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Hi guys

So I have been playing around with the idea of getting someone to paint my 3rd army for me on a pro level, but I am trying to figure out what type of cost I should be expecting from this as well as the general time frame in which I would get them back in? Simply put, I painted the first two army (One of which was over a 100+ model Ork army) and am burned out on painting! lol Here is what I am looking at getting painted

All model would be painted to a Codex theme, nothing to different.
1 Hellion made into Baron
1 Archon made into Vect

50 DE Warriors
10 DE Wyches
5 Raiders
2 Ravager
15 Mandrakes
10 Incubi

So what should I expect guys? Also, Mod I am sorry if this is in the wrong section, not sure where it should go.

Well thanks for your time guys
Alastergrimm

A basic guideline is that you should expect about the same price as the box for the painter's fee. A box of warriors would be generally 25-30 bucks or so for a basic tabletop paintjob.

That's not true at all.
On average, for a basic paint job, you should expect to spend about $5 a model for models on 25mm bases.

You'll find painters who charge more and who charge less, but this is your common range.

You also need to determine how high a quality you want. Most painters offer an "above tabletop" (or equivalent) as their basic standard and a "high quality" (or equivalent), which is something with more attention paid to it. While the ATT models are in the $5 to $6 range, the HQ will be $9 to $11 (again - these are prices for models on 25mm bases).
More intricate, larger and/or character models (as well as vehicles, monsters, etc) will be more expensive.

There are a number of painters hawking their wares in the Swap Shop thread. You could check there. Personally, though, I would only use someone who is established as a painting service (BTP, GMM, Garden Ninja, etc).

Personally, I just had some models painted up by Garden Ninja recently. He did good, solid, fast work with a quick turn around (his Dakka ID is Odin's Grandson - not sure about spaces or punctuation used).

Eric

If you'd like to get an idea what you could spend, BTP has excel sheets with their pricing on their website. I'd use that as a baseline.

Blue Table Painting has high prices for poor quality product; I'd avoid them.

I charge a bit less than most commission painters, and my prices tend to be about $3.50 for a standard infantryman, $10+ for characters, and about $30 for a vehicle like a raider.

As a competitor to painting services like BTP and Brother SRM (I know we share at least one client) I will not denigrate a competitor.

Brother SRM's prices would be pretty similar to what I charge, some parts higher, some parts lower, it really depends on the scale of the work to be done, intricacy of the color scheme (say Ultramarines vs manticores in terms of space marines for example) and the quality level desired. If I can crank out the basic paint scheme of a trooper in 5 minutes, it's obviously going to be cheaper than if it takes me a half hour or more to do the base work. Assembly and cleanup also can cost some, especially if it is a particularly annoying model to put together (I'm looking at you thunderfire cannon). Finally, if I have just completed a commission for 150 goblins, it might cost a bit more for me to have to paint something green again, at least for a week or two to cool down haha.

I will say one good thing about BTP that I may have to institute in my own painting, the option of letting the person painting the army decide the painting scheme and getting a small discount off of the painting price for it.

As to my own prices, I've charged:
Troops $2.50-$5 for a troop
Large models (terminator sized or so) $5-10
Characters $5-15
Vehicles $8-30
Basic basing would be included in that, special basing, magnetizing weapons options, etc are all possible and would cost a bit more on those particular models.

I think $4 per infantry model was about average when I was deciding prices via looking at the other commission painters when I was doing commissions, with some being a lot higher, also wonderful quality if I remember, and others being half that. I charged $3 for standard infantry with highlights and shadows at the time I think.

With such a large army I would stick to the more well established commissioned painters either irl businesses or dakka commission painters. If you find someone whose work you like for a good price that is newer make sure they have done at least one comparably sized army before. Burnout can happen to them as well.

I have around 30 painted armies and I've only painted a handful of models, so I feel like I am an expert consumer of painting services.

The main drivers to the cost of the job are: size of the service and location. Note, I specifically did not put quality in there. One person services will give a very different experience than a service that has 5 or more painters on staff. Location (basically developed world vs 3rd world). Places in the developing nations can pay their painters a fraction of the salary of say Utah. Overseas services will take a while to ship, they often have to bribe their local customs official.

Most of the services will claim they can paint anything. While that is true up to a point, I've found it is better to look at what the prevailing style of the service is an go with a service that has a style you like. Yes, they will attempt to match a random mini you found off "cool mini or not", but it won't match exactly, and it might take them a long time to figure out howto paint it in that style. If you like a clean but muted style find somebody that does that (for example) rather than having them paint bright 90's 'veay metal style.

I don't want to put various services business out on the net, but if you want to chat with somebody that has a lot of 1st hand experience with many of the services, please PM me.

Oh, remember you won't have the same connection to the army as if you painted and built it yourself. It is strange to receive a ready to play army in the mail one day (oh, expect broken models when they ship them to you); I'd liken it to playing a computer strategy game.