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Square Metre printing prices. Mark-ups with various materials.
Hello, hope your all well.
Since having my printer i have stuck to a plan of 200% markup pm on (vinyl,lam,ink), which includes the actual print process, laminating and trimming ready for fitting. This has always worked well for me on "normal" jobs, few metres of print. On larger jobs tho for example large shop fronts where your talking 15 or 20m im not getting the work.
Now im assuming either my pm price is too high to start with but doesnt show on smaller jobs or competition is giving good disounts on higher meterage. Knocking their m2 charge down?
How do you guys do it? Im fighting myself because it seems everyone is working on volume of work to make these printers pay for themselves.The reason this is bugging me is this year im going to push myself into doing more wrapping. Now solid colours is straight forward with a small markup pm. However printed wrap is bloody expensive, well here atleast. Im looking at 1500-1600 euros for avery 1104 and matching lam and with my theory of 200% markup the meterage prices seem rediculous. But maybe it is?
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12 Replies
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You need to at least double your materials cost price or your in danger of making a loss on any print you do. What happens if there’s a flaw and you have to re-print – you’re then out of pocket?
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With Phill on this one. Buying something for £1.00 and selling for £2.00 doesn’t always mean you’ve made £1.00 profit.
There’s various ways of working out prices, but I always suggest looking at your costs first.
We tend to do the following:
Design Time (Hourly Rate)
Material + your chosen mark
Printed graphics (Sq/m)
Application & Finishing (Hourly Rate)I tend to find the labour to be the most expensive part of some jobs.
Work out your overheads, roughly how many hours you can actually invoice for (example is me typing this, I’m at work, but I can’t invoice someone for replying to this post), then see what your costs are per billable hour.
See how long it takes to do small signs, compare it to doing a large one, you may find it’s not much quicker doing the small ones.
Look at what you’re charging now, compared to what your ‘costs’ are, and go from there.
Remember as well, the customer isn’t just paying for some vinyl, it’s the machine to print & cut it, you’re knowledge of how to do it, how to fit it. There will always be someone doing it cheaper, but provided you’re making decent margins on what work you do produce you should be fine.
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Good evening all,
I have exactly the same thing bothering me Martyn. Like yourself I never get big print jobs. I don’t know how to offer discount on more m2. I simply calculate the m2 x my m2 price, no discount if more meters. In a way my business is optimised to make better money on small jobs and I guess this answers my question in a way.
I know pricing is sensitive subject on the forum, but can I ask the question using imaginary price.
If you charge 1 £ for 1m2 for the first meter.
How much discount you offer on the:Second meter?
5m?
10m?
20m?
50?% price discount advice from the 1£ for the first meter or any other simplification of discounting is much appreciated.
Many thanks.
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I think the type of customer always needs to come into the equation when considering discounts, ie somebody with a single shop who wants their 10m shop sign doing, I’d stick to full price. However, the customer with who can bring regular repeat work I feel is always worth considering the discount for!
(That’s not based on a customers promise of repeat work by the way, just when you get a guanine feeling of future potential)
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Think it’s much harder to discount if you are at the lowest price you want to go already.
I’ve bumped my 1/2 meter prices up, so that my discounted prices are more inline with what we need to and should be making.Big signage jobs does come down to the customer. How busy we are/ the profile of the customer etc.. I have a price for 8ft x 4ft composite sheets printed and ready to go and if there is 3 or 4 i don’t discount and then add on our “labour” cost and that’s the price. I don’t break things down though. I given them a all inclusive price. Am sure plenty of customers thing me and the lads should be on £8.20 an hour and material should be cost. So I don’t give them a way in by breaking it down.
I also work in sheet size. If a sign is 2m x 1m there paying for a full sheet and that’s that.
Also learning hagglers are not worth the hassle. If it starts of with them being a pain it’s only going to get worse.
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Bigger is not always better. I called with a fellow sign maker few weeks back who deals in large fleet wraps. They have 20+ staff & 6 printers all fairly new & financed. He was in a tizzy. He had priced 20 renault traffics at €1400each which we both thought was very competitive but he got under cut by a competitor at €1200each for a full printed wrap..!! I said sure what are you worried about wasn’t much profit in the job. He turned & informed me he had 10 fitters with no work to do & finance on 6 printers & vans to pay still. I left happy that I hand not that pressure to deal with.
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There is a big difference between Mark up at a percentage and the margin % you are actually making.
I’ve attached a link below for an excel chart that might help you set your prices.
Feel free to download and input prices and see how this can help you understand things better
I hope this isn’t breaking any board rules Rob, I know its helped a few people I sent it too.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lvkelorruive4 … .xlsx?dl=0
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I know translated jokes are not always funny but I will try.
Teacher meets a chap that was in his class. Hi John, you were very bad at mathematics, but I see you have very successful business.
John said: I buy my goods for 10£, put 10% margin and I sell for 20£.
Its ok teacher. I cannot complain.
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What would you consider a healthy margin? i know it has a lot to do with personal circumstances but business wise there must be a margin % that you should not go below.
I sat down last night and worked out my margin based on last years turnover.
Results were 80% based on direct costs
72% based on overall costs. -
Thank you all for your input on this matter.
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I know this will sound weird but I don’t retail to a fixed markup or margin….you WILL screw yourself. Far too cheap on small stuff…far too dear on the really big stuff. Also i never calculate costs in square metres…i work in LINEAR metres…what I used off a roll.
Remember, the stuff in the bin costs you the same money as the bits you sell.
Eg. On a 1500mm machine…
A 750mm x 1000mm print is 0.75m2
So is 500mm x 1500mmOne runs 0.75m…the other 0.5m linear. One COST me 50% more to make…why retail at the same m2.
D
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quote DavidRogers:I know this will sound weird but I don’t retail to a fixed markup or margin….you WILL screw yourself. Far too cheap on small stuff…far too dear on the really big stuff. Also i never calculate costs in square metres…i work in LINEAR metres…what I used off a roll.Remember, the stuff in the bin costs you the same money as the bits you sell.
Eg. On a 1500mm machine…
A 750mm x 1000mm print is 0.75m2
So is 500mm x 1500mmOne runs 0.75m…the other 0.5m linear. One COST me 50% more to make…why retail at the same m2.
D
I agree, I always work on the linear mtr basis too. I do have a fairly high margin on digital print, depending on film used, which can be discounted on larger jobs, if you simply give out your lowest rate, .5mtr of laminated, contour cut would cost to produce!
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