RenderDay vs GarageFarm
GarageFarm meters usage against a pre-funded balance and supports many applications beyond Blender. RenderDay is Blender-only and quotes one fixed price before you pay.
RenderDay
A Blender cloud render service with one fixed price, quoted before payment, after a free test render of your own scene. No subscription, no credits, no minimum spend.
- One fixed price, quoted before payment, after a free test render of your own scene
- Frames render in parallel across demand-provisioned NVIDIA RTX 5090 and L40S GPUs, up to 48 GB VRAM per worker
- No subscription, no credits, no minimum spend; jobs start at €2.01
GarageFarm
A pay-as-you-go render farm founded in 2010, supporting many applications beyond Blender with CPU and GPU rendering billed by the hour.
- Named GPU hardware up to 96 GB VRAM (RTX 6000 Pro Blackwell)
- Supports Blender plus 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Rhino, SketchUp, and more
- $25 free trial credit for new accounts, no credit card required
How the two work
RenderDay renders on demand-provisioned NVIDIA RTX 5090 and L40S GPUs, up to 48 GB VRAM per worker, with frames rendering in parallel across workers. GarageFarm meters usage by the GHz-hour (CPU) or OctaneBench-hour (GPU) against a pre-funded balance, on hardware that includes an RTX 6000 Pro Blackwell card with 96 GB VRAM.
RenderDay is Blender-only, supporting Cycles and EEVEE on Blender 4.3 through 5.2. GarageFarm supports many more applications and engines, including Cycles, EEVEE, V-Ray, Redshift, and LuxCoreRender across Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, and Cinema 4D, submitted through an in-app plugin rather than a browser upload.
Feature by feature
Pricing model
RenderDayOne fixed price, quoted before payment, after a free test render of your own scene. No subscription, no credits, no minimum spend.
GarageFarmPay-as-you-go by GHz-hour (CPU) or OctaneBench-hour (GPU) against a pre-funded balance. Its own FAQ describes its cost calculator as “only an approximation,” and it covers animations only.
Hardware
RenderDayNVIDIA RTX 5090 and L40S GPUs, up to 48 GB VRAM per worker.
GarageFarmNamed GPU nodes include RTX 6000 Pro Blackwell (96 GB), L40S (48 GB), RTX A5000 (24 GB), and RTX 4000 Ada (20 GB).
Render engines and software support
RenderDayBlender only: Cycles and EEVEE.
GarageFarmCycles, EEVEE, Blender Internal, Blender Game, V-Ray, LuxCoreRender, Redshift, and ProRender for Blender, plus 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Rhino, SketchUp, Modo, LightWave, Vue, Terragen, and Houdini.
Blender version support
RenderDayBlender 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2.
GarageFarm2.80-2.93, 3.0-3.6+, 4.0-4.5+, and 5.0-5.2+.
Submission method
RenderDayWeb upload only (.blend or .zip); no plugin or desktop app required.
GarageFarmIn-app plugin (“renderBeamer”) installed inside Blender.
Results availability
RenderDayResults available to download for 30 days.
GarageFarmProject data stored for 28 days after job completion.
File size limit
RenderDayUp to 5 GB per file.
GarageFarmNot published.
Refunds and discounts
RenderDayFree re-render or full refund for RenderDay-caused failures, with a 7-day window to report.
GarageFarmRefunds are conditional: offered for GarageFarm’s own system failures, but not guaranteed if no test render was performed first. A 33% Blender-specific discount is available as a Blender Development Fund corporate member.
Competitor details from GarageFarm’s own pricing and FAQ pages, retrieved 2026-07-31. Tell us if something has changed and we will correct it.
How a job runs
RenderDay
- 01Upload .blend or .zip file through the browser
- 02Preprocessing analyses your file in 1-2 minutes: extracts render settings, detects cameras, and evaluates complexity
- 03Select render settings (Blender version, engine, resolution, samples, and so on)
- 04Free test render of your own scene; receive one exact price
- 05Pay the quoted price
- 06Frames render in parallel across GPU workers
- 07Monitor progress with real-time preview frames
- 08Download your results (available for 30 days)
GarageFarm
- 01Install the GarageFarm plugin (“renderBeamer”) in Blender
- 02Submit your job through the plugin
- 03GarageFarm bills a test render, then extrapolates the full cost from it
- 04Rendering draws down your pre-funded balance at the applicable GHz-hour or OctaneBench-hour rate
- 05Monitor progress and download frames through the plugin
- 06Project data retained 28 days after job completion
Which one fits your job
Both cases, on one screen. If the answer is the other one, that is a better outcome than a refund.
Pick GarageFarm if
GarageFarm is the better choice when the job is not Blender-only or needs a legacy or exotic setup. It supports many more applications and engines than RenderDay, including 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Rhino, SketchUp, Modo, LightWave, Vue, Terragen, plus V-Ray, Redshift, and LuxCoreRender, and its Blender version floor (2.80) reaches further back than RenderDay’s 4.3. Submission goes through an in-app plugin, and GarageFarm offers priority tiers trading cost against speed, plus larger node specs (up to 96 GB VRAM) for unusually heavy scenes. It has operated since 2010 and offers discounts suited to recurring, high-volume studio use.
Pick RenderDay if
For a Blender-only job, RenderDay’s difference is the quote: one fixed price after a free test render of your own scene, before you pay anything, with no balance to pre-fund and no calculator marked as an approximation.
Settle it with your own scene
Upload the file and we will render real test frames of it, then send one exact fixed price. If the number does not work, you have paid nothing.
Median wait for a price is 6 minutes, and nine jobs in ten are priced within 16.