Pricing Help !!!

[Robert Santiago]

Hello Everybody. Recently I ran into somebody, who's producing bike accessories. He wants to engrave his company name on some of his aluminum products and he's asking for a price quote. The engraving area is a little over 8 square inches, and he's selling around 20,000 pieces / year. It takes me 12 minutes to engrave a piece (without counting the time required for the Cermark coat to be applied).
I don't want to lose the opportunity, that's why I need all the help one can give, for pricing this big contract in a professional manner.

Thanks in advance,
Robert

[Mike Null]

There are better cheaper ways to mark that quantity of products. I can't imagine he'd go for lasering.

[Zac Altman]

The engraving area is a little over 8 square inches, and he's selling around 20,000 pieces / year. It takes me 12 minutes to engrave a piece

20,000 x 12 mins = 4000 hours
4000 / 365 days in a year = 11 hours a day

2 pcs at a time: 5.5 hours a day
4 pcs at a time: 3 hours a day
10 pcs at a time: 1 hour a day

Now unless you plan to be running your laser every day for 3/5/11 hours, reconsider...

[Joe Pelonio]

If he is unaware of other options and goes for the price, this could be a good job for you. Unfortunately it probably won't last because eventually he'll discover that he can get them screen printed for a setup charge of maybe $100 then a dollar or less apiece. With the cost of the Cermark, run time, cleaning time, with a good quantity discount I'd probably charge at least $6 each.

[Darren Null]

2 pcs at a time: 5.5 hours a day
4 pcs at a time: 3 hours a day
10 pcs at a time: 1 hour a day

Not necessarily- I've often found that travel time between the pieces can actually increase the total burn time. By quite a lot in some cases.

[Lonny Meeks]

Can you always make a profit by charging an hourly flat fee of say $60?

[Joe Pelonio]

The more I think about this, I really doubt that this guy would be willing to pay even $1 each for these, that's $20,000 and may be more than his rent!