The Framers Forum

Hey all,
I've been asked to cut a couple of mounts. Never had to do just mounts before, what's a good way to price it?
Thx

I use this simple formula ..

but seriously folks, any suggestions?

Well, you must be able to price (say) a 20x16 frame with a mount and the same size frame without one. The cost is the difference between the two?

On my pricing chart, which is only slightly more complex than that thing above, there is a price for everything (well, most everything) below each size frame (united inch) including how much to add for each extra mount, or to deduct if there is to be no mount.

Sometimes though, when someone wants just a mount, maybe to fit a RMF bought elsewhere; maybe because ..... they just want a mount, they can take ages and ages over the colour etc and it could be for a tiny thing. Or of course they could be really really quick and it could be for a large thing. In the first case we have a minimum charge which is added to the cost on the chart, which will total at least £11:50 - we don't care if that's for a 3x3" mount with a 1x1" aperture and we give the customer about 5 minutes before telling them that cost. In the second case - and others, like repeat stuff, we just go by the cost on the chart.

ok, that helps, thanks

For me it all depends on what is being asked.
I often get a call from an artist that says I want this size mount with this size aperture in this colour. This is a regular customer so I charge £8 and I drop it off when I'm passing. I will get 2 of these out of each mountboard that I have in stock. So that's £16 from a mountboard that has cost me £3ish, and has taken seconds to cut. I charge £10 if it is for a random person that I don't have a relationship with, as robo says you can sometimes spend a while with them deciding which mount. In this case I often leave them to look through the samples. If I think it is for an artist that might be a repeat customer then I would be a bit flexible.
If I've to put it into a frame and seal etc. I would charge £20 for that plus mount cost, although with a regular customer I charged £15 each for 3 prints that I got off same board and had to fit them all.
My pricing chart is in my head and is quite flexible depending on who I am talking to and how I am feeling on any particular day
If it's to go into an IKEA frame they have bought themselves to save money I ask them politely to turn around and I give them a good swift kick out of the door.

pramsay13 wrote:If it's to go into an IKEA frame they have bought themselves to save money I ask them politely to turn around and I give them a good swift kick out of the door.

Oh, then it's no longer the done thing to charge double for mounts to fit IKEA frames!

Seriously though, I will gladly cut any mount that a customer may want to fit any frame.

That waveform component in the centre of your unnecessarily elementary formula is quite wrong. You do know that, don't you Robo?

Sorry, I think I must have dropped a piece of ribbon on it when I took the photo, still, it ups the price by 15.899% so it was a happy accident really.

I love the bit about gravitational potential energy, cracks me up every time.

I fail to see the humor in this tried and tested formulae.

strokebloke wrote:That waveform component in the centre of your unnecessarily elementary formula is quite wrong. You do know that, don't you Robo?

Yes and he forgot to carry the 3.

I regularly forget to 'carry things over'.
Val often tells me I carry things too far: but that's another story

If my Val did that I'd swap it for a Wizard!

Ah, but mine's a 'lery' not an 'ianni'
'ianni's' are pussy cats in comparison