blender.farm vs Drop & Render
Figures read from their pricing page and their FAQ on 1 September 2026.
- 3xwhat their top priority tier costs against their base tier, for the same hour of rendering on the same hardware
- 1 rateone price per render hour here, whatever the deadline
- 3h 20mwhat our 10 free credits buy on a full RTX 5090
What the rate depends on
Their pricing, reproduced as published. Three tiers, and the same hour of rendering costs a different amount in each.
| Tier | Per OctaneBench point, per hour | What the tier claims |
|---|---|---|
| Sapphire, low priority | 0.0036 | Best value for cost savings |
| Emerald, medium priority | 0.0058 | 150% speed boost |
| Diamond, high priority | 0.0108 | 250% speed boost |
Diamond is exactly three times Sapphire. Same scene, same card, same hour of rendering, three times the price for having it sooner.
Ours is around $3.00 per render hour on your first job and $2.25 on the largest credit pack, which costs $149.99. There is no faster tier to be talked into.
Their rate is per OctaneBench point per hour, so it becomes a price per render hour only once a card is named, and their pricing page does not name one. We therefore do not print a per-hour figure for them anywhere on this page: OTOY's own results table spreads the RTX 5090 between 1730 and 2155 OctaneBench points depending on which column you read, which is a 25% swing on any number we made up here. Their calculator will quote you a figure for a card you pick yourself.
Knowing the cost
Drop & Render
- 1Render frames locally to get an average frame time
- 2Enter your own GPU model and frame count
- 3Pick a priority tier
- 4Read the estimate
Their calculator states the results are estimates and recommends submitting a test frame before committing to the full render.
blender.farm
- 1Install the add-on
- 2It reads your .blend
- 3Time and cost
An estimate you can get before you render anything, on your machine or ours.
Side by side
| blender.farm | Drop & Render | |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | NVIDIA RTX 5090, 32 GB. Every render, named before you start. | "Latest Nvidia RTX hardware". No model named on the pricing page. |
| Published rate | Around $3.00 per render hour, down to $2.25 on the largest pack | 0.0036, 0.0058 and 0.0108 per OctaneBench point per hour, by tier |
| Pricing unit | Flat rate per render hour, 5-minute blocks | Credits, priced per Cinebench and OctaneBench point-hour |
| Priority tiers | None. One rate. | Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond |
| What you pay for | Render time | Render time and the speed at which it is delivered |
| Free trial | 10 credits, about 3h 20m | 25 euros in free credits, no payment details required |
| Credit expiry | Credits never expire | Credits never expire |
| Knowing the cost first | The add-on reads your .blend and returns an estimate | Calculator, after a local frame time, with a test frame recommended |
| Spreading a job | Set frame ranges and run several jobs at once. Automatic splitting is in the add-on next. | 100 to 200 GPUs per job on average, by their own FAQ |
| Blender versions | 4.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, matched to your file | Not stated on their pricing page |
| Engines | Cycles (OPTIX, CUDA) and EEVEE | Cycles, EEVEE, Octane, Redshift, Karma, Corona, V-Ray, Arnold |
| Other software | Blender only | Blender, Cinema 4D, Houdini |
| Asset handling | Your .blend is read locally and every referenced file is listed before upload | Automatic asset handling on submission, no path remapping or packing |
| Uploads | Straight to object storage, never through our web backend. The machine is destroyed with everything on it when the job ends. | NDA available |
| Submitting | Browser upload or a native Blender add-on | Native Blender add-on |
| Support | Discord and email | Live chat |
What the free trial actually buys
A trial two and a half times larger in euros. Here is the whole of what can honestly be said about what each one renders.
| Farm | Trial | Render time it buys |
|---|---|---|
| blender.farm | 10 credits | 3h 20m on a full RTX 5090, at the only rate we have |
| Drop & Render | 25 euros | Depends on the tier you pick and the OctaneBench score of the card their scheduler gives you. Their pricing page names neither. |
Read from their pricing page on 1 September 2026. Ours is credits x 20 minutes, which is the rate and not an estimate.
That is the whole point of the unit. A euro figure is not an amount of rendering until you know what it buys per hour, and three tiers over an unnamed card is three different answers.
Where blender.farm wins
- One rate, whatever the deadline. Their top tier costs exactly three times their base tier for the same hour of rendering. Ours is around $3.00, and there is no faster tier to be talked into.
- A bigger trial number is not more rendering. Theirs is 25 euros against our 10 credits, and ours is 3h 20m on a named RTX 5090 whichever way you count it.
- You know the cost before you spend anything. The add-on reads your .blend and estimates time and cost. No local test render, no test frame on the farm to find out.
- The card is named before the job runs. Every render here is a full RTX 5090 with 32 GB. Their pricing page says "latest Nvidia RTX hardware" and stops.
- You can spread a job across cards. Set the frame ranges yourself and run several jobs at once, as some users already do. You are billed for render time, not for machines standing by. Automatic splitting is in the add-on next.
- Your exact Blender version. Matched to your file, or the job is refused rather than approximated. Geometry nodes behave the way they do locally.
- Billing only while Blender runs. Uploading, downloading and sitting idle cost nothing.
- Frames stream back as they finish, so a wrong camera shows up in frame two, not at the end.
What they cover and we do not
- 100 to 200 GPUs on an average job, by their own FAQ, assigned without you arranging anything. One job here is one card.
- Cinema 4D and Houdini, and Octane, Redshift, Arnold and V-Ray alongside Cycles. We run stock Blender on purpose.
- Credits that never expire, same as ours. Stating a tie is what makes the rows above it worth reading.
- Years of operating history and an NDA on request. We are new and we answer on Discord.
Both of us turn an afternoon of blocked workstation into minutes. The difference is what an hour of it costs, and whether that changes with your deadline.
Start renderingSpotted a figure that has moved? Tell us and we will re-check it.