I haven't thought about that it that way at all. Thank you. We do indoor signs with our aquas printers already. I have charged a lot less then I would for a photograph to be printing. Photography is meant to last a life time where Signage to me is way more temporary. I know what I need to do to turn a profit from a material and ink stand point. I am more curious how you price a job? Standard by the square foot or would you charge one company more then a other?
At $3/sf you are not turning a profit. You aren't even breaking even. $3/sf makes a 3'x6' banner $54. How long did you spend talking to the customer to take the order? How long did you spend laying out the banner? How long did you spend loading the material into the printer? How long does it take to run the print? How long does it take to move the print from the printer to the work table? If it's a solvent print, how long does it have to dry? How long does it take to hem and grommet? How long does it take to enter the customer into your software and create an invoice? How long does it take to call or email the customer to come get the banner? How long does it take to deal with the customer at pickup? How long does it take to enter the payment, batch the credit card, take the money to the bank? How much do you lose to the merchant processor? Then compare that to how much per hour it takes to run your business, pay all the salaries, all the debt obligations.
Just doubling material or wholesale cost is not always the right calculation either. Banners wholesale for less than $1/sf. Even if you aren't printing the banner yourself, you cannot keep your doors open for $2/sf on banners. Not unless you're selling a ton of identical banners.
To place banners correctly in the spectrum of sign pricing, you have to know how much signs are worth. A business's main identification sign is meant to be durable, and identifies the business, sets the tone for potential customers as to what kind of business it is, what it does, and depending on the sign's appearance, can mentally prepare the customer to willingly spend more money at that business than at another. At the low end, a durable 4'x8' sign may cost as little as $275, to $400 at the midrange, and up to $1000 at the high end--not including installation. An internally lit sign, channel letters, or fancy dimensional sign may be $3000-$30,000.
A banner, on the other hand, may be for a single one day event, like a podium backdrop at a 10k race, or may be used in place of a proper sign by a business that is allowed by the sign company to misuse it that way. Nonetheless, even a banner for a 50% off sale may net the business a $50,000 increase in gross sales over the course of a weekend.
Where your pricing should be for banners will depend on how badly pricing has been ruined in your town by people who don't know what they are doing. We used to get $8-10/sf for one color cut vinyl on white background banners 15 years ago. Customers didn't bat an eyelid at those prices because they were reasonable, the banner served its purpose, and everyone was happy. We made them with $4000 plotters. Now we have $25000 printers and people want to "corner the market" by selling banners at online wholesale pricing. That literally happened in our town a few years back. $1.75/sf was what one guy was selling them for. We lost a lot of banner business, and even had to drop to $3/sf to sell any banners at all. Then he found out once he got busy and hired some help that his prices were too low, and prices have rebounded somewhat, but every year or so another idiot buys a printer and starts the downward spiral on prices again. Or even worse, a guy who got laid off as a billboard installer starts taking orders for banners he has printed by a wholesaler and just doubles the price to make them retail, thinking he's making a profit--until he's lost his shirt and closes down.
