How to calculate cutting vinyl time and price ??

[RICHARD SIMMONS]

Good morning group! Could someone guide me to know how to charge the cutting time on my cutting plotter? For example, if I cut a 1 square meter square with many squares inside, should I charge the same for 1 square meter with 2 squares inside? I appreciate your comments on how to collect the cut. Thanks !

 

[Stacey K]

No. I do a base price of square footage and that is based on the complexity of lettering that I picture in my head that I might print for a semi door - name, city, phone, DOT. That is what I use in my head as "normal or basic" lettering. Let's say that's 2 square feet. Now you come in and want 2 circles 12" in diameter. I would knock a little off for that because it's simple. If you came in and wanted the same semi door info but say 6"x3" - I would add to the base price because it's more complex. I have some square foot pricing and it includes a quick design like that of a basic semi-door. If it's more than that then I add for design. There's always a minimum shop fee. I've used a combination of my own numbers, signcraft numbers, a few others I found online to get to my square foot pricing for cut vinyl. I always track my time and materials so I make sure I'm staying on track with my square foot pricing. Most recently I estimated a job at $300 but it did not take me as long as I anticipated so with knocking of $30 I was still ahead and the customer was very pleased.

 

[richsweeney]

​	This is what I use in excel, for qty, can you an use a discount or the vlookup function	​	​
​	​	​	​
​	Vinyl cutting calc​	​
​	Height​	8​	​
​	Width​	18​	​
​	TSI​	144​	​
​	Number of letters​	58​	​
​	Qty of sets​	1​	​
​	Cost per letter​	0.35​	20.3​
​	Cost per si​	0.05​	7.2​
​	Cost per order​	$27.50​	​
​	​	​	​

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

Minimum charge $100.

 

[victor bogdanov]

It's a good idea to have a minimum charge, even cutting a couple of circles might take 30 min total time (communication, changing material, etc. What's that time worth to you, $50? $100?. My minimum varies on how busy I am. Most orders I just "eye ball", see the design, size, qty, complexity. Large orders I think through how much time and materials will be used and generally will charge $100 per hr labor + double to triple the material cost.

I don't realy count the machine time on cutters but rather the time spent attending the cutters

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

Exactly... the per letter charge I find a bit too awkward - Umpteen rows of text are not going to change in vinyl used or wasted vinyl, if suddenly they do not need an S or an I in two words, and then request a discount...

Price also depends on vinyl used - I will not use the 700 series Avery - but do 90% in 800 series cast, or 900 series supercast vinyl. I'll often figure it at $100 per lineal metre, whether 2 or 3 huge letters, or 50 smaller ones - in the end it averages out ok.

I see others using the junky grades of vinyl... but there's a massive substrate price difference - but app tape, and labour does not change, nor "design time".

However, "effective design" is a subject many newbies think they're great at, but in fact they aren't... and that can take up more time than the plotting and weeding, by a factor of 3 or 4 times.

 

[evoprinting]

Good morning group! Could someone guide me to know how to charge the cutting time on my cutting plotter? For example, if I cut a 1 square meter square with many squares inside, should I charge the same for 1 square meter with 2 squares inside? I appreciate your comments on how to collect the cut. Thanks !

I find cut vinyl pricing to be one of the most difficult things to have standard pricing on.
We charge material plus markup + file and machine setup + square ft cutting area + weeding and masking. The weeding is by far the biggest variable. We have three categories of weeding (basic, intermediate and complex).

 

[MJ-507]

No. I do a base price of square footage and that is based on the complexity of lettering that I picture in my head that I might print for a semi door - name, city, phone, DOT. That is what I use in my head as "normal or basic" lettering. Let's say that's 2 square feet. Now you come in and want 2 circles 12" in diameter. I would knock a little off for that because it's simple. If you came in and wanted the same semi door info but say 6"x3" - I would add to the base price because it's more complex. I have some square foot pricing and it includes a quick design like that of a basic semi-door. If it's more than that then I add for design. There's always a minimum shop fee. I've used a combination of my own numbers, signcraft numbers, a few others I found online to get to my square foot pricing for cut vinyl. I always track my time and materials so I make sure I'm staying on track with my square foot pricing. Most recently I estimated a job at $300 but it did not take me as long as I anticipated so with knocking of $30 I was still ahead and the customer was very pleased.

You took $30 off the price after you completed the work? If the customer was already agreeable to the original price that was quoted, why would you give money back & make less profit on the job? I wish my mechanic would do that! "Yeah, I know I said it would take 5 hours @ $100/hour but, since it took me only 3 hours, here's $200 back. I guess I should have worked slower to justify my original price. I know, I know, I could have used that two hours to add another car into my workload for the day and made even more money but, hey, that's just a loony idea! Why would I want to make more money than I planned to?"

 

[Humble PM]

I wish my mechanic would do that! "Yeah, I know I said it would take 5 hours @ $100/hour but, since it took me only 3 hours, here's $200 back.

My local independent garage does that - they never need to advertise, have repeat customers, and new business from word of mouth. That $30 pretty much guarantees repeat business from someone who is now a walking talking Stacey fan.

 

[Stacey K]

When I brought my van in for new breaks the invoice was less than the estimate, so my furnace installation. I was very happy. Maybe it's just a small town thing...

 

[MJ-507]

My local independent garage does that - they never need to advertise, have repeat customers, and new business from word of mouth. That $30 pretty much guarantees repeat business from someone who is now a walking talking Stacey fan.

So you're saying if you had a $10k project, which you estimated your cost as being $7k but only cost you $6k to produce, you would only bill your customer for $9k because the customer should benefit from your efficiency/hard work/skill/whatever-helped-you-save-$1k instead of you? In 25 years, I've worked for quite a few multi-million dollar sign manufacturers who didn't advertise, had repeat customers, and acquired new business from word of mouth, and not one of them gave back money because their production costs were less than estimated. They all considered that money to be profit and it was used to upgrade their equipment, buy new vehicles, buy larger facilities, give raises/bonuses to employees, etc., etc., etc.

Small town life must be ALOT different than all the places I've ever lived because all the businesses I've ever worked at - and the ones I've run myself - all wanted to maximize profit - not give it back to customers who have already agreed to a price and for receiving a quality product/service that is worth that amount. Providing exceptional customer service and a top-notch finished product will gain you just as many referrals AND increase your profits.

 

[Stacey K]

Up here over by da lake when you go down by da bar by da crick to buy a brat at the fry out, you buy tree beers you get da fourth free. It's a small town and that's how us bubbler drinkin, fry out, brat lovin people operate And just for Gino I'll throw a Guten Himmel in there!

 

[JWitkowski]

You took $30 off the price after you completed the work? If the customer was already agreeable to the original price that was quoted, why would you give money back & make less profit on the job? I wish my mechanic would do that! "Yeah, I know I said it would take 5 hours @ $100/hour but, since it took me only 3 hours, here's $200 back. I guess I should have worked slower to justify my original price. I know, I know, I could have used that two hours to add another car into my workload for the day and made even more money but, hey, that's just a loony idea! Why would I want to make more money than I planned to?"

Dinosaur years ago, I used to regularly do lettering for a truck body shop on their customers' trucks. The body shop took my cost to them and added a markup on the customer's bill. A textbook win-win. Then one day I finished the job in less time than I had priced out and I gave the bodyshop owner my bill which was lower than quoted. He looked at me like I had just grown two green heads. They never called me back again. Expensive lesson learned.

 

[rodp53]

You took $30 off the price after you completed the work? If the customer was already agreeable to the original price that was quoted, why would you give money back & make less profit on the job? I wish my mechanic would do that! "Yeah, I know I said it would take 5 hours @ $100/hour but, since it took me only 3 hours, here's $200 back. I guess I should have worked slower to justify my original price. I know, I know, I could have used that two hours to add another car into my workload for the day and made even more money but, hey, that's just a loony idea! Why would I want to make more money than I planned to?"

The reason why is quite simple, I now deal with the grandchildren of my first customers, and they rarely ask a price. The only time they ever ask a price is if they genuinely have no idea of what they possibly want for a new project. They know I'll charge a fair price, and if I quote for a new project I give them a maximum and lower accordingly.
Now your $30 one off may sound great, but believe me, it's nothing to the money I've earned off 3 generations of customers.

 

[Humble PM]

Over in my small town, there are big players, corporates, midsize companies, small fish, m&p's, the whole range. Those big big fish, the ones that have to keep moving, they can be fun to work with, but as the joke goes, why are lawyers safe to swim in shark infested waters? Professional courtesy. They can be great, and they can be a royal PITA. Staff migrate from smaller firms to larger ones, and sometimes, they get to bring along suppliers who they trust.
All jobs get quoted to cover for Rumsfeldian uncertainties, but where the customer is on a real tight budget, if I've come in way under on shop time, And if the client is a decent human being, I'll pass on a little of the savings. Not everyone chooses to maximise profit at any cost. Customers never expect the job to come in under quote, but what goes around sometimes is returned, one way or another.

 

[netsol]

Over in my small town, there are big players, corporates, midsize companies, small fish, m&p's, the whole range. Those big big fish, the ones that have to keep moving, they can be fun to work with, but as the joke goes, why are lawyers safe to swim in shark infested waters? Professional courtesy. They can be great, and they can be a royal PITA. Staff migrate from smaller firms to larger ones, and sometimes, they get to bring along suppliers who they trust.
All jobs get quoted to cover for Rumsfeldian uncertainties, but where the customer is on a real tight budget, if I've come in way under on shop time, And if the client is a decent human being, I'll pass on a little of the savings. Not everyone chooses to maximise profit at any cost. Customers never expect the job to come in under quote, but what goes around sometimes is returned, one way or another.

"Rumsfeldian uncertainties" that is great! I will steal that line from you.
Perhaps I can make it up to you, what if I nominate you for the Malcolm Baldridge award?

 

[Gino]

 

[Ardor Creative]

I gave up trying to quantify machine time for vinyl. Wether it's 1 minute or 10 minutes, I just run the file and walk away for the same amount of time to work on something else. Basically I don't run a plotter often enough to need to quantify it running. Also, if it's a job that has extreme detail I generally talk the customer into doing printed contour cut vinyl stickers rather than use cut vinyl.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Unless your machines are constantly running or you're sacrificing more profitable work to get this job... markup your matieral and charge hourly rate... this doesn't need to be so complicated and overthinking.

 

[CanuckSigns]

I quoted a new client years ago for a job, it sounded like a major PITA when I quoted it, so I quoted it very high. I got the job and the person I ended up dealing with was great, knew what they wanted,were open to suggestions, basically the ideal client. I ended up reducing the invoice to what it should normally be and they were thrilled, they've ordered 10's of thousands of dollars of product from us per year for a number of years now.