How much to charge per square inch....?

Depends.
Simple quick weeds, are cheaper.
Complex little annoying to weed stickers are extra.

 

Are these multiples ??

 

tell them $25 and get rid of them

 

sounds like your trying to start a long stupid thread about nothing...

i'll bite...

just give them away, your only talking about inches.....it's a great way to land a big job in the future.....

 

You can get them online for about 1.5¢ square inch (you will need a minimum order of $25.00 or so). I would just send them to the internet. Unless you are running a fleet of VuTeks (double shifts), you will not be able to compete and your client will be pissed when he sees he could have just ordered them himself and saved money.

Of course, if by "decal" you mean wraps or cut vinyl for a set of doors, design and installation charges, etc., you can price it out by estimating time and materials.

 

For us, minimum order for small decals is a foot of vinyl printed. Our printer is a 54" printer. So the quantity will depend on the size of the decal. And we charge 60.00$ for that.

 

Seriously? You honestly don't know how to figure out your costs? What's your material cost? How long will it take to create and proof the art? How long will it take to run on the machine and then prep for application? It's super simple to figure out RTA vinyl costs.

 

Have a minimum order amount in place. Ours is $90. For a handful of little stickers, that's the price. Don't figure a 'price per inch' value for anything, not worth the time.

 

Shop Minimum, whatever that may be.

 

$159 .23 less if you buy more than one

 

How is it not about that?! What if that average doesn't allow you to make a profit? You're asking a broad spectrum question on a forum that has members from all over the world. My responses will be different from a person that's in the south which will be different from another that's in the northwest.

I don't base my pricing off what other sign shops in my area charge. I have an hourly rate that is determined by my shop overhead. I charge X amount for design/file prep. I know what an hour of MY time is worth in dollars. It sounds like you need to figure that out.

It's sounds an awful lot like you bought a printer, have some basic design experience and decided to open up a sign shop without really understanding the business. Educating yourself is definitely a good thing, but you're going about it the wrong way.

 

That IS a recipe for disaster.

This might work better...............​

 

You've got to print a boat-load of little stickers to pay for owning and feeding a printer/cutter. And remember, when next years models come out, they will be less expensive to operate and twice as fast. I figure I need to amortize the cost of technology in three years. I wasn't able to do that, so years ago I gave up and just started ordering from wholesale suppliers. Those clients that want to order from the internet can hire me for design work and file prep and save even more money!

I have quite a few clients that would prefer I do the ordering (it can be a bother). I tell them up-front I'm marking up the price (usually about 20% margin above my total cost, including shipping and taxes, if applicable). When they figure the time it takes to schlepp around town and come yak with me, and then the time it takes to drive across town again and pick up the finished product, having the stuff shipped to their home or business becomes a more attractive option!

Print graphic designers have been doing this forever. Printing, collating, binding, and mailing has traditionally been a separate deal. The sign business (and T-shirt screen printing and embroidery) has been reluctant to give up the practice of keeping it all in house. The most successful screen printer/embroidery business I know of outsources most of their large orders, and almost all their digitizing (it's shocking how inexpensive embroidery digitizing and "vectorizing" logos can be when ordered from countries where the labor rate is much lower, and the work can be excellent and usually delivered in a day)!

Way back in the day (70's) I took several courses in "Appropriate Technology", which presaged the impact digital technology and sophisticated logistics would have on how business would operate. The results, good or bad, were Walmart (leveraging logistics) and, eventually, buying stuff online. Now I only go to the store for fresh food. Everything else I get cheaper from online sources, and it is delivered to my door. Today I got a huge box of dry goods (TP, paper towels, cleaning supplies, boxed food items, etc.). Several of the fast-food joints in our town have out-sourced drive-thru order-taking (you may be talking to someone in Bangalore when you shout into the speaker).

All this technology allows me to operate with low overhead, and I spend most of my time designing (I also hand carve wood signs, paint murals, and do some gold leaf work - but that is fun!). Little stickers I buy online.

 

So I had a customer request 3000 of these 4" x 4" decals to be cut masked and trimmed. I told him $3ea. and he said that someone had quoted him @ .40ea. oh and he needed them in 1 week.

 

I hate those kinds of jobs....well did you get it????!!!!

 

No, first I didn't want it and second I don't think I could have done them in 1 week special anything else on top. I would have had to do (50) decals cut, weed & trim in 1 hr. to make $20. I don't think it was humanly possible...

 

For 3000 4" x 4" vinyl stickers I would have charged $800 including one hour layout time (guessing, would need more details). I would have made $200.00 for one hours work. Approximately 27¢ each. Love these kind of jobs!