Pricing advice

[Dranos]

Hello everyone. I just got my new ShopBot and still haven't completed the assembling. The good news is that I have a few interested clients waiting on estimates. I have no clue where to start with pricing.
I expect to use mainly PVC, foam board, coroplast, plexiglass and aluminum for my signs. Is there a rate for each material or do I use one per square foot rate for everything?
Please give me some guidance. I'm all the way in Jamaica so things are more expensive here but if I get some idea of how things are done in the US I will be able to work things out.

Thanks.

[dlcw]

I would get pricing on your materials and quote by the square foot for material. For carving/cutting I charge $1.00US per minute for retail/consumer. I charge $.75US/minute for small scale wholesale and $.65US/minute for large wholesale. You will need to know how much you have to make an hour to keep you doors open and make a living (only you can figure that number out) and that is the hourly rate you charge to the customer for your time - not CNC time.

[Dranos]

Thanks. That was helpful.

[dakers]

This may not help you but here is what we have done and are doing about pricing.
We have used pricing software made for sign companies. we currenty use cyrious software but have used mirosource and estimate. we have all our materials that we use loaded into the program. some programs have routing modules. It does streamline pricing and prices are consistant. it has the capablity to figure different markups for different sizes, etc.

The sales people use it here. For me i prefer time and material pricing with alot of common sense thrown in and past time studies but that takes time and experience to figure estimates that way. the software works if you monitor and adjust it.

Material markup varies depending shipping costs, how much needed for job, how much left over as scrap, what we have to do to prepare the material, etc. markup can be from 35% to 250%

for us material markup is probably the easiest part. There is a component i call selling expense that is hard to figure. what i refer to is the time it takes with the customer to procure the job. That can be crazy to figure for me as i tend to try to help too much , give too many options and everyone says "you have to spend less time with the customer" but i guess i am not wired that way.

[Big-Tex]

I use time and material, use common sense. Price of material (keep in mind customer pays for waste), time to get it done (keep in mind dificulty).
After my cost including % for tooling I do not expect to make $5/hr.

Example: I just lost job, customer went to trophy shop to buy cheesy plastic trophies. It OK I don't mind and will not loose any sleep over it. He loves my work so what I in this to make money I am not charity. It may sound harsh but when my son needed open heath surgery nobody gave rats a.. and did not help me.

[dvmike]

I may actually change things up with experience but I charge by sq.ft. based on time and difficulty.
My basic rates are $80.00 per.sq.ft for larger ,more difficult projects . And $60.00-$70.00 per.sq.ft. for smaller and simpler projects.

[chiloquinruss]

And don't forget there are two kinds of jobs. First is the customer that comes in and says I need a sign. The second is the customer that comes in with a drawing and says I need a sign that looks like 'this'. The second one is easy, the first customer requires a lot of time BEFORE ever doing anything on the BOT. That time needs to be charged for. Also the first customer may not know what they want so while you are learning to use your Bot and the software make lots of sample projects and use these as sales tools.

The BOT is an awesome tool but it can only do what you design and put into it. I love mine and I only wish I had bought mine sooner! :) I am retired and bought mine for hobby use. I am now working about 3 days a week average commercially in a very small community. Ted was quite correct all Botters end up being sign makers! :) Russ