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View Full Version : If I walked into your shop, what would you charge?



Brian Lamb
06-03-2016, 4:46 PM
OK, I can figure out pricing on repetitive marking times, not a problem, but I have trouble figuring out what to charge for a one off "artistic" piece. Case in point, friend of a relative is an avid pilot, so we did a photo of his plane as a gift. I know how much time I have in this sort of thing, but I also know I'm a complete newbie at this photo manipulation stuff.... other folks might be able to knock out the backgrounds and adjust 5 times faster than I do. So, I'll post the original photo and the engraved item, this was on a piece of Mahogany about 7" x 20" if I remember correctly. Not the best photos...

338527

338530

Gary Hair
06-03-2016, 5:14 PM
First, you did a nice job on the pic! I'm sure it's the mahogany, but I would prefer it a bit lighter - still very nice though. I have a $35 minimum charge, for that you'll get about 5 minutes of design/editing time and 5 minutes of laser. Any more of either and I charge $120/hour minimum. The people who would think that is too much are not who I want for customers, there are plenty of shops around that will charge less for a minimum and I always encourage those with small jobs to check them out. Just a wild guess, but I'd probably need to get at least $100 - $150 for that piece.

Brian Lamb
06-03-2016, 5:38 PM
Hi Gary,

Thank you for the compliment, that photo was a bit of a challenge with other planes, legs, tie down ropes and wheel chocks. I agree the Mahogany isn't probably the best choice, but I will say it's considerably lighter in real life than the photo, so not too bad. The customer now wants his other plane and their dog, hence my questions. If he owns planes, he's obviously not the typical cheapskate that I'm dealing with, so I know he appreciates the time and effort. My guesstimate on prices isn't too far off from yours, so I know I'm at least not cutting myself too short.

Clark Pace
06-03-2016, 5:44 PM
$25 setup minimum. Half hour work. Also engraving time. .60 a minute

Keith Winter
06-03-2016, 8:07 PM
$25 setup minimum. Half hour work. Also engraving time. .60 a minute

Clark $36 an hour for laser time?! That's dirt cheap man! Want to bring your lasers and come work for me? :D

A wild guess but probably $150 if it's a custom piece, maybe more. Price depends on 1) how long it took you to setup, 2) how long it took to engrave, and 3) how many pieces of wood you ruined before you got it right. ;) I'm assuming you provided the wood as well.

Brian Lamb
06-03-2016, 8:27 PM
Was kind of my thoughts, I won't hardly turn my laser on for less than $1 a minute... maybe on a large quantity job a little less. Yes, my piece of wood, but I make a lot of those out of my scrap pieces... and if I screw it up, another pass thru the planer or drum sander and she's ready for another go! LOL!

Mike Null
06-03-2016, 9:00 PM
I have come to the conclusion after nearly 20 years that pricing by laser time is foolhardy. When I started 20 years ago laser reps would brag that you could charge $1.00 a minute. The problem with that is that it doesn't generate enough income. It didn't then and it certainly doesn't now.

Take a look at what your friendly car dealer charges. I assure you that it's more than a hundred an hour and that's just the minimum. My plumber charges $175 for a house call. My lawyer used to be $300 an hour even if the secretary answers the phone.

The question is a bit difficult but what the aforementioned professionals have done is to determine their cost of doing business, competitive status, and required margin and priced their services accordingly. I am not desperate for business so I make sure I'm willing to do a repeat of the job at the same price before I quote.

I also have standard pricing on many of the items I supply such as name tags, labels, signs etc. My pricing on name tags produces hourly rates that many of you would consider obscene.

The point about being a novice is valid so far as dealing with artwork is concerned but to get an idea of the value of that just check with some of the professionals and what they would charge to do the artwork.

Kev Williams
06-03-2016, 9:05 PM
One off jobs like that never pay enough-- or I should say, I never charge enough. ;)

Keith Winter
06-03-2016, 9:15 PM
One off jobs like that never pay enough-- or I should say, I never charge enough. ;)

Amen to that brother!

Gary Hair
06-03-2016, 11:38 PM
If he owns planes, he's obviously not the typical cheapskate that I'm dealing with

I am a pilot and a former airplane owner, a 1965 Cherokee 180, and let me be the first to tell you that the common misconception that airplane owners have money is, unfortunately, not true. There are very few "rich pilots"...

Clark Pace
06-06-2016, 1:41 PM
Clark $36 an hour for laser time?! That's dirt cheap man! Want to bring your lasers and come work for me? :D

A wild guess but probably $150 if it's a custom piece, maybe more. Price depends on 1) how long it took you to setup, 2) how long it took to engrave, and 3) how many pieces of wood you ruined before you got it right. ;) I'm assuming you provided the wood as well.

I guess it also depends on where your live. If I lived n NY or California where where thing are more expensive I may charge more.

The going rate around here is around $1 per minute 'from other laser shops is seems. Now that being said 95% of my work is repeat work. So it's just push the button and go.

Also most of the products I sell I use my laser for are my own products that I make and resell. I'm am a novice inventor. So as an example I have a product that takes around 10 -12 minutes to cut. $10 worth of material and sell for $50 or more all around the world.

But as I said before the local rates ae around $1 per minute

Brian Lamb
06-06-2016, 3:25 PM
Clarke,

I try to shoot for $1 a minute on the laser and then likewise for the prep work and such, probably too cheap, but I have to start somewhere to build up some repeat customers.

As for this:

"So as an example I have a product that takes around 10 -12 minutes to cut. $10 worth of material and sell for $50 or more all around the world."

That sounds great at first glance, and maybe it is, but you have to figure in advertising/website costs, dealing with the customers, answering questions, packaging, shipping and paying for all the supplies and shipping expenses. We have our own product line in woodworking accessories and keep very accurate records of all of the expenses to make sure that the rate per hour on the CNC mill is enough to cover all the overhead, and it will have to be the same way on the laser work too.

Brian Lamb
06-06-2016, 9:44 PM
On another related question on this post..... most have commented about the wood. I have a question about what species most of you use for photo type engraving.

I did the original picture shown here on Mahogany, which gives decent detail but is a bit dark. I have since done some experimenting with other types of wood, maple (can't seem to get a dark mark, but best option so far), Cherry, too dark with not a enough contrast in the mark, Pine, yuck, Poplar, not the worst, but not a very good contrast, and Baltic Birch ply, again, not dark enough of a mark.

I ran out of alder on another project, so will get some tomorrow to test. Any suggestions for light colored wood, that marks dark and isn't too highly figured, as that seems to show through the photo engraving? Oh, I have tried the out of focus and slowing way down and varied power up and down the scale without much success. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Gary Hair
06-06-2016, 9:57 PM
Red alder has been the best for me. Maple is good if you get the settings right and take it a bit out of focus, Cherry is great for dark marks but as you found, not much contrast. MDF makes the absolute best mark due to it's almost perfect consistency, but... It's mdf...

Kev Williams
06-07-2016, 12:53 AM
Concur on the alder.

I had a guy who wanted a big all wood plaque. Walnut.
I told him alder was the best bet. No, he wanted walnut.
Tried to talk him out of it. Nope, walnut.
The walnut engraved beautifully.
Too bad you couldn't even tell it was engraved from 4' away.
His wife brought it back and complained. She said "I can't read it, I don't think I should have to pay for this!"
I told her no problem, and that I tried talking her husband into alder because it's a wood much better for lasering.
At which point she got 'that look', smiled, took it from me and got in her car and left.
:)

Brian Lamb
06-07-2016, 9:07 AM
I suspected Alder would be the choice, will pick some up to try with.... I have used it quite a bit already, just for regular plaque work though, haven't tried much in the way of photos on it. Is there a difference between "Red Alder" and "Knotty Alder", that seems to be the common name around here.

I was just curious if there were other options.... I had done some engraving on all sorts of materials I had laying around for testing and had some excellent results with a wood called Afromosia... but it's not cheap and I'm out of it. It engraves pretty much solid black, at least on lettering, excellent contrast.

Might have to play with some MDF too.... if the results are that good, I could always wrap it in a nice hardwood. Kev, your comments on the walnut, it does engrave nice, have done it too, but ended up doing color fill on the lettering to be able to read it... while the wood is beautiful, it's just too dark for laser engraving.

Clark Pace
06-07-2016, 5:41 PM
*Yes there are several things to consider. I do figure those things in. I also try to find out how to cut costs. As an example. I found a local company that throws away pounds of perfectly good packing material. So instead of them throwing it away they will save it for me and i get it free of charge. So they don't fill up their garbage cans and I get free stuff.

On my repeat customers its easy work and i do make good money.

I should mention my rates on cutting are $1 a minute. Engraving is .60 cents a minute.


Every business here at some point will probably find what works for them hopefully.

Kev Williams
06-07-2016, 5:57 PM
Is there a difference between "Red Alder" and "Knotty Alder"... .
There's also a 'Clear Alder'- at least that's a choice I get in veneers- which (I assume) is pretty much knotty alder without the knots.

Brian Lamb
06-07-2016, 6:27 PM
Yes, the local wood store has "knotty", which is basically a lower grade of the same species of "clear" read alder. Advantage of the knotty is it's usually less than half the cost and I can work around the knots if I want clear, and leave the knots if I want rustic.

Mike Null
06-08-2016, 6:46 AM
Brian

In my experience being the low cost supplier is an undesirable situation. If you're not happy with the price you're getting it's the wrong price regardless of competition. It is also my opinion that most engravers don't know what the competition is doing and work on assumptions. If you put out a quality product, charge a quality price.

I am not a fan of direct engraving into wood though it's likely that most of the people here differ in that opinion. I do more than 1000 plaques a year and fewer than 2 dozen are direct engraving into wood. Those that are are always color filled with either black or gold to enhance the appearance.

If my customer insists that I engrave into wood I try to steer them to cherry and then I usually colorfill that. Alder, in my view, is cheaper and looks that way.

Keep in mind, I operate an engraving service and am quite busy with that so artistic endeavors must command a premium or I refuse them.

Keith Outten
06-08-2016, 8:23 AM
I agree with Mike, being on the low end of the rate scale is not the place you want to be. I can also say that I have never used a price per minute scale on any project. Owning a fast laser engraver would put my per minute engraving cost below those who own slower machines even though I paid more for mine which doesn't make sense.

I base my fees on:

Material Cost + My Labor Rate per hour then factor in my overhead and profit as a percentage of the job.

My labor rate is based on the value of my experience in the area of the marketplace that I serve. I adjust my labor rate on every job based on the customers location. For instance my total cost for ADA signs increases progressively from Eastern Virginia to Central Virginia and then Northern Virginia. If I was to sell my signs in California the rate would be even higher because of the local rate scale in that state.

My investment in my facility, shop machines, insurance, phone, internet, electricity, etc is the basis for my overhead fee. I adjust my overhead fee upward for any job that involves my laser or CNC router, any other job is assigned my standard percentage.