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Customer calls you. "I need a banner to hire some new employees. How Much??"
3'x16' banner, 13oz. white banner stock, with hems and grommets. Use high performance vinyl RED. Banner says " NOW HIRING" -22" letters next line of copy " Inquire Within" -8" letters.
Customer to install on front of building.
That's It That simple!
What would you charge??
------------------ Robert Cole A.K.A. Vinylman® "Answering the STICKEE questions of the world! American Sign Company 625 Oak Hill Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502 Vinylman@cboss.com
Posts: 575 | From: Berlin Center, Ohio, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Thanks for the feedback, but I already know how to do the pricing. I agree with your formula also, but I posted this so others might be able to see some pricing from different areas of the country as well as "see" how some of us Old Dogs do the pricing. I thought that was the reason that Steve set up this forum so that we could "demo" the basics of pricing for each other. That way we might all learn a little about how other shops come up with their pricing.
If we get a few more people showing how they price I will explain how I arrived at my price, and how much it was.
Again Thanks for your responce!
------------------ Robert Cole A.K.A. Vinylman® "Answering the STICKEE questions of the world! American Sign Company 625 Oak Hill Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502 Vinylman@cboss.com
Posts: 575 | From: Berlin Center, Ohio, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Mike: I agree with you. The purpose of this string is to show others "HOW" you arrived at your price. To do less than that doesn't HELP anyone. Tony if you could explain your pricing it will help those who post to this string how to get the best price for their work. Who knows you may have one of the best estimating systems going. Why not share it with the rest of the "family"?
------------------ Robert Cole A.K.A. Vinylman® "Answering the STICKEE questions of the world! American Sign Company 625 Oak Hill Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502 Vinylman@cboss.com
Posts: 575 | From: Berlin Center, Ohio, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I don't know about you guys, but I have a more scientific approach. First, I wait for the newspaper and read my horoscope. Then, if it's an odd numbered calendar day, I times the number of sq. ft. by the date and then devide by 7 (my lucky number). Then I count the number of letters in the wording on the banner and add 3% for each letter over 4 in. in height. Once I've arrived at this figure, I look at the guy buying the banner: jeans and T shirt? Deduct 10% (unless wearing designer tennis shoes and a Rolex); any kind of tie or dress slacks, add 10%. If he's on the phone, add 10%. If he's a she, deduct 10% if you'd like to ask her out. Now, I take that figure and look in my wallet. If it's more than what's in my wallet, that's it. If it's less, I add another 10%. Price? $316.00. Works for me!
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Posts: 1546 | From: Adrian, MI | Registered: Mar 1999
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I WANT to get your system for pricing it looks like the answer to my prayers. BTW how beautiful do the female customers have to be before the discount kicks in??
------------------ Robert Cole A.K.A. Vinylman® "Answering the STICKEE questions of the world! American Sign Company 625 Oak Hill Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502 Vinylman@cboss.com
Posts: 575 | From: Berlin Center, Ohio, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Ron or anyone: does the $28 per linear foot you mentioned refer to the total lineal length of the lettering lines (2lines at 13 feet = 26 linear feet) or the length of the banner (total 13 linear feet)
------------------ Peter Appleton DMC Communications Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada
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Peter, We charge an hourly rate ($45.00 for our rate) and also include a trip charge of $24.00 if the install is outside a 15 mile radius of our shop. This would be a one man job and probably not take more than 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
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Posts: 1546 | From: Adrian, MI | Registered: Mar 1999
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36" banner sewn & grommetted, 16' hi perf vinyl @ 75% coverage, loose weeding Normal (no disc. customer) 10 min layout
Total time = approx 153 minutes
Sign cost vinyls per sign 39.85 Retail Vinyl 132.82
cost media per sign 43.20 Retail Media 76.80
shop labourcost per sign 72.80 retail labour 132.36
All prices shown in cdn $
margins 70 % vinyl (= 233% markup) 50% media (= 100% markup) 45% labour (= 82% markup)
shoprate is calculated at cost then a margin is applied ( shopcost was calculated upon last years total expenses( includes everything, including depreciation expenses, insurance, phone, power, wages, freight etc... except cost of inventory) divided by actual hours billed Came out to $28 / per hour which with a 45% margin sells for $43.64
Hmmm... I know I make good money on it, but it's a long way from $18.50 U.S. /linear ft I hate to leave that much on table ...
In all fairness I would probably sell the customer on intermediate vinyl for this job ( assuming need is short life ) would then sell for $250.59 cdn.
------------------ Mike O'Neill - - Supporting Member - - TransLabrador Signs Labrador City, Labrador
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I'm with you Dana. I really feel i have problems in this area.
I use an esitmating program - Estimate. I charge $40.00 an hour shop rate.
I come up with a price of $381.00 plus taxes. Working this out is $7.94 per sq. ft. It makes me feel better to see these prices as well. I am curious to know how the "Old Dogs" price signs out and figure out Profit Margins. I know this sounds simple but I am having trouble getting my head around it right now. How do you determine market levels? I am the only signmaker in a small town of 3000 people. I think I am charging to little but very nervous of charging more. Can anyone help or offer some advice? Thanks to everyone willing to help out with this forum. As a relatively new signmaker/business person it really helps.
Sandi
------------------ Sandi Stephens Sandi's Signs & Designs Port McNeill, BC V0N 2R0 Canada sandi@island.net
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Hey Sandi, I'm with you more than you know! My town is 350 people. Next town over is about 1200 and has 4 shops.
I used to work for some really great people, then they sold the shop to someone who had never done signs. Before they left I had a chance to ask alot of questions on pricing.
I have a 1995 pricing guide and that seems to work for my area, except when it comes to something like a 4x8. The cheapest in there is $342. I'm starting mine at $300, then up from there. So I guess it's not too bad, but I can't imagine what the 1999 would say!
I usually call a friend at a shop in St Cloud, about 2 hours from here. It's a really big city compared to here, but gives me an idea what to go on. It's nice to have people you can call on for help.
------------------ Dana Aaron Sign-A-Saurus Nevis, MN
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I try to stay away from banners myself my area has so many sign shop chanes in these parts but outskirts of Pgh your looking at 120.00 to 150.00 (this is bad)
------------------ Al Checca 934 Wood Street Latrobe PA. 15650 Hanging & Banging Vinyl Signs 724-532-3245
Posts: 151 | From: Latrobe P.A. USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
Materials $254 Banner,vinyl,ropes etc Labour $192 3.2hrs total (including design, layout,weed,applicating.) Total $446. (Aud)
------------------ Always,Always sell up your signs even if that means going to a little more trouble in the design stage. Remember that there is no such thing as a cheap sign, only a cheap image!
[This message has been edited by walldog signs (edited May 31, 1999).]
Posts: 34 | From: Kingaroy Q.L.D. Australia | Registered: May 1999
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I would use 14 oz and charge $9 a square foot. As long as its a 1 color I include a thin shadow or outline with out additional cost. Any of my type styles and a combination of type styles are included. Just because its a banner dosen't mean you have to give it away.
------------------ Kevin L. Kleinhans Alma Signs (Signs Be Me)
Posts: 139 | From: Alma, MI USA | Registered: Dec 1999
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$280.00 I would price it out at $17.50 a lin. foot for High Performance. I know that may sound low to a lot of you but unfortunatly that is the going rate for this area. (I would not use High Performance Vinyl because the banner obviously being a "now hiring" banner would not be used used for any long periods of time and if it was properly stored and taken care of it would last a long time using intermediate vinyl) I would charge approx. $235.00 for this banner in intermediate.
posted
Well Folks as I promised way back when this post started. Here is how I do it. I take the cost of ALL materials and ADD 50% ( example $100 + 50% =$150.00) Figure shop rate at $50.00 per hour. Yours may be higher or lower depending on ALL the variables that you must include to open your shop door each month. If you don't include these overhead costs as a finished charge to your customer, you & your family are subsidizing the customers advertising!. Multiply your shop rate times the hours you spend producing this banner (don't forget to include the "sales time" it took to get and write the order!). Lastly keep in mind THIS IS ADVERTISING! you should be adding an additional charge to EVERY JOB you do for Advertizing value. Remember if your customers customer doesn't know they have something to sell, IT WON'T GET SOLD. They don't get Newspaper ads for nothing, why should you sell them "ADVERTISING" for the cost of materials and labor alone? Don't tell me "because the guy down the street will do it cheaper", If he/she is THAT STUPID, it shouldn't make me stupid also. If I'm going to the poor house I'm going in a Mercedes Benz. LOL! ;-)
------------------ Robert Cole A.K.A. Vinylman® "Answering the STICKEE questions of the world! American Sign Company 625 Oak Hill Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502 Vinylman@cboss.com
Posts: 575 | From: Berlin Center, Ohio, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I can give you a price that we used 3yrs. ago when I was in a production shop "cranking out" banners on a daily basis. Our area was super competetive with banners as we had 2 new Fast Vinyl Type Shops. On 3' banners we were charging 13.50 per linear ft. based on 10oz. material and cheap vinyl,based on 5 words or less, and would add 10% to cost for Premium Vinyl, and another 10% to base cost for 13oz material. On 2' banners we charged 10.50 per ln. ft. base cost. We had all of these base prices along with different increments in percentages installed in our pricng program so we could quote in a matter of seconds, and when faced with job such as one above, and we could produce in a matter of minutes. Now 3yrs. later and being "homebased", and am a bit more pricey now I would sell at $20 per ln ft regardless of copy(within realty) or materials. These kind of jobs are what fuel "quickie shops" which produce as much as 60%+ banner work.
------------------ Rich Stebbing #945 RichSigns Rohnert Park CA
Posts: 755 | From: Rohnert Park, CA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I figure out pricing like this. After the first year of operation we practically gave away the farm. Second year we tried multiplying our supplies by some sort of cost factor x 5 to be exact and we were still giving this stuff away. This year we use a cost factor of 1.84. That is, I take the total cost of all supplies including waste and multiply it by 1.84. Then I add in our estimated hourly wages including sales time. Where did we get 1.84? We added all of our costs over the past 12 months. We found that it took and extra 84 cents to process every dollar of material we use. (Every dollar) We then added the labour in at $30.00 per hour. I came up with $137.25 materials charge. Then I added in 4 hours to sell, design, fax and produce this lovely little gem and then came up with a figure of $257.25 Canadian. I don't know how the big guys do it.
posted
O.K. I'll bite. Even though it's an old post. Simple banners - similar to discribed above. $5.00 a sq. ft = $240 plus tax Materials = $110 retail Labor = 82.50 --------------------- NET profit = $47.50
I wish I had more calls for these types of banners. Havin' fun, Checkers
------------------ a.k.a. Brian Born Classic Signs South Plainfield, NJ members.home.net/sign-it/ This isn't Burger King, you can't have it your way.
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