The 3D rendering farm actually is a very big cake since there are more and more 3d films, 3d animations, VFX, architectural design requirements as the technology develops, but there is also very fierce competition in this industry. And before you start the business, a few things you need to take into consideration.
1. Hardware cost
The bigger the render farm network, the quicker the rendering speed. According to the top render farm companies, they at least have 3000~4000 rendering nodes, you can calculate the hardware cost according to your local unit price of the rendering node.
2. Maintaining Cost
You need to rent a room in the data center to place all of your rendering nodes, the cost depends on the rendering node quantity and where you plan to rent. It would also be a large expense every year. In my opinion, the Cooling cost is a critical deciding factor. You will need a rock-solid setup which automatically switches to the backup power supply as well. This is an additional cost that most of us forget. If there is no proper backup it can jeopardize the entire system … I mean without proper cooling you can damage the hardware. Estimating the cooling cost is critical and would dictate your pricing too. Besides, I know in some countries, the electricity price is really high and then it leads to the cost of maintaining the nodes of always running farm render also high
3. Human Resource Cost
You need a lot of specialist on customer service, technical support, research & development, marketing, this cost mostly depends on where you locate and the current local salary standard.
4. Pricing Strategy
You can take the top render farm pricing strategy as a reference to evaluate when can you get all of the cost back and gain revenue