I bought one of those pocket size books a while back, and honestly, not a bit of it makes any sense to me. Its like a bunch of mumbo jumbo that does not reflect my products.
Many years ago someone shared a copy of a offset printing pricing guide, it was crazy also. The book had stuff like "paper A" "paper B" "paper C" and crap like that. I asked they guy who gave me the guide what was A and B and C, he just said it is whatever you want it to be, I asked him what he ment, he said if I should price each job based on how much I wanted it, thus if it was a job I wanted I should use the cheapest paper grade collumn, if I didnt want the job I should use the most expensive. So pretty much useing that guide is the same as pulling it out your rear.
And, all in all, I cant stand pricing that does not make mathmatical sense. Like maybe the price for one is $100, the price for ten is $50 each, and the price for 20 is $10 each. I see pricing like that all the time, so as a customer I start thinking, ten would cost $500 but I could get 20 for just $200??? Where the heck do they come up with that from? I see pricing like that all the time, where people just make up a price list with no mathmatics or formula, just whatever they think sounds good - or at least they think it sounds good until someone else does the math.
So I am a much bigger believer in mathmatical forumulas than any price list or pricing guide. A generic price forumula may look something like this: Base Charge + Art Charge + Materials + Labor = price
Your "base" charge should cover basic customer service cost (and essentially becomes the starting point for a minimum charge), art charge could be charged by the job or by the hour, materials should be marked up by your standard markup for that particular item (ours ranges from 1.75 to 5 depending on the material), and labor should be in the $30-$100/hr range depending on skill level of that particular function and what your market will bear (I pay my barber $66/hr - thats $11 for a 10 minute haircut).
