How do you generally charge for a die cut or printed decal?

[VicoDrive]

We have had a few people come in lately since we started working with a large format printer for small single decals and die cut jobs. How do you generally charge for something like this, by square inch maybe? Right now someone is asking for a die cut of his fraternities greek letters for his car window at 4" x 7.5". What might something like this run?

 

[Gino]

Shop minimum....... or go down the street to the guy who charges practically nothing for all of his work. In fact, you just might want to use him for all your needs. He's cheap, I'm not.

 

[VicoDrive]

Shop minimum....... or go down the street to the guy who charges practically nothing for all of his work. In fact, you just might want to use him for all your needs. He's cheap, I'm not.

Not too sure I understand what you mean. Also I was referring to an actual large format printer we own, not going through another company that does large format printing

 

[J Hill Designs]

shop minimum

but for something like what you describe, I'd probably just say 'throw me a 20 spot'

 

[John Butto]

google

http://www.orangecountysigns.com/Decal-pricing-calculator.html

but like Gino said, "that guy down the street will be cheaper".

 

[Gino]

Not too sure I understand what you mean. Also I was referring to an actual large format printer we own, not going through another company that does large format printing

Okay, here we go.

You made mention that you now have a wide format printer, but you have customers coming in asking for ridiculous requests and more than likely wanting it for next to nothing.

Either set up a shop minimum.... say like $75 and be done with it....... or you're gonna waste more time in a week's time discussing this crap with these people and loosing probably 3/4's of them and then you lost hours for nothing.

Let the guy down the street work for nothing and let your clientele know you do top quality work and they won't quibble about bullsh!t orders like this and you won't get a reputation for having big expensive equipment working for peanuts.

Sure, you can do it, but why ?? You wanna spend 15 hours or so a week for $20 bucks a shot ?? Not me. I want the big things and let the little guys have the little jobs, unless I feel like taking one on here or there. However, with a shop minimum, there's only a few minutes lost, no explaining, no bargaining or anything else. They either take it...... or leave it.

Our shop minimum is $125. We raised it to $185, but that sounded too high and we decided to take it back to $125. I'm still on the fnece about it, but it really comes in handy for getting rid of riff/raff.

 

[Salmoneye]

Shop minimum is what we would charge here.

 

[Jillbeans]

I have a shop minimum of $50.
Yeah, I know it's only $5 worth of vinyl but you still have to buy the plotter, vinyl, masking, squeegee, stock the materials, cut it, weed it, mask it, deal with the customer for usually 15 minutes, etc etc.
If they want it cheap they can go to the carnival or to one of the local hacks, or Craigslist.
Occasionally I will make an exception for a really loyal client, but I never do anything for less than $25...it's just not worth it.
Love....Jill

 

[Salmoneye]

If I don't want to charge $65 and it's a regular client I just give it to them. Maybe something like a phone #... It's not worth billing and then they don't think I'm nickle and diming them. the next invoice takes care of it.

 

[VicoDrive]

I have a shop minimum of $50.
Yeah, I know it's only $5 worth of vinyl but you still have to buy the plotter, vinyl, masking, squeegee, stock the materials, cut it, weed it, mask it, deal with the customer for usually 15 minutes, etc etc.
If they want it cheap they can go to the carnival or to one of the local hacks, or Craigslist.
Occasionally I will make an exception for a really loyal client, but I never do anything for less than $25...it's just not worth it.
Love....Jill

Im liking the shop minimum idea, was thinking about $20 or so, but thats up to the boss but I feel he will go for it. I have been keeping the decent sized pieces of scrap for little jobs like this or for my own personal use and experimenting. As long as its not too busy, little jobs shouldnt be too big of a deal. Also try to think of it as a foot-in-the-door job meaning they now know we exist and hopefully we can hook them for other jobs later, or maybe their parents own Starbucks

 

[tomence]

No offense but who in their right mind pays $125 an hour. Maybe 20 years ago.

 

[Sign Source]

I'm with Jill

We charge min of 1/2 shop rate ($40), there is no way you can do this and not take at least a half hour if you include all time with customer and working on product.

 

[Mosh]

So you do "Die Killing"? You must have a huge quantities, we just cut ours on a plotter!

Our shop min is $50, I see so many sad faces when I tell them that.

"All I want is Calvin peeing on......" I used to hear this 20 times a week.

 

[VicoDrive]

So you do "Die Killing"? You must have a huge quantities, we just cut ours on a plotter!

Our shop min is $50, I see so many sad faces when I tell them that.

"All I want is Calvin peeing on......" I used to hear this 20 times a week.

lol! We havent had anyone come with a Calvin peeing request but I did do one for myself. Always had it in my head but now that we got this machine, I finally did it! Yes Im a Pacman fan

 

[Gino]

No offense but who in their right mind pays $125 an hour. Maybe 20 years ago.

None taken.

For the most part, almost no one. That's the part we want to get across to someone coming in and kicking tires and wasting time bickering back and forth about a $20 or $25 job. I ain't gonna do it.... are you ??

After a certain amount of time, you can almost instantly tell what someone new is gonna be like right after they walk in the door and say one or two sentences. You honestly can tell if they're gonna be ball-busters or possibly turn into a possible larger job down the road. In this case, we simply point towards the policy sign and say, thar..... tis in writin'.... shop minimum. We can hide behind it. Sometimes people will bite and pay it, others like yourself walk out calling us names. Do you think I care if someone says, they're expensive, don't use them ?? That just means all their friends and relatives probably won't be stopping by. Whew-wee !!


Regardless of what you do, you're damned if you do or damned if you don't, so why not just get rid of them right at the beginning instead of wasting hours a week on losers ??

 

[Fred Weiss]

Regardless of what you do, you're damned if you do or damned if you don't, so why not just get rid of them right at the beginning instead of wasting hours a week on losers ??

Let me count the clients ... like the $20 singleton cut logo we did for a client in Pittsburgh back in 2004 who has since spent at least $5K a year for labels from us. Lots of others as well. And for each, we also probably handled a single small order for fifty we never saw again. No regrets here, still handle every customer like they're my most important job that day, and I try never to prejudge the potential of any client.

 

[VicoDrive]

So when a job like this comes in for a decal or something similar that will go over your minimum shop price, how would you go about charging for it?

 

[J Hill Designs]

(time it should take X shop rate) + (2 X materials)

generally speaking

 

[Fred Weiss]

So when a job like this comes in for a decal or something similar that will go over your minimum shop price, how would you go about charging for it?

We have formulas for everything we do as well as human judgment and oversight in every situation. A fraternity name in Greek letters such as you mentioned would likely be at our shop minimum of $20.

 

[gabagoo]

I get these people who want vinyl cut for brake calipers... 1/4" x 2.5" porshe or audi or whatever..... They only want 2, but they get 6 or 8 for $45-$65.00...depends on how many I screw up while weeding lol.

Now if only I could get that type of biz all day long.... could retire in a year or two!!!