The Framers Forum

Evening all!

I know that there has been numerous posts regarding pricing on the forum, but I just wanted to throw a generic question out there... Reason being, I'm just leaving the army and about to start business. We don't want to sell ourselves cheap, but at the same time don't want to 'have people's trousers down'

What is the general rule for figuring your retail price on the majority of jobs carried out?

Having spoken to a few framers about this, I'm teetering on the total cost of materials x7

I understand that the higher the price, the more we may have to tweak the price to bring it down to a realistic cost, but for the general framing of a (for example) 15"x20" print, I reckon it would be about right.

Will someone please either shoot me clean down or give me the necessary pointers...

At the minute, the total cost per week of running the show is £210.25

Thanks very much

We charge by a combination of materials mark up and labour charge, otherwise you can end up with some very odd prices.

Well this is what I was doing over in Germany whilst I was doing a bit on the side. Whilst 9 times out of 10 the price was there or abouts, I don't feel that it was always perfectly consistent...? I would hate to do a bit of mind maths on a customer who brings two very similar items in a few months apart, and the price be quite a bit out

Hi,
Pricing is one of the major queries I had when starting - I found this link by ex forum member Jim Anderson (Gesso & Bole) extremely useful and what I based my pricing structure on.

http://theframersforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... ing#p40741

Also there is a host of useful info in 'Articles of business' by Vivian Kistler if you can get hold of a copy.

Smiffy wrote:

Well this is what I was doing over in Germany whilst I was doing a bit on the side. Whilst 9 times out of 10 the price was there or abouts, I don't feel that it was always perfectly consistent...? I would hate to do a bit of mind maths on a customer who brings two very similar items in a few months apart, and the price be quite a bit out

Pricing can be a steep learning curve when you first start out, and you will have to adapt as and when, you will find that what you were prepared to charge when doing it as a hobby/part time is going to be a lot less when you do it full time, as your only means of support.

Actually we did start off by using materials + mark-up and soon found out that we were either over or under charging. What brings the issue home with a big thud is when someone brings in a tiny picture that needs to go in a box frame and you find the materials are bout £2 and a mark up of x7 brings in the ludicrous price of £14.

There is as much work in a 6" x 4" as there is in a 30" x 20" frame but by your method you would grossly undercharge on the small one and overcharge on the big one. Jim Anderson's thread is very useful and as long as you are OK with Excel you could quite quickly build a pricing system that includes labour costs........ or of course buy one. There was a previous thread on the various pricers.

I am reminded of the quote from a famous Swedish paper mill man......

If your prices are too low you will never know,

If your prices are too high you will soon find out!