I wanted to know what do normally people charge for anything for acrylic projects. I compare my prices with another place but people say that are expensive. Sometimes I make a number up. But my question what it is easier way to charge people. Do people normally charge by inches height and width ?
Pricing is one of the hardest choices a business has to make. You can adjust on the fly-- too many orders and you’re not charging enough, too few and you’re charging too much for the product/service offered.
Identifying competition and what they provide for what price point is a critical start. Then you need to decide how you want to be positioned in the market-- the high end, high quality, high service provider on one end, the low cost, no frills provider on the other. For the most part you make a lot more money at the high end and won’t get frozen out by a competitor who is able to deliver even more cheaply. But… you need to be able to deliver a differentiated product (and service) that can be perceived as more valuable, whether or not it costs more to make.
Competing on price in a generic/commodity market can be done profitably, but it’s generally not much fun and your margins will be much lower, so you need to make it up in volume.
I do a lot of wood turning and have friends who sell quite a bit of work. We beat up (not literally!) one of the guys for selling his wonderful pieces too cheaply. He finally agreed to an experiment where he raised the prices on his $100 bowls (calculated by him as “reasonable” on a time and material basis to $300. Before, they sat there; at the higher price they flew off the shelf. Perception of value is everything-- his bowls were nicer than anything else in the shop, but priced about the same. This apparently hit the customers as something being wrong, so they didn’t buy. At the premium price they saw them as a premium product and, paradoxically, a better value.
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Here’s my pricing guide.
Time and Materials plus 20%
$50/hour for my time and $1.00/minute machine time.
If that makes the project too expensive for the client, then they are not the right client for me.
They can have it made in China or somewhere else.
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Anthony, that is the right attitude!
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Rey, also consider the customer. People who own a boat that needs a custom made(!) acrylic dash board do not need that boat to feed their family fish for cheap, they already spent a decent penny for a piece of fun.
Machinable acrylic is everything else than cheap. As a doctor I am an angel, when I arrive at the hospital bed, and devil when I send my bill, I tell people I do not bill for the time I did my thing but for the time I needed to get what I need to do my things.
And no, I would not charge by height and width. A car is also not sold by the weight of the metal that it is made of.
Ask what the boat cost per weight of water that it displaces. 