You're never going to find a reliable "across the board" price recommendation that's relevant for your specific use case. btw --> +1 for FireSprint's calculators -- their efforts are appreciated! They were doing great even before AI-dev work was a thing. Good stuff!
It's all about your market, your audience, your overhead. $5/sq.ft. on a banner is good but maybe that's an Oklahoma thing (when I can get that price 30% of the time). But in New York or Cali $5 might be really competitive or way overpriced. We're not even talking large banners / volume discounts. Cost of living, demand, your specific company's equipment/overhead/etc.. Half of my clients are price shopping, and half of "those" potentials are going to send me AI generated B.S. What's your time worth? Are you in a college town where every other house already owns a Cricut?
Regardless of audience, it's literally impossible to cater to all classes. Are you the high end shop or the low budget eBay seller? Are you pushing for walk-in clients from a highly visible location or competing as a web-to-print service or pushing for wholesale volume? I run eco-sol printers with an extreme focus on color matching for universities / municipalities ($$$), not lower cost UV / temporary signage applications. 26 years in, I couldn't possibly compete on that high volume, low margin stage, but then again, when I slept with the Mayor and cut them in on the profits it didn't matter what I charged.
What works for me will not work for you and vice-versa. Today's profitability doesn't mean shit tomorrow. The market is very fluid and highly competitive. Adapting to your market is more important than starting from a general WxHxQty calculation.
More than anything -- customers don't give AF what your pricing is or how you calculate it. Nor should you. They want a reasonable, justifiable cost. You just need to decide what you're comfortable with. Only YOU know your customers and what they're willing to pay. In the
sign biz, we're all starting from favorable margins -- the idea is to capitalize on folks who are willing to spend more, and offer lower cost solutions to those with smaller budgets -- and hopefully you're in a good place at the end of the day. If you're in the black, keep pushing. In the red? Adapt. Evaluate your offerings on a regular basis. If you're winning jobs more than losing them -- you're on the right track. Don't just give your employee an easy button. Walk them through the production workflow and "hope" they understand why a $5 banner retails for $150. And when you figure out that balance, hire salespeople to replicate your efforts -- then -- continue to adapt.
If nothing else, quote a job to a client, take 2 steps back and then take an "unbiased" look at the grand total as you put yourself into that customer's shoes. Does this quote seem reasonable if I had "their" budget in "this" circumstance? -- Everyone here needs a reality check from time to time (myself included, and occasionally an azz beating, but that's a different topic) Or did I overshoot it? Did I save the client enough money so they're eating filet mignon while I sat over here eating Fideo? (you're in Cali, you dam well better know what Fideo is --but for those that don't -- the Mexican version of ramen. Fun fact: it's actually amazeballz). Either way -- When you're thinking "my price is reasonable, I would buy this right now at this price" most of the time, you're probably close to the pricing you need to be at.
