Thomas Hempleman
05-26-2005, 2:17 PM
:confused: OK, folks, I know this question has been asked thousands of times before. But I've never seen an answer that really works. I've had my own laser engraving business for almost a year now and I still don't know how to estimate the selling price for my work.
1. One method is to use the cost of the blank item to be engraved and multiply by 5 or 6. On a pre-made gift or award item that I can order from a catalog, this may work OK. But what happens if the customer furnishes the item? Or the item is cheap to begin with? One of my regular customers runs a scrapbook store and has me laser cut paper letters and designs. She furnishes the card stock paper which is probably only 10 or 15 cents a sheet. I get requests to cut letters for signs out of wood and acrylic. My cost depends on how big and intricate the letters are, not just the cost of the materials.
2. Another method I've tried is pricing by the square inch. I've called other shops and, posing as a customer, asked them for a price to do a job. In our area, small plastic engraved signs, desk plates, tags, etc. retail for about 45 cents per square inch. But what if the customer wants the item in another material like glass, wood, etc? Other shops start getting suspicious when you keep calling them, pretending to be a customer and asking them to give you their price to do a similar job. And they usually choose rotary or drag engraving over laser. If I ask about lasering, the cost goes up. I have to compete against these guys. I can't very well match their quote for lasering because the customer will just go to another shop and get it rotary engraved for less money. Or worse, go to Office Max and get it dirt cheap.
3. The third method I've tried is kind of a combination of the first two methods. I take the cost of the materials or blank item that I furnish and add to that the cost of laser time, based on 1 dollar per laser minute. If the customer furnishes the material, the cost is just for laser time. In theory, this method looks good. In practice, it's a crap shoot. Estimating laser times is the problem.
a. Raster engraving time depends on the material, engraving speed setting, DPI setting, size of the engraved area and layout of the engraved area. I've discovered that narrow areas take a lot longer to engrave than wide areas of the same size in square inches.
b. Vector cutting time is really tough to estimate. Are the cuts simple and straight or curvy? Is it a bunch of complicated little cuts? Cutting a simple square block letter that is 1 inch by one inch in size is a lot faster than cutting a fancy script letter of the same size. And how thick is the material to be cut? What DPI/PPI settings need to be used? All of these factors make it impossible to estimate laser time to vector cut an item.
I won't even get into estimating time and cost for special processes like painting, designing, layout, etc. Or factoring in costs like utilities, insurance, and paying myself a decent salary. The bottom line is a customer will ask me how much I would charge to do a project for him. And it seems like every project is different from any other I've done previously. I need a reasonably accurate way to give the customer a price quote that won't drive him away and won't send me to the poor house. Anybody got any ideas? I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.
Tom
1. One method is to use the cost of the blank item to be engraved and multiply by 5 or 6. On a pre-made gift or award item that I can order from a catalog, this may work OK. But what happens if the customer furnishes the item? Or the item is cheap to begin with? One of my regular customers runs a scrapbook store and has me laser cut paper letters and designs. She furnishes the card stock paper which is probably only 10 or 15 cents a sheet. I get requests to cut letters for signs out of wood and acrylic. My cost depends on how big and intricate the letters are, not just the cost of the materials.
2. Another method I've tried is pricing by the square inch. I've called other shops and, posing as a customer, asked them for a price to do a job. In our area, small plastic engraved signs, desk plates, tags, etc. retail for about 45 cents per square inch. But what if the customer wants the item in another material like glass, wood, etc? Other shops start getting suspicious when you keep calling them, pretending to be a customer and asking them to give you their price to do a similar job. And they usually choose rotary or drag engraving over laser. If I ask about lasering, the cost goes up. I have to compete against these guys. I can't very well match their quote for lasering because the customer will just go to another shop and get it rotary engraved for less money. Or worse, go to Office Max and get it dirt cheap.
3. The third method I've tried is kind of a combination of the first two methods. I take the cost of the materials or blank item that I furnish and add to that the cost of laser time, based on 1 dollar per laser minute. If the customer furnishes the material, the cost is just for laser time. In theory, this method looks good. In practice, it's a crap shoot. Estimating laser times is the problem.
a. Raster engraving time depends on the material, engraving speed setting, DPI setting, size of the engraved area and layout of the engraved area. I've discovered that narrow areas take a lot longer to engrave than wide areas of the same size in square inches.
b. Vector cutting time is really tough to estimate. Are the cuts simple and straight or curvy? Is it a bunch of complicated little cuts? Cutting a simple square block letter that is 1 inch by one inch in size is a lot faster than cutting a fancy script letter of the same size. And how thick is the material to be cut? What DPI/PPI settings need to be used? All of these factors make it impossible to estimate laser time to vector cut an item.
I won't even get into estimating time and cost for special processes like painting, designing, layout, etc. Or factoring in costs like utilities, insurance, and paying myself a decent salary. The bottom line is a customer will ask me how much I would charge to do a project for him. And it seems like every project is different from any other I've done previously. I need a reasonably accurate way to give the customer a price quote that won't drive him away and won't send me to the poor house. Anybody got any ideas? I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.
Tom