Wrap Install Questions

[New England Wraps]

I have a question that came up while working for another sign guy. He asked me to price out wrapping a truck for him. I asked him how much square footage it was. He later told me he has never heard of anyone asking the square footage in order to price the installation.
I mentioned it's pretty much a guideline most installers would go by and he had mentioned it he didn't think it would be beneficial for me to price it that way ?

WHAT ARE THE MEMBERS THOUGHTS ON THIS SUBJECT, how do you all price installations ?
ALSO... What would you charge for an install on a F250 supercab, longbed - all sides, no roof ? If he's assisting I was going to cut him a deal at $2/sf as a starting price but wanted to get the input here.


Thanks

 

[GaSouthpaw]

Somewhere I used to have a quickie "formula" to figure out pricing.
Example: It took XX minutes per square foot to clean, align, apply, remove masking (cut vinyl) and do any post heat. It almost always gave me a good starting point to go with that I could add or subtract from, depending on the complexity of the install (crazy contours, tool boxes, hood louvers, etc).
I think it's a great way to give a ballpark figure (which is what people normally ask for) that you can refine once you have accurate measurements, pictures, etc that you can base a more concrete price off of.
I know the other way of pricing these is by time, but I never found the pricing to be much different in either case. I'd stick with whatever works for you.

 

[mjkjr]

Like GaSouthpaw above, I also have a pre-set ballpark for starting these estimates, but it is originally based on a rough SQFT estimate for typical vehicles. That said, my SQFT price I start with when I am adding/subtracting from this ballpark is $12 per SQFT. I would never go as low as $2, how could you even cover your costs + shop expenses for your time at that rate (not to mention make a little profit)? Even with the client's "help", which I would never allow, I'd only be looking at reducing whatever hours of install time they helped to reduce. Don't sell yourself short, it brings down our entire market.

 

[Modern Ink Signs]

$4/sq.ft for a truck like this. I forget the total square on this but let's say it is 220. That is $880.



Wrap vinyl/lamination/Ink should be about $2/sq.ft. Plus your $4/sq.ft. = $6/sq.ft. They can/should be sell for about $12/sq.ft. Therefore, they are making $6/sq.ft + their design time.

So $1320 in cost for them and they make $1320 + their design cost.

Pretty easy......

 

[New England Wraps]

This was for Install only for another sign guy. He said to me that he's never heard of anyone pricing installs by SF ??? And he has been in business for years, has a fancy logo on his biz card saying he specializes in vehicle wraps. The design was so bad, he basically took a background from aurora graphics, slapped the customers logo and website on it. It was really bad, I charged him a respectable rate of $2.00/sf and I even dismantled the truck and put it back together for him and he still complained !!

 

[Modern Ink Signs]

In my opinion, you gave that install away. Plus doing removal of hardware.....


Charging him that and still complains. That would be the last time I'd install for him.



I would have charged a minimum of $4/sq.ft.

 

[dbot]

For us we have an number of hourly rates. Vehicle Wrap rate will be higher per hour compared to say flat signs.
With experience we can say a particular wrap will take say 5hours have a rate per hour for that, then a rate of a 1hour for assembly and removal of handles, mirrors etc. Each task has a different hourly rate, depending on the skill level and number of installers involved.
We have never had a rate of applying graphics per sq ft/mt. I think you could loose money that way because its not an accurate way of calculation. Applying 1sq ft on a bumper and applying 1sq ft on a hood would take completely different times. for us its about looking at a job and saying this is gonna take x ammount of hours to do and then push to have the job complete within that time frame.

Costing of the print is a completely separate issue on its own.

 

[New England Wraps]

In my opinion, you gave that install away. Plus doing removal of hardware.....


Charging him that and still complains. That would be the last time I'd install for him.



I would have charged a minimum of $4/sq.ft.

Thanks for the opinion, and yes was the very last time dealing with that guy !!

 

[fresh]

Wrap vinyl/lamination/Ink should be about $2/sq.ft.

??? What vinyl/lam combo are you using that is this cheap? If I were to use every single inch on a roll of Avery wrap vinyl / laminate, the cost would be about $1.65, and that is unprinted and doesn't account for any drop. Depending on drop, our barely break even point is $5.50-$7 sq ft. We don't do many wraps, so I understand that high-volume shops are going to have better margins, but I can't imagine anyone is getting rolls of material of 1/3 of the price that I am.

 

[New England Wraps]

??? What vinyl/lam combo are you using that is this cheap? If I were to use every single inch on a roll of Avery wrap vinyl / laminate, the cost would be about $1.65, and that is unprinted and doesn't account for any drop. Depending on drop, our barely break even point is $5.50-$7 sq ft. We don't do many wraps, so I understand that high-volume shops are going to have better margins, but I can't imagine anyone is getting rolls of material of 1/3 of the price that I am.

Again, this was for the installation only.