Quick pricing question (so settle a debate)

[Marcella Ross]

I’d go with your mates price…!

[Hugh Potter]

well i know you guy’s get your vinyl cheaper, but i’ll go with what i know,

you could also tell me if i’ve got my pricing methods right too !!

ok, a roll of std 610mm 751 oracle (as apposed to 751c) costs me about £90 + vat, say £110 for arguments sake, thats £2.10 pm,

an 8×4 sheet of 5mm foam board is about £50 for gloss finish, (this i would order specially as 12 x 200×300 cut pieces, and the rest as one large, or two smaller pieces)

so each sign would be a cost of about £1.10 in vinyl and about £1.20 for the foam board, i usually mark the materials up around 300%, so £3.30 x 3 is £9.90 a sign, i then charge about £15 per hour for cutting / weeding / application,

so assuming i had the material delivered cut, and the design was fairly simple to lay out and cut / apply, say 1 1/2hrs, another £20 say, i’d spread that over the 10,

making each sign about £11, ooh, yer mate is right !!!!

that’ll be a nice couple of easy hours work, and 2/3rds of a sheet for another job all paid for !! i’ve never actually really sat and worked it out proper like that, i usually make sure that the whole board price is paid for and do not mark up what i use (if less than half), and then just mark up the vinyl and charge labour,

then again, i often charge wat i think to be a fair price if it looks to expensive to me !!

sorry to be ong winded, i found this quite interesting !!

[Adrian Hewson]

From our safety signs catalogue we would sell any 300mm by 250mm rigid Vinyl sign at £7.41, trade we give a 20% discount, for bigger customer we can give a bigger discount

10 ft by 5ft sheet of 5mm foamex costs £20 for which you 40pcs 300mm by 250 so board cost is £0.50 using 610mm vinyl you can get 8 signs to a metre even at £2.60 per metre that is £0.35ea per sign so sign materials are only £0.85ea

We recently lost a quote to Cala Homes coming in somehwere between the £7.41 less 20% and £0.85ea and were told we were the most expensive of 10 quotes.

Make your own mind up

Regards Adrian

[Ian Higgins]

Hi Rod
We would charge £13 + Vat or £11.50 if ordered in the 10s.
At £6 each I will order mine from you in future….
Cheers
Ian

[Chris Hooper]

As much as the market will take!

used to be £7-£10

Now reading this the price just gone up!!

Chris

[John Harding]

quote :

Hi Rod
We would charge £13 + Vat or £11.50 if ordered in the 10s.
At £6 each I will order mine from you in future….
Cheers
Ian

Im with ian on this one so thats two new customers youve got :lol1:

Im in london tho so thats worth a few bob I guess

John

[Rod Gray]

flippin hell.

I was convinced i`d won this one, looks like back to the drawing board for me.

All you guys , apart from Adrian, seem to be looking nearer the £12.00 per 300×200, 5mm Foam, Basic text/H&S text.

Would this automatically mean that if the 300 x 200 = 60000mm2 = £12.00 then ;-

400×300 = 120000mm2 = £24.00 ?

Am i correct in doubling and tripleing the cost when i double/triple the size?.

When pricing this kind of stuff, i like to create a calculation/formula.

In this instance i used the following formula worked out on the smallest sign.

300 x 200 = 60000mm2.

60000mm2 = £9.00

so…

400 x 300 = 120000mm2

120000mm2 / 60000mm2 = 2

2 x £9.00 = £18.00

and so on.

It s means that on the lager signs, for example 800 x 800;-

800 x 800 = 640000mm2

640000mm2 \ 60000mm2 = 10.66

10.66 x £9.00 = £96.00

£96.00 + vat for a 800 x 800 Sign.

Does that still sound right to you guys?.

Seems the sliding scale increase too sharly and that another formula needs to be applied over certain sizes?

or and i just over-analising everything 😳 😕 🙂

Thanks for the input so far all.

[Andy Gorman]

I think your formula does overdo it somewhat. It assumes that tripling the size of a sign triples the labour cost, which it obviously doesn’t. It may well increase (labour) but not directly in proportion with the sign size.

I work on material cost+time

I regularly make A3 sized 3mm foamex panels with manufacturers logos on. 10 at a time £10 each.

[Hugh Potter]

i agree with Big G, sounds about right anyways !!

the large usa imports sign i did was worked on the same formula as i posted above, 10×5 board, cut into 3 x 5x3ft sections, only charged for his section this instance, but on bulk orders i like to at least cover the cost of the materials i have to purchase, with materials and labour it was £140, seemed fair for about 4 hrs labour and another couple on the pc working the designs,

in reality tho, i think many of us might be guilty of dropping a price because we think it’s too expensive, i have on occasion, and deliberately do so if i’m sure of repeat work, or if i think the customer can return a favour for me at a later date, i’ll make a point of mentioning the nice discout i just gave too ! !

[Rod Gray]

quote big G:

I think your formula does overdo it somewhat. It assumes that tripling the size of a sign triples the labour cost, which it obviously doesn’t. It may well increase (labour) but not directly in proportion with the sign size.

I work on material cost+time

I regularly make A3 sized 3mm foamex panels with manufacturers logos on. 10 at a time £10 each.

Thanks m8

[Ian Higgins]

WoW Rod!!
That formula is something else!!!

I use a sign estimating softwear so it does it for me now I have set it at the level I want to achieve.

As for the price on 400×300 it would be £17+ Vat…
I often look at prices that it quotes and think they are too high but I stick to what it tells me. Having said that they sometimes seem too cheap!!! but I still stick to what it tells me.

I have been using the softwear for 9 months now and my accountant has told me we have had our best quarter in 8 years and the profit margin is up too!!

so something must be working right..
cheers
Ian

[John Harding]

Ian – whats the software your using if you dont mind me asking

John

[Ian Higgins]

Hi,
It is EstiMate, it takes a while to get things loaded in and the big drawback is everything is imperial…
I downloaded a free trial version first to try it out. I know some people do not like it but once you have loaded all your prices in for materials it is simple to use.
Cheers
Ian

[Paul Goodwin]

You got a website for that Ian?

[John Harding]

done a search – is this it?

http://www.estek.co.uk/download.html

John

[Robert Lambie]

just thought ide add a bit to this.
i recon for multiples you are about right rod. but i would try charging the higher price to joe bloggs in off the street.
the problem with pricing for health and safety signage is people arent looking for quality, they want as cheap as possible to keep themself in the clear and h&s off their backs. as soon as you come up against a customer wanting multiples he will be shopping around, on the net etc. h&s signs arent hard to find on the net at cut throat prices.
the big suppliers are churning these out by the thousand using auto-screen printing setups and buying huge quantities of cheap hips type plastics.
my advise would be to price and make some money, if its a big order and you would like to keep your customer happy, buy it in, it will be cheaper, faster and you will probably make more money in the ling run when all things considered.

[Peter Normington]

posted this link in another topic http://www.safetysignsonline.co.uk/
May be of use for comparison
Peter

[Rod Gray]

Thanks Rob, some clear advice there mate, cheers.

Thanks Peter, had a good read through that site and it was very informative.

Cheers

Rod

[Chris Hooper]

Cost plus+Time + Markup basis is ok if you have accurately calculated your overheads and this is reflected in your time costs. £15 an hour as mentioned in this thread seems awfully low. Unless of course your overheads are low anyway.

Along with the Estimate software (and dowloadable from the site) is a free hourly rate calculator – answer the questions, pop in your numbers and your mark up on your time and you will be surprised what this chucks out as an hourly rate.