlap only partly. If you do both, list them as separate services with separate tiers, so a buyer searching for one does not land on prices for the other.

How much does a VRChat avatar commission cost?

It depends on whether you edit or build. Many VRChat commissions are edits on a paid base model the client already owns: new outfit, retextures, shape keys and menu toggles. Those take a few hours and suit a Basic tier around $300 to $400 at the example rate. A fully custom avatar is a character commission plus rigging, optimization for the platform's performance ranks and upload support, so price it like the VTuber row, not like an edit.

Two things belong in writing before you start an edit. First, confirm the base model's license allows the client's intended use, because some bases forbid commercial streaming or redistribution. Second, state whether you deliver the Unity project, the source files or only an uploaded avatar, since clients often assume they get everything.

How much should you charge for commercial use of a 3D model?

Charge more whenever the client will earn from the model. A common structure is personal use at the listed price, commercial use at about 1.5 times, and exclusive rights or a full buyout at about 2 times, with the multipliers set by you, not by any standard. A brand mascot, a model sold inside a game, or a VTuber who monetizes streams all count as commercial in most artists' terms.

Write the license into each tier and into the order confirmation, and for larger or exclusive jobs put the terms into a proper signed commission agreement that names the rights, the delivery files and what happens if the client wants changes after delivery. It is the cheapest way to avoid a dispute over who may resell the model later.

What do platform fees take from a 3D commission?

Enough that they belong inside the price. Using fees read at source, a $600 commission leaves you these amounts:

The gap between the cheapest and most expensive option is $102 on one bust, and on Fiverr the client pays $33 more on top. VGen's fee structure is broken down line by line in our VGen fees guide, and the freelance fee calculator runs any price through the major marketplaces at once. On a monthly plan, the subscription is a fixed cost, so it pays off once you sell enough each month: Pro beats Starter above $333 of orders a month, because $10 more in fees buys a take rate three points lower.

Where can I sell 3D model commissions?

You can take 3D commissions on VGen, Ko-fi, Etsy, Fiverr, ArtStation and on your own order page. The marketplaces with their own buyer traffic charge the most for it, and the commission-first platforms are cheaper but depend on you bringing the audience from social media. The detailed comparison of each one is in our guide to art commission sites.

Whichever you choose, the sale goes faster when the client can pick a tier and pay without a long DM thread. A gig page with Basic, Standard and Premium tiers, the license spelled out and one link you can pin on every profile does that. You can publish one for art and character commissions or, for client work such as product models and game assets, as a 3D modeling gig page with the calculator built in.

The short version

Time your pieces, choose an hourly rate on purpose, and turn the result into three tiers that say exactly what is included. Price rigging, commercial rights and extra revisions as separate lines, and set prices with the platform fee already inside them. Do that and a $600 bust is a $600 bust, not a $480 one after the fees and a free extra round of changes.