How to price your work?


dflan004

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How do you guys decide on how much to charge for your time? I've made a few blanket racks for some family and im looking to try and sell a couple. Its about $30 in materials and takes about 5 hours of working time. (5 days in total). So i was thinking of 10$ an hour which would bring the total price to $80. Does that seem reasonable?

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20 minutes ago, dflan004 said:

Well for the family i did just give them away as gifts but i was looking to sell more of them as a way to get my name out there to hopefully get more commission work.

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I'm not going to give you pricing advise, except for if you are starting to sell, setting to low of a price isn't the best way to come out of the gate.  

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9 minutes ago, Llama said:

Post a pic and I'll tell you what to sell it for. Material and time have next to nothing to do with actual pricing.

I totally disagree. Although there are exceptions: 1) supply and demand being one, i.e., gas, gold, etc. 2) extremes being another - @davewyobeing the high end with his Cabriole Thing - I think very few people other than us woodworkers could appreciate the time and craftsmanship he has put into this thing for him to sell it for a profit if he were to include a decent hourly rate (hopefully I said that correctly as it was meant as extreme compliment). On the low end is the yahoo awhile back that was trying to sell his chopped off pallet wood as drink coasters. 3) The hobbiest that just enjoys woodworking and does not care about a profit and will give his projects away to please friends and family. 

Other than that, the only way to make a profit is to consider time and materials, but you still have to have a demand or desire from a customer, to sell anything. 

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This is the first one i did a few months ago, i made a few changes since but nothing significant.  ive seen pricing online ranging from 40-150 bucks.   i have people asking for them i just dont know what to charge. i dont want to under price or over price myself. ive only been doing this for about 9 months so i obviously cant charge the same as someone with a lot of experience.

thanks for all the advice.

 

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1 minute ago, K Cooper said:

Other than that, the only way to make a profit is to consider time and materials, but you still have to have a demand or desire from a customer, to sell anything. 

That is how you would calculate your break even point, which has little to do with sale price as a hobbyist. My point being if you make something out of pine that costs you $5, and it takes you 8 hours to make a shelf you shouldn't be calculating based on an hourly rate. In the end, you have a shelf that took you way too long to make.

Establishing a fair value for your piece is hard. Maybe you are making the best pine shelves in the world, and you are able to capitalize on the increased demand because you are sought out for your superior shelf making skills. Certainly you would be charging more for your shelf then.

People on here have come up with some unique ways of calculating what their piece should sell for. Bottom line, if the thing is selling and you are happy with the price then it's priced fairly. If you are not selling, the price is too high or your thing is junk (or both), if the thing sells like hotcakes then your price is too low.

The right way to think about it is if you are selling a shelf for $100 and it cost you $20 in material, and 10 hours to make then you made $8 an hour. Increase your profit by decreasing material cost or the time it takes you to make it. Not the other way around.

2 minutes ago, dflan004 said:

people use them as quilt racks.  they kind of sit in the corner and you hang blankets on the rungs.  this one was for a friend that saw it online and asked me to make it.

Do you have a picture of the side? What is the material? 

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1 hour ago, dflan004 said:

Does that seem reasonable?

Etsy has these ranging from $35-$100 or so for a very similar thing.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/226407494/5-blanket-ladder-rustic-home-decor?ref=market

There is also one priced at close to $500 that does the same thing, but is less functional. Looks cooler though, and I guarantee you he has about $30 in material and less than 2 hours making them.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/177958662/burt-blanket-rack?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=quilt rack&ref=sc_gallery_6&plkey=f7f5553de00cfa5abcb89b1176454d35a8542cbb:177958662

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The second one has added value to it due to the uniqueness. But, it would take me two hours of scratching my butt and two pots of coffee, just to lay it out! 

And it has significantly devalued my blanket chest that I have a heck of a lot more material and time into:( So now we have competition as another factor.

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I would suggest pricing those around $80-$100 in pine or poplar. Higher price for nicer materials and finishes. Then build some jigs to make repeatable operations quick and easy, batch the crap out if them to get your cost down.

Charge more for some with unique features done by hand. And keep in mind that, just like lumber, pricing for such things (and style preferences) varies wildly by region.

In my locale, "country pine", with jacobean stain and shiny polyurathane, was all the rage 10-15 years ago. Then came the "shabby" look, new furniture, hoping to look old, with beat up corners and chipped paint. Now the raw barnwood stuff is popular. I hope the general population will soon get over this fad, and well made furniture of beautiful wood will once again rise to popularity.

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1 hour ago, K Cooper said:

I totally disagree. Although there are exceptions: 1) supply and demand being one, i.e., gas, gold, etc. 2) extremes being another - @davewyobeing the high end with his Cabriole Thing - I think very few people other than us woodworkers could appreciate the time and craftsmanship he has put into this thing for him to sell it for a profit if he were to include a decent hourly rate (hopefully I said that correctly as it was meant as extreme compliment). On the low end is the yahoo awhile back that was trying to sell his chopped off pallet wood as drink coasters. 3) The hobbiest that just enjoys woodworking and does not care about a profit and will give his projects away to please friends and family. 

Other than that, the only way to make a profit is to consider time and materials, but you still have to have a demand or desire from a customer, to sell anything. 

No worries Coop. I get what you mean.

I don't necessarily agree with you though. Perhaps I couldn't sell the Thing for "time and materials" because there is no market for $1200 jewelry boxes that don't hold jewelry very well, but if I was making an oak dining table that's what I would do. I would add up the cost of the lumber and I would factor in $60 or $100 per hour for my labor. Then I would look at that number and decide how much I want to mark it up from there when I consider the market I'm selling in.

Keep in mind, in the market I'm in, if I was to make a simple custom (Shaker or Rustic, or whatever) dining table I'll bet I could get plenty more than materials plus $100/hr., just because that's what people charge around here.

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I don't disagree. My contention is that time and material are a major consideration, as is overhead and salaries if you're a major concern, but we're talking a one man operation, which t & m are the only consideration and they're  the only two factors. Materials are a given and your time is the variable. If you could be making more doing something else, then you're operating at a loss?

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