How do you charge for cut decals?

[Pideas]

I've been getting more and more jobs for contour cut labels. These labels might be circle cut, square cut, rectangle cut or some other shape. The quantities usually vary from a few hundred labels to a few thousand labels. I print these on my HP latex 54" adhesive vinyl material and then contour cut it using my Summa cutter.

How do most people charge for the contour cutting? Do you charge more for a different shaped label? Do you charge by the linear foot, square foot, total area perimeter or by another measurement?

 

[Stacey K]

I set-up the artwork and order my contour cut printed labels and decals out and charge for set-up and then by the square foot for the printing. You could add a percentage for time spent on contour cutting. One place I send my artwork to adds 10% for contour cutting on top of the square foot pricing which I pass on to the customer.

 

[rjssigns]

Depends on what you're making and what materials you're using. 100's of the exact same thing or..? I charge per square inch for industrial labels. Pricing is more per unit as I am doing VDP or manually entering information. Stock labels are the same rate with a per unit base charge.
Industrial labels are all Arlon 6000XRP/3220.

 

[Gino]

I don't think it matters much what somebody else gets, if they have the perfect setup with adequate help in place to just turn them out

Figure what your material cost, time, overhead, profit, waste and combined effort is for you to produce them and punch in your shop's price scale. Some shops have 20 people on the payroll and that all goes into the overall pricing.

 

[Pideas]

I have my pricing system set to charge by the total document perimeter and my pricing was way off for certain smaller quantities. I think I may change to square inch or square foot. I will have to experiment to find the right combination.

 

[sardocs]

I don't think charging by the document perimeter makes much sense. If two different clients are in your shop and one wants the Lords Prayer in Old English in a 1 sq ft panel and the other asks for the word "NO" in arial in the same size panel, do they each pay the same price?

 

[ikarasu]

Art setup - Unless they add a cutline... Even if they provide art, you're adding your own. Whatever your shop rate is x whatever you think it'll take you to do.

Material cost - Not just the size of the decal... Best practice is to lay out what they want, include spacing in it for cutting / perf cutting if you're doing that... See how much sqft the whole job will take up, charge them your shop rate for material.

Laminate cost + time to laminate

Ink cost / Print time cost - Shop rate / whatever your SQFT is.

Summa cut time cost - whatever your hourly rate is, again

Cost of breaking or cutting them apart, packaging them, etc.


Charge for your time + Material... Throw in some wear and tear for your machines / overhead and you're good to go.


You need to figure out all your costs and charge accordingly. Shapes don't Matter price wise, it's all to do with time. If something is really complex you think you'll ruin some decals in the process, add in a pain in the ass / wastage fee. Obviously you can cut 1000 circles in the same time as 100 stars... so you do charge more for cutting stars / odd shapes... but it's more of a This will take me an hour to cut vs this will take me 2 hours to cut,so you're paying $100 for labor instead of 50

 

[Signs101Admin]

Bump

 

[Pideas]

I don't think charging by the document perimeter makes much sense. If two different clients are in your shop and one wants the Lords Prayer in Old English in a 1 sq ft panel and the other asks for the word "NO" in arial in the same size panel, do they each pay the same price?

You're right, this really screwed up my pricing for certain jobs.