Job pricing

[Patrick Licata]

Hello Creekers,
I have a potential customer, who usually does his own engraving, (his machine is down for the next few months??) and wants to sub out to me.
He will provide the sheets of metal and the layout already to go in Corel. I am basically engraving and possibly shear cutting the sheets into individual plates.
The 12 x 24 sheets will consist of 48 plates (1 x 6) per sheet.
I ran a quick test, engraving 2 plates (1x12) and it took just under 3 minutes. There is a border around each plate which basically means the entire 12 x 24 sheet is engraved.
Based on my test and calculations, it will take about 70 minutes per sheet. He stated that it could be 1,000 individual plates (21 sheets) per month for the next 3 months or even longer if all goes well.
What do you all think a fair price would be? Obviously I want to make money, Lord knows I could use it, but since he does engraving and knows what's involved I don't want to be too high.
Thanks in advance for your input.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Two options Pat,

Price it at a level you know you will get the job and likely end up working for McDonalds money
Price it at a level you will actually make money on and risk not getting the job

You already have a prospective time it will take to do the job so it's a simple case of multiplying what you want to make an hour after costs are deducted over the time taken. Be aware though if you price low to get it (for whatever reason) they are unlikely to pay a higher price in the near future.

cheers

Dave

[Scott Shepherd]

You might also say to them "Before we go too far, did you have a price in mind?". You'll know real quick if he says that they are 50 cents each that it's not worth your time.

[Joe Pelonio]

I normally do wholesale at 10-15% off retail depending on the quantity. Don't go too long without getting paid, I'm wondering why his machine will be down that long. Maybe doesn't have the money for a new tube, nor to pay you? If you don't know him, maybe 1/2 up front and the balance on completion.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Patrick;
Look into doing the border as a vector and contour it to get necessary width or defocus-saves a ton of time versus rastering.
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Gary Hair]

Just to add to what the others have said, and they have given you good advice, don't base the price on future work, only base it on what he actually brings you. I can't tell you how many times people ask for pricing for 1,000 pieces and then bring in 10 and want the same price. I combat that by ALWAYS giving a 1-xx price no matter how many parts they say they will bring in.

[Scott Shepherd]

I can't tell you how many times people ask for pricing for 1,000 pieces and then bring in 10 and want the same price. I combat that by ALWAYS giving a 1-xx price no matter how many parts they say they will bring in.

So true! We'd all be millionaire's if we got all that work we were promised, wouldn't we?

[Vicki Rivrud]

I couldn't agree more!
So many times I've heard the promise of future work or multiple parts-only to cut the first 10 and never hear from them again, even though they said they were more than happy with the outcome.

Proceed with caution - get paid up front if possible or the very least 50% down before starting. If you have to provide the material - I always charge for that beforehand as well.

Vicki

[Patrick Licata]

Thank you for your responses. Yes, we've all probably been "promised" x-amount of work only to find that "x" doesn't equal what was promised.
I responded to the customer and we'll see what happens from there. I should be somewhere in the middle with what I quoted.
Thanks again!

[Kev Williams]

As for your border- build 4 separate borders and butt them together, using different colors. My sample assumes square edge borders, which is real easy to do. The full black border in the top image must raster the full width of the plate from top to bottom-- pretty slow. But with 2 different colored sides, the top and bottom will get done quickly, and the sides will get done WAY quicker this way. I work with outlines like this all the time, and I've tried doing them vector style, but this way works much better. If you have round corners or some other 'anomoly', using power clip you can still break up the borders...

[Mark Sipes]

Kev thanks for the tip.. That is a great time saver.