LOADED question: What do you charge for printing?

[depps74]

I often wonder if I charge too little for printing. My rate is $6.50 a square foot for non-laminated printing on stocked vinyl. Any specialty vinyls I add a surcharge for the roll on top of the sq ft price. Trying to get a sense of what others (especially those in NYC) charge. As my subject indicates I know this is a loaded question, but figure some of us out there might want a refresh of this question given inflation going through the roof.

My advance gratitude for anyone willing to share their numbers or ballpark figures here....

Dave

 

[ColorCrest]

given inflation

A good pricing calculator will automatically adjust pricing up or down because its formula will use the latest component costs used to build the sign product. Components can be materials, labor, and even overhead factors.

 

[bluehammer]

Depends what your market is. Is it corporate or retail? Retail is always cheap and your $6.50 is probably inline for calendared material no lam. If its corporate you can be higher. 50% to 100% more with a laminate. An experienced Corporate client expects to pay more (generally speaking). You will also have more time involved with proofing, revisions and waiting 60-120 days to get paid. Not to mention they're PIA billing software you have to learn. What type of work you want to be doing? I generally think people here charge too little and don't value their time. Did you want to start a business or just give yourself another low paying job with more responsibility and risk. Hope this helps.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Depends what your market is. Is it corporate or retail? Retail is always cheap and your $6.50 is probably inline for calendared material no lam. If its corporate you can be higher. 50% to 100% more with a laminate. An experienced Corporate client expects to pay more (generally speaking). You will also have more time involved with proofing, revisions and waiting 60-120 days to get paid. Not to mention they're PIA billing software you have to learn. What type of work you want to be doing? I generally think people here charge too little and don't value their time. Did you want to start a business or just give yourself another low paying job with more responsibility and risk. Hope this helps.

I have some cheap corporate customers and generous corporate customers. Then you have tightwads who work at the generous corps, they throw me for a loop. The industry a customer is in seems to have more bearing on their attitude than anything else.

 

[gnubler]

I'm at $10/sf for stock laminated calendared vinyl. I don't do anything non-laminated.

 

[Nanci]

I charge 10-12 a sq ft laminated hp, $8 a sq ft laminated calendared. I don’t sell unlaminated prints. I also don’t sell a lot of calendared.

 

[Tim de Beir]

Polymeric laminaten type orafol 3551 approx 45-55 sqm / monomeric laminated 30 sqm / cast arlon slx laminated approx. 65 sqm

 

[Pauly]

There's no right or wrong answer.

you'll never be at the same price as someone with a faster, more efficient process. And so on.

We use a pretty complex calculator to calculate our products. We've just built a whole custom calculator running on our server just to calculate pricing.
Stock price always changes, or new stock, or we change suppliers, so calculating pricing needs to be done consistently with real variables, not made up ones.
Overkill - probably. But it's solid.

 

[garyroy]

Price per sq ft also has to do with the size of the job. If someone wants some printed viny; and it's only 2' X 3', $6.50/ft is a money losing proposition.
One thing you might want to watch closely is your minimum charge. We try to have a minimum of $150/order, anything below that and the profit margins go away pretty quickly.
When we were a screen printing shop we had a minimum $300 order. It was amazing how I could always get people who wanted only 6 shirts, maybe $60, worked up to buy an additional $240 worth of clothing. We try to do the same with wide format printing.
$6.50/sq/ft should be pretty much your lowest price unless your doing incredibly large sq footage.

 

[caribmike]

Lol...I charge $16.56 per square foot of laminated, printed vinyl plus the substrate. But, I'm in the Caribbean and everyting costs more here.

 

[The Sign Goddess]

There's no right or wrong answer.

you'll never be at the same price as someone with a faster, more efficient process. And so on.

We use a pretty complex calculator to calculate our products. We've just built a whole custom calculator running on our server just to calculate pricing.
Stock price always changes, or new stock, or we change suppliers, so calculating pricing needs to be done consistently with real variables, not made up ones.
Overkill - probably. But it's solid.

Did the same thing years ago. Came in handy when material costs started to fluctuate frequently. Edit one number and the entire price structure re-calculates for it.

Nothing unlaminated here. Intermediate with laminate ranges $5.50-$10.25 sqft with the average being $7.95.

 

[Joseph44708]

I take my linear ft price and multiply it by 4 to get my square ft price.

 

[Pauly]

for those who do it flat rate for lineal m / freedom units... etc.

So say you do a job that is only 1 freedom unit of stock. Are you charging your $6.50 ?
since no one has said anything to do with a minimum??

 

[Joseph44708]

for those who do it flat rate for lineal m / freedom units... etc.

So say you do a job that is only 1 freedom unit of stock. Are you charging your $6.50 ?
since no one has said anything to do with a minimum??

If they want it now $25
If they can wait a few days when I can run it with something else it's cheaper

 

[bluehammer]

for those who do it flat rate for lineal m / freedom units... etc.

So say you do a job that is only 1 freedom unit of stock. Are you charging your $6.50 ?
since no one has said anything to do with a minimum??

Good Point. I forgot to mention I also have a set price of $25-$50 per job/file with a $50/$100 minimum depending on the material/substraight. so its $25 and then the sq ft price on top of that. There are some exceptions, but this is our general format. Same thing goes for installs.

 

[Gino]

What Si Allen used to say..... quote what ya wanna get and if they don't fall over, say plus with installation...... $$XX more.

 

[Stacey K]

I'm in the same boat as The Sign Goddess. I also have a minimum of $25 - no matter how small. I usually tell people those small orders get put on with larger orders so they will have to wait until I run the material again. Most people are fine with waiting. I'm in a small town and have a decent number of smaller orders. Sometimes I agree to fit them in, other times I decline.

I'll never forget the jerk who asked me to recreate a 2" decal - artwork involved. I said $25. He said he would not pay more than $2 for a 2" decal. I said there's labor involved in recreating it. he got MAD and left. LOL

 

[gnubler]

I'll never forget the jerk who asked me to recreate a 2" decal - artwork involved. I said $25. He said he would not pay more than $2 for a 2" decal. I said there's labor involved in recreating it. he got MAD and left. LOL

He's been here, too.