The Framers Forum

I often get customers in who just want mounts cut. My basic service is priced based upon 1 piece of board with aperture cut out of it. If customer wants mount and back I charge for two pieces of board. Final option is based upon customer requiring item mounted and wrapped - I then charge for 2 pieces of board - and time element for fixing and wrapping.

Do others do the same or would you cost a basic mount as front and back?

Without going off on a tangent and trying to bore you with our pricing scheme in excruciating detail, we use a spreadsheet to calculate retail prices and not a POS software package.

We have broken down mats into both materials and labor i.e. Materials (equaling our wholesale cost times a mark up) plus our labor (time needed to cut an opening x our shop fee).

Over here, standard sheets of mat board come 32” x 40”. Using a “sliding” scale, we mark up “standard” mat board so that

8 x 10 – 6.5 x
16 x 20 – 5.5 x
20 x 24 – 5.05 x
24 x 30 – 4.72 x
etc.

More expensive mat board (like silks and suedes) have a smaller mark up.

Periodically, we use a stop watch to time how long it takes to find the correct mat, trim it to size, return the scrap to the bin, set the guide bar and the stops, cut the window, throw the fall out into the trash, (pick it up when we miss the barrel), stretch to remove the kinks from this exertion, remove the guide bar and stops, and cover the mat cutter. We try not to hurry while we time this since we want this to work in our favor. We do this for several sizes of mats.

It takes no more or no less time to cut a “standard” mat board than it does to cut a “specialty” variety, so the labor is the same for all types of the same size. The material costs, of course, can be significantly different.

So, in your case, Mark, we would charge materials plus labor on the window mat and simply materials w/o labor on the backing.

When choosing a frame, complete with mount(s) then it's fine going through all the mount colours, and sometimes it feels like it IS 'all'!!!

Just like it's Ok going through moulding samples.

Mounts included in that package, have a price, which can be deducted or added.

That price is just not worth my time if a mount ONLY is required, unless the customer can choose very very quickly. Generally though, that does not happen, therefore this comes under the heading of 'work that I do not want to do' especially as 9 times out of 10, the mount is to go into a cheap Ikea (etc) frame and the customer is only here because s/he has no other option, this one part of the job has to be done to order.

Prices are doubled.

Thing is .................... I still don't wanna do it!

Anyone who comes in with an Ikea frame is only too happy to 'fill' in the empty surround with a mount, no matter what the proportions are.

Always looks crap.

These customers rarely return and will always buy cheap, never to evolve into bespoke framing.

Many galleries refuse the service. I don't like it, but money in the till is what matters.

Heaven help those who live within strike distance of 'crunchy bar' frame stores.

Hi Mark

I'm new to THE FORUM and have been flicking through to get an idea of what sort of things are going on, and your post caught my eye.

I split mountcutting into three parts

Mount, back board (I use the mountboard itself and buy larger quantities of an off white for this) and assembly. I have an itemised spreadsheet breakdown for ease of use.

For example, at present (using Simons Acid Free Key mountboard made by Slater Harrison) for a (20x16)" mount I would charge the following :

£1.50 for the backboard
£3.00 for the mount (i.e. £1.50 for cutting the aperture)
£1.00 for assembling the work into the mount.

Therefore a completed mount with backboard including the work assembled into the mount would cost £5.50. If the client just wanted the mount front I would charge £3.00 etc.

This is much later than your post date , but I hope it helps.

MickD

Hi Mark

I would charge £3.16 for a 20" x 16" mount. 1 aperture. Across the counter.

I will not turn anybody away who just wants a mount to fill - whatever frame -

As has been stated 'It is money in the till'. If I do not do it then the shop up the road will.

My backing works out roughly half the cost of the mount. If backing is required with the mount.

I use an old fashioned type price chart produced using an Excel spreadsheet and all materials whether mouldings, mountboard, glass or backing boards are priced using what I understand is known as the "United inches" principle.

The length of the short and long dimensions of the frame are added together to get one united figure, which is then used to look-up the price. The united inches on my chart increase in increments of 6 inches and the increase in price for each increment is the same for all materials apart from the fact that there is an adjustment for using jumbo size mountboards, etc.

Those who use such charts will know that the price per square inch increases as the mounts get smaller, by an amount which can be fine tuned to suit. A mark-up which may sound a bit high when pricing a large mount, sounds just fine on a smaller one.

Charts - you just cant fine tune them enough for the number of options that modern framing presents. why arent you using the computer that you create your excel spreadsheets with to run a pricing program?

MickD wrote:I'm new to THE FORUM and have been flicking through to get an idea of what sort of things are going on....

Hi Mick, and welcome again!

Great to hear that you are enjoying the forum. There are all sorts of good stuff in the backposts. Well worth a wander!

markw wrote:Charts - you just cant fine tune them enough for the number of options that modern framing presents. why arent you using the computer that you create your excel spreadsheets with to run a pricing program?

Hi Mark,

I am planning to do something along those lines after my house move, but I need to get some practice with Visual basic, so I can still use my existing pricing methods.

Your not on your own- I know lots of very good framers who just refuse to even think about using pos software. As business gets tougher every penny counts.

Show me a pricing program which will price flat materials in united inches and I'll be interested.

Have you guys without POS software had a look at Estlite and tried it out? I just looked at http://estlite.scenes.biz/ and there is a special price on offer until the end of this month. John, the guy who provides us with this forum, has created a great piece of software and even at the normal price it is well worth the money!

Using a POS system has so many advantages that I can't understand why anyone trying to make a living from this industry wouldn't invest this pittance of an amount to make themselves more profit. You would recoup the cost of the software in a few months, just by consistency in pricing alone!

Markw,
Every penny counts even when times are not tough and using POS software will raise anyone's profit level. There should be no doubt about that!

To anyone who does not have POS - Not investing in POS is costing you money!

(Just call me 'Bewildered')

Ormond - I couldnt agree with you more.

NYAF - Im not that young at 52 but have never worked using inches - all of my kit is calibrated for metric use. Having said that some softwares still cater for a unit of measurement that should have been left behind many years ago. (Estlite works in metric and imperial). Not sure what you mean by united inches.

my favorite customer is the one who comes in with detailed measurements for a mount to be cut - using half metric, half imperial - aghhh. We are Europeans - we use the metric system.

markw wrote:NYAF - Im not that young at 52

You're only a pup, Mark!

markw wrote:Not sure what you mean by united inches.

United inches = long side + short side.

My favorite customer came in for a mount only with a knotted piece of elastic !

Steve N

Thats stretching it a bit isnt it Steve!!

Ha Ha Mark,

Steve N

Steve N wrote:My favorite customer came in for a mount only with a knotted piece of elastic !

Steve N

One size fits all! Duraing!

POS makes you money. The computer says thats the price, and people find it hard to argue... people seldom ask for discount, and, strangely, as the customers job ticket is printed out, half of them ask, albiet uncomfortably, "do you want me to pay now?".
On the other hand,. the other half dont come to pick up their jobs for months.

Now, what we need is to incorporate a mailing program into it, and let devicode or some other response mailer bombard them with emails and automated ("click clikc click.... Hello this is Ralph, from Delhi, I am wondering when you are going to pick up your frame.... My collegue, Dave from Mumbai will be sending you some emails also, and some mobile telephone offers, and possibly if you dont collect this fine framings, your own long lost cousin Ralph the tribal cheif from Lagos and son of the minsiter for important affairs will be in touch to offer you the best deal of your life in Untidied States real dollars from uncle sam...."