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Pricing is Killing Me No End.
I am desperately hoping that someone out there can help me.
We have a brand new Roland VP540 sitting on our floor and it has only been turned on 3 times………………..reason being, we just don’t know how to price jobs.
Is there a guide that can be got for banners, stickers and general digital printed vinyl signs.
I cant get a copy of the "Price it Guide" as it is only available to businesses in the UK and I am in Ireland.
An example of our latest inquiry is for five 1200×1200 corri board signs with a full colour print. I can do the print on the Roland and apply the vinyl to the board. What would be the best value vinyl to use and how much should I charge for things like this??
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21 Replies
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I’m sure I can remember an aquaintance of mine in the industry telling me that his vinyl/ink/machine supplier (one of those anyway) advised him on such matters. Try giving roland or the digi media supplier or the ink guys a ring to ask them.
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Youll be banging your head against a brick wall jumping straight in with pricing questions :banghead:
Do the polite thing and take some time to do an introduction in the aptly named area "Say Hello"
P.S. welcome :lol1:
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Hello,
Or you could purchase one of the estimate software packages it was discussed a few weeks ago search the boards for it.
Ian
Clarity or Estimate 2
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Please accept my apologies………………..
My name is Darren, a member for a few weeks only and have been crawling through the forums searching for the holy grail of how to price a job…………….
I spoke to Paul regarding getting a copy of the Price it Guide but it never arrived probably due to our postal system over here.
I genuinely get into a state of panic when someone asks me for a price and as a result have avoided even giving prices and forfeiting the work.
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Try asking Paul for the Excel copy, that way he could e-mail it.
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Thanks Graeme……………..I will check with him.
All that failing, can somebody suggest what they might think is the best estimate software package available to purchase?
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What about my suggestion?
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quote Gareth Lewis:What about my suggestion?
:vio:
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i havent read into this yet but you will see the top banner advert on this site is now promoting print costs etc click here
theres a great many things come into play when pricing jobs.
what you pay for your vinyl, ink, correx etc and even the time to mount it will determine how much profit you will make from the job.if i am your competition and paying half what you pay for all the above and my machine is twice as fast then i am always going to be able to out bid you on the same job. but try NOT to get into haggling situations just to0 get your machine running. stick to your guns and persevere till you get a customer base to make the machine work for you.
easy talking sake, you should be looking for
£40-£50 per square metre of print onto VINYL.
£50-£65 per square metre of print onto vinyl LAMINATED.
£35-£40 per square metre of print onto BANNER.Regardless to what you print onto remember your WASTE must be included in price. no point selling a banner 20inches x 20feet and having a ton of waste of banner along the top thats not used because that WILL end in the bin. also with banner you have hemming tape, hemming labour and eyelets.
same goes for waste on printed vinyl… wasted laminate too etc
DO NOT get caught up on the cheap as chips banners and prints going around everywhere. if they are not done on BIG FAST machines with very low running costs they are being done by sign firms under selling just to get by. in my opinion thats tightening the noose around your neck!
my views on even the pricing i have indicated above is TOO cheap, but thats maybe just me… ill try and get as much out a job as i can.
i just sold a banner 20 minutes ago on a phone in inquiry for a banner 30 square metres. im using a machine that prints 80 square metres an hour, paying very good prices on banner and ink and i charged it out at £40 per metre and the customer wasnt fazed.
remember that doesnt mean you will get this every time but you need to accept your not going to win them all. just dont be a busy fool working hard for nothing. -
quote Darren Lawlor:Thanks Graeme……………..I will check with him.
All that failing, can somebody suggest what they might think is the best estimate software package available to purchase?
estimating software is useless if you dont know what you will charge per square metre/foot because all this sort of info must be input by you before the software can do any calculations.
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Sorry Gareth……………..I forgot to mention that I spoke to both Roland UK and Roland Ireland and got nothing whatsoever from the Irish Branch and very little from the UK branch. I suppose at the end of the day, they are really interested in selling machines.
Is the Price it Guide that Paul has a helpful tool?
On another note may I say that the best couple of quid I have spent to date is the few quid I spent joining this website…………Invaluable!!
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Hi Ya
This Might Help
The 2008-2009 Price It Guide For Sign Makers.
http://www.priceitsignguide.com
all the very best
paul 😀 -
Hi Paul,
I have been in contact with Paul from this site before but he never got a chance to send one out to me I guess. Does anybody have a copy they could email to me or anything…..PLEASE…….. 😕
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Hey Darren, did you get anything sorted? I’m waiting for Price it guide too, will try ring next week and see if can get excel copy or something 🙂 We’re just setting up pricing structures now. I’d be interested in reading more about the pricing software mentioned in this thread but can’t find any threads when searching forum. Going to keep looking!
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Morning Emma,
Still didn’t get sorted with a Price it Guide. I have searched and searched and searched everywhere on the net to see if someone has an excel copy for download but to no avail………. 😥
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Good morning,
I’m going to call them tomorrow, if I manage to get an excel version or something sorted I’ll let you know!
Emma
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ive seen the book, but i don’t know how an excel version would be possible as its not a calculating process its more examples of things to give you an idea of what should be charged for something looking like the picture illustration. i.e. this picture of a van with ex-amount of text should be about this price and so on…
i never spent much time looking at it, so sorry if i have this all wrong. wouldn’t be a first for me. 😀 -
quote Robert Lambie:ive seen the book, but i don’t know how an excel version would be possible as its not a calculating process its more examples of things to give you an idea of what should be charged for something looking like the picture illustration. i.e. this picture of a van with ex-amount of text should be about this price and so on…
i never spent much time looking at it, so sorry if i have this all wrong. wouldn’t be a first for me. 😀Rob he does have the book in Excel format, Its still rough. Rather than looking up a given size, you just type it in and it spits out a RAW cost based on size and complexity. I dont use it, but have seen it.
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the big problem with the guide is I use it as a "go to" to see if im in the right ball park but then the customer prices of one of the local jackass’s who are working for beer tokens and he beats my price by a 3rd!!!! i dont mind the next guy getting a turn as we all gotta eat but they are so far out on the pricing it cant last, but they are still here!!
it comes down to using the guide as just that a guide, be careful not to get dragged down to pricing against the guy doing at the house at night and is only covering materials, if even that much
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Am I missing something – surely you have to go back to the start, as in your business plan, and look at your overheads such as premises before you can give an accurate quote 😮
Cheers John
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exactly, you should already know what you need to make before pricing, thats why we are saying to use it as a guide only.. not as a direct quote book
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