Pricing: wrapping 42' Hackney beverage trailer

[bayviewsignworks]

We have our square footage price we use for 53' trailers but there would be a lot of fuzty work cutting and trimming around all the doors and pillars. Add a $1.00/sq. ft.?

 

[Reveal1]

We have our square footage price we use for 53' trailers but there would be a lot of fuzty work cutting and trimming around all the doors and pillars. Add a $1.00/sq. ft.?

So for example a 10X10 area of 'fuzty' work nets another $100? That would be about an 75 minutes of chargeable labor in our shop, so if you can do that amount of fuzty in an 75 minutes than it works.

Not intending to be critical because I don't know your business. But for my business, quoting by sq. ft. makes no sense on anything other than simple commodity work (like banners). I need a pricing methodology for insight into what drives cost and profit in my business. For example we have developed spreadsheets that cover everything from materials to the time it takes to weed and mask, overhead, labor rates for different tasks, application rates for different materials and surfaces etc. Takes just a few to ten minutes to estimate even complex jobs, but confident I never leave money on table or price myself out of the market by making an error with a guesstimate. When our costs adjust, so do prices. For larger operations, or those without the skills to develop something in-house, any number of good estimating programs are available to do the same.

 

[bayviewsignworks]

I doubt there is a specific program for doing this type of install but maybe. I think you'll find, in our area anyway, it's pretty competitive, and I think we are too. Many shops undercut each other to get jobs. We'd love to charge by the hour, and we're pretty efficient, but we'd price ourselves out of a job. I mean we do it by sq. ft. and then calculate later how much we made per hour, and use that to adjust our price but neither of has time to make spreadsheets. We keep a low inventory and it's just a two person shop.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

You can do it that way on the front side. A price is a price and should be the same in the end whether you figured time and materials or square footage.
Sit down and figure how long you think the job will take, multiply by your labor rate, add marked up materials, add consumables and divide it by the total sq ft in the job. How close are the 2 numbers? Adjust from there

 

[eahicks]

So for example a 10X10 area of 'fuzty' work nets another $100? That would be about an 75 minutes of chargeable labor in our shop, so if you can do that amount of fuzty in an 75 minutes than it works.

Not intending to be critical because I don't know your business. But for my business, quoting by sq. ft. makes no sense on anything other than simple commodity work (like banners). I need a pricing methodology for insight into what drives cost and profit in my business. For example we have developed spreadsheets that cover everything from materials to the time it takes to weed and mask, overhead, labor rates for different tasks, application rates for different materials and surfaces etc. Takes just a few to ten minutes to estimate even complex jobs, but confident I never leave money on table or price myself out of the market by making an error with a guesstimate. When our costs adjust, so do prices. For larger operations, or those without the skills to develop something in-house, any number of good estimating programs are available to do the same.

Yeah it's hard to justify adding $XX of a 'service' to a $XX/SF price structure. One person may do that extra work quicker than another, so is that extra $100 in the sample equation fair if it takes someone 2 or 3 hours versus one hour?
You should simply offer the product at $X/SF, then an additional Installation line item, which would be one set figure entailing installation, trimming, etc. (example: wrap at $10/SF, installation cost $800.) Figure that installation cost according to time and whatever your per hour/per man shop labor costs are.

 

[Reveal1]

Yeah it's hard to justify adding $XX of a 'service' to a $XX/SF price structure. One person may do that extra work quicker than another, so is that extra $100 in the sample equation fair if it takes someone 2 or 3 hours versus one hour?
You should simply offer the product at $X/SF, then an additional Installation line item, which would be one set figure entailing installation, trimming, etc. (example: wrap at $10/SF, installation cost $800.) Figure that installation cost according to time and whatever your per hour/per man shop labor costs are.

Good point - if he doesn't want to have a detailed costing/quote system, separating labor from materials internally would be a step forward and at least shine some light on where the profit is coming. We actually quote print, install and design separately. I do that as a subtle reminder of what it takes to provide a result for the customer and that we are doing more than just printing. ( For example $ 200 design, $800 print and materials, $800 install - don't actually quote hrs or Sq.Ft) I look at each of those as a profit center that I want to be able to stand on its own financially. Among other benefits, keeps me from subsidizing a non profitable activity with a profitable one.