-
Price for digital printing
Hi ppls…..how we doing…?
I have a bit of a query to make.
Im just invested in a mimaki jv3, great machine and quality is good too.
I bought the machine for the printing side as i do alot of work for club and events.
Now Ive been having a few questions raised about my prices.
On average what should the prices be
As a rule of thumb ive been using the cost per metre square of ink plus the average price of the media. plus a added percentage to cover my costs.
I approximated the ink at £4 a square metre and for example photo gloss vinyl added to make a ruff price of £8 square metre.
Then depending on the size i either divide my price by the amount or multiple.
Sorry this is long winded.
As an example.
6 x A0 = £10each
6 x A2 = £6each
and what would be a good price for a 7ft by 3ft digital print banner ?
cheers everyone
-
17 Replies
-
Hi
if you are retailing you should be looking at £35.00 per sqmtr upwards, same for bannerKev
-
You are definitely too cheap Taroon26
Kevin is about right – maybe still too cheap for one offs
For 6 x A0, I’d want at least £30 each and 6 x A2s at £12 minimum
A0 is 400% the area of A2 and yet your price only goes up by 66%
Regards
JohnPS: how about a real name when you ask advice?
-
To joe public, A one off, 1 metre square print onto vinyl "un-laminated" (artwork supplied on disk) starts from £50
-
yep.. agreed.. £35-50 sq mtr is quite common… remember you have a printer with great fade resistance and high quality printing.. note we are JV3 users.
-
we usually charge about £75/sqm printed, laminated and mounted to 3mm foamex for exhibition graphics.
-
£50 per m2 for print.
£65 per m2 laminated.
£80 per m2 contour cut.Even there, I look at some of the smaller ones and think they’re too cheap and stick a lump on.
-
My prices range from £25/m to £45/m depending on media, quantity and customer plus you have to add in any extra work like messing around with the images etc.
I have one good customer who regularly buys from me and he’s had near 100m of print in the last year and pays on the dot so he gets good rates but a one off for a van would be £45.00 laminated.
£35.00/m is my general rate unlaminated on 5-7 year uniform media (Cadet with Activasol).I also don’t make much distinction between full print and the same area as print and cut lettering, you have weeding and app tape to add so I charge the same price or more.
Steve
-
Cheers everyone for the help
As average the prices that i did calculate where between the £35 – £40 mark.
But i thought that may be pushing out side customers away.
But i suppose a quality customer will appreciate the quality and customer service.
Also My real name is Taroon the "26" was just my ages at the time…
For some strange reason I’ve always used that. Quite sad.
Anyways thanks very much everyone and hope you all have a great Christmas and new year.
cheers
-
(mod-edit) no advertising…..please read board rules (2nd)
-
quote John Childs:£50 per m2 for print.
£65 per m2 laminated.
£80 per m2 contour cut.Even there, I look at some of the smaller ones and think they’re too cheap and stick a lump on.
John, I am curious how you work out your per M2 costs
Laminate costs same or more expensive than the vinyl you have just printed on but only £15 extra to apply? same with contour cut. is that £80 including laminating?
How do you charge for contour cut no laminate?
How would you charge for labels @50mm square print and contour cutSorry my printer arrives tomorrow, just want to put the charges into perspective.
I will as usual, do a calculation to show how much it costs me to produce,
then add my profit margin, and charge accordingly. Plus what I think I can get away with……..Peter
-
Peter,
No great science to it. To be honest, I wouldn’t know how to start working it out. When I was buying my printer all the sellers all gave me prices per square metre but I had no way of knowing whether they were accurate or optimistic estimates to flog me their machine.
I just looked at what we had been previously charged as trade buyers and stuck a lump on it, sometimes being a bit adventurous because I don’t want to be the cheapest. Also, I realised that the cost of the machine had to be written off over two years.
I was paying £25 for print, so I went for £50.
Laminating film costs the same as print vinyl to buy, but there is no ink on it and lamination is faster than printing, so less machine time. Also the laminator was half the price of the printer, therefore less to write off. Laminating vinyl cost me about £3 per m2 so the extra £12 pays for the labour and machine costs. More than enough.
Print and cut, just delete the £15 laminating cost. Therefore £65 per m2. I would say that that is a quick and dirty method for my regular customers and that most are simple rectangular decals. It works fine on a "some you win" basis but for a one off walking in off the street I would give it a bit more thought and for loads of tiny labels with complicated contours would up the price a bit.
That’s a long winded way of saying that I guessed it, but it is all a bit academic anyway because you can only charge what your local market will bear. I am lucky in that respect as my customers are prepared to pay a bit extra for the service element of what we give them. Another few quid per logo pales into insignificance when compared to the costs of keeping a van off the road for another day or two in a bodyshop waiting for graphics.
I hope that helps, but rather suspect that it will leave you none the wiser. Sorry.
-
i am not sure if you are purchasing a laminator also peter but unless you are laminating full width of the roll, then you have allot of waste. (assuming you aren’t cutting every single bit of lamination to fit each print that is)
there is also more waste if you aren’t printing the full width of the machine. e.g.
your printer is 30inch wide.
your print is 24inch wide
your lamination roll is 30 inch wide.by the time your done you have chopped away the excess vinyl & lamination. you haven’t even charged for printing the full width?
if your customer requires app tape, your losing the same again on that too…i guess what i am trying to say is always try charge that bit more as it covers you for these losses. i never keep pricing neat, it just wouldn’t work. i know you can loss pennies here and there but it adds up…
Andrew will complete a job this week printing onto digital "reflective" when he does he will have used up about 450-500 linear metres of digital reflective at 1320 wide in just over two weeks. i know i have walked by mountains of off cut vinyls and app tape while hes been at it, even though he is keeping waste to a minimum. when you add what digital reflective costs and all that waste, you simply MUST account for it. -
quote Robert Lambie:Andrew will complete a job this week printing onto digital “reflective” when he does he will have used up about 450-500 linear metres of digital reflective at 1320 wide in just over two weeks.
😮 500 METRES
Not sure I’ve printed that much in the last year.
How many ink cartridges did you go through Rob?
Steve
-
this is not a typical print run/order Stephen… but a good one to get at this time of year from a regular customer.
with regards to ink carts? couldn’t tell you mate, we are on a bulk ink system but we did just order 3 or 4 bottles recently. still the bottles do seem to go further. that said… we are only printing solid blue and red, with only about 75% coverage in print. then contour cut. no lamination required…
i would like to have seen us do this order alone with separate print and cut facilities? i would bet waste would be much higher with inaccurate alignment and extra labour costs 😕
-
quote Robert Lambie:i am not sure if you are purchasing a laminator also peter but unless you are laminating full width of the roll, then you have allot of waste. (assuming you aren’t cutting every single bit of lamination to fit each print that is)
there is also more waste if you aren’t printing the full width of the machine. e.g.
your printer is 30inch wide.
your print is 24inch wide
your lamination roll is 30 inch wide.by the time your done you have chopped away the excess vinyl & lamination. you haven’t even charged for printing the full width?
if your customer requires app tape, your losing the same again on that too…i guess what i am trying to say is always try charge that bit more as it covers you for these losses. i never keep pricing neat, it just wouldn’t work. i know you can loss pennies here and there but it adds up…
Andrew will complete a job this week printing onto digital “reflective” when he does he will have used up about 450-500 linear metres of digital reflective at 1320 wide in just over two weeks. i know i have walked by mountains of off cut vinyls and app tape while hes been at it, even though he is keeping waste to a minimum. when you add what digital reflective costs and all that waste, you simply MUST account for it.You are right in what you say re adding a % we call this the FU factor but I would question why there are these loses on outward production, surely you cost on linear metre use? I suggest you consider the sizes of vinyl you carry in stock and always keep offcuts from earlier jobs for testing. When it comes to using reflective then waste is a cost that MUST be factored in?
-
Taroon, when you worked out your prices you don’t seem to have taken the cost of the printer into account, don’t forget as well as ink, vinyl and your time there is also the cost of the printer which must be bought and maintained.
-
Ryan:
quote :You are right in what you say re adding a % we call this the FU factor but I would question why there are these loses on outward production, surely you cost on linear metre use? I suggest you consider the sizes of vinyl you carry in stock and always keep offcuts from earlier jobs for testing. When it comes to using reflective then waste is a cost that MUST be factored in?I wasn’t saying "i" had a problem pricing my work, we DO cover waste.
I was advising that this must be done when pricing work.
I was giving an example. 🙄We do stock various sizes/widths of media but that doesn’t mean you wont have waste.
Log in to reply.