When calculating SQ FT....

[john1]

Hey, I was wondering a simple question to most of you.

I have a 30" machine, If someone asks you to quote lets say 500 3" circle stickers, the total square foot of those is 31.25 sqft. Do you then take the width of your machine (in my case 2.5') and x that by the material the job took up or do you go with the square foot of the order which in this case would be 31.25 and x it by however much psf you charge?

Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question but it came up when talking to a local printer with a water based machine today and i wanted a third opinion.

Thanks!

 

[signcrafters london]

On your 30" machine you will use 184" (15.33 linear ft.) to cut/print 500 3" circles. 15.33 x 2.5 = 38.33 sq. ft.

 

[john1]

On your 30" machine you will use 184" (15.33 linear ft.) to cut/print 500 3" circles. 15.33 x 2.5 = 38.33 sq. ft.

I was doing 3x3=9/144 and you get .0625 square inches and i x that by the amount (500)

 

[MikePro]

i take into account that i waste material making prints... and that's factored into the per sq.ft. price.
when an order comes around, you should have your sq.ft. price ready to quote/bill... no matter what the size of the order.

 

[signcrafters london]

You have to take amount of material used, like MikePro said.

Change your circles to 6". You will have much more waste that way on your particular machine. Material used for 6" circles on 30" plotter = 159+. If you just figure square footage like you did in post #3, it is only 125. 25 square foot is a pretty big difference.

 

[john1]

So pretty much, Take the file, load it in versaworks and then if it says you will use 1.5ft, take that and x it by the width of the machine which is 2.5 and you have of material for the job? That particular one would be 3.75sqft

 

[Sideshow]

I base it off of the width of the material, including waste......like the material between cut lines, a 3" sticker, with 1/8 space between = approx 16 per row on a 54" printer at 32 rows of 16 = 54" x 102" approx of material = approx 38.25sqft rounded up, so 39sqft

 

[signcrafters london]

^ Yes.

 

[signage]

You are better off calculating linear footage. If you unroll the material the customer should be paying for it!

 

[jiarby]

You are better off calculating linear footage. If you unroll the material the customer should be paying for it

If you go to the butcher and buy 1lb of hamburger but get charged for 1.25lbs (because he had to cut off the hooves & horns) you would not be too happy. He buys the whole cow by the pound. He has to process the animal to yield a sellable product. He has to factor loss into the eventual selling price.

Just like you do.

You buy a 30" roll, but have to use 38 sqft to get a sellable 35 sqft (or so). That is 92% yield... pretty good. That extra material (the 8% waste) costs you less than a dollar.

Take that difference in costs spread across the whole job...
$1 in scrap spread across 35 sellable sqft. means you have to sell your decals for about 3 cents per sqft MORE to recoup the lost scrap.

Is it really worth risking alienating the customer trying to recoup 3cents per sqft?

Figure out what you really want to make on the job, then mark your price up another 50%.... then give him a 25-30% "bulk wholesale order" discount. He may appreciate the discount and leave happy because he caught a deal, and you make 10-25% MORE. Even if he balks you still can fall back another 10-20% and be at the number you wanted to begin with.

 

[Mosh]

Yes, I go into versa and see how much it will take and charge that much. I have done that 1,000 times so I already know how much it will be. We charge for the material used, not just the size of the decal.

 

[john1]

Alright so again, the best way really would be to load the size of the decals needed in my RIP, see how much linear material the job will take and then x that by 2.5' (30") and bam thats how much material?

I have graphix calc to help with pricing but honestly, you can't beat a good hard math calculation. It's so hard to figure out things through pricing software after many tries at setting it up.

 

[Mosh]

Charge on how much material you use. That would be the idea. Like if you do 10,000 decals that .1 of an inch between decals is going to add up real kwik....not to mention the 1" you lose on the top and bottom.

 

[john1]

Charge on how much material you use. That would be the idea. Like if you do 10,000 decals that .1 of an inch between decals is going to add up real kwik....not to mention the 1" you lose on the top and bottom.

Yep so what i just stated will work just fine. That's really how I've been doing it so it's good to know i was correct.

I just was looking for another way pretty much to quote it fast cause you know when people call you and want to know right now and no later it would be nice to have a faster way to calculate it.

Right now im going by the PSF pricing in signcraft which seems to be a great starting point. Then i add on for additional separating of bulk runs

 

[Mosh]

We just ran some standard sizes and figured from that. Lie 100 2x3 are so much and soo on. I just found a bottloe of apple pucker and are drinking it cause I am out of beer and cant drive town to town so. . Yes do some test and caluculate how much it will be.
DO NOT just charge for the ecal itself you need to get paid for the maeraial s you waists.

GOOD NITE NOW!

 

[Sideshow]

Dont forget to add the price for electric ( .0025 sqft ), Ink ( .17sqft ) AND misc machine upkeep ( I add .10sqft to cover blades, cleaning solution, etc )

So figure that along with your basic material.

 

[john1]

Oh deff guys! I have all my hard costs broken down which i always check before quoting. I don't know how some can shoot from the hip lol

 

[Malkin]

This issue came up in our shop recently as well. We run a 54" print/cut and an Edge 11.8" print/cut.

In the end we decided that we don't factor in the waste or space between decals when calculating total square footage for billing for most jobs. (there could always be exceptions)

If the job HAS to be edge printed (white, metallics, etc) we use a pricing chart that measures Linear usage, not square footage.

 

[Malkin]

If we sold 100 3" x 3" decals, than the footage billed for would be 6.25, regardless of how much unprinted material is wasted, i.e. around the edges of the overall print, or in-between the repeats.

I'll easily concede that there are pros/cons either way, this is just the way we decided to do it, to help keep things consistent.

 

[john1]

If we sold 100 3" x 3" decals, than the footage billed for would be 6.25, regardless of how much unprinted material is wasted, i.e. around the edges of the overall print, or in-between the repeats.

I'll easily concede that there are pros/cons either way, this is just the way we decided to do it, to help keep things consistent.

You could do it that way too, Your psf price would have to be high though to compensate i would think.

Signcraft recommends $14/psf for something like that with economy lam (3651 and 210) so it would only be $87.50

Too cheap IMO

 

[john1]

I find pricing to be very difficult due to the fact doing PSF price on some things using the material width x the length of the job seems high and low at other times. It's also confusing to tell people your wholesaling to what the pricing is like cause they will say "Oh so and so is doing $3.00 psf so the pricing should be like this instead of how you do it"

Grrrrr