Help pricing work.

[Wilfage]

Hi all!
I would really appreciate an opinion on how to go about pricing my work, in particular a project I have coming up soon. I’ve always struggled with this aspect of my small business, I can’t seem to get it right, always underestimating my time etc. This is a small project of just two shelves that you can see in the image. The white thick one (which I was planning on making out of solid poplar) with a piece of native walnut underneath. I estimate a days work in construction and a days work installing then the cost of materials on top.which would make this project cost the client about £800 (seems a lot for two shelves!?). I’ve always just worked things out based on how many hours it would take but always feel I’m charging too much for my time etc but then always end up feeling I didn’t make enough money for the effort and time put in. How else does everyone figure out their quotes??

 

[Stigmorgan]

Cost of materials + fuel for transporting + an hourly rate for the construction and installation time. Realistically what would you be happy to recieve as an hourly rate for the work you are doing?

 

[Wilfage]

I tend to charge the same per hour that I do for the other work I do outside the furniture work (Professional Light Sound and Video systems) which is £30-£35 an hour.

 

[johna.clements]

You should work out all your costs. In addition to @Stigmorgan list

Cost of your workshop.
I have no idea what your workshop cost plus the tools in it but say the shed and tools cost £10000. The shed will need some maintenance and some tools will need replacement so you could budget £1000 year to repair and replace stuff including your time. If you assume you use your workshop 100 days a year that's £10 per day, so £10 on this job.

Any tools required for the job that are unlikely to be used for another job. Tools that may have limited use charge part.

Consumables including electricity.

Cost of the transport above the fuel, buy, repairs, maintenance, insurance.

Insurance for your work.

Your hourly rate should have NI contributions, sick pay insurance, holiday pay (add 12% for holiday pay) added on top.



Risk. This is difficult to price. A- What happens if they do not pay or they pay let and you have to spend time chasing them. B - What happens if you do some damage that is not covered by insurance or insurance excess. C - what happens if you are working outside and it will not stop raining so takes twice as long etc.
A £800 x 2% chance of happening (you decide the risk) + £16
B £1000 insurance excess x 1% + £10
C £200 days pay plus stuff x 4% + £8
Add £34 for risk.

 

[Kayen]

Always charge a minimum of one week for that sort of job, if they don't want to pay, let them find someone else. You'll easily spend 40 hours sorting, collecting materials, making, finishing, and fitting a couple of shelves.

 

[akirk]

intrigued by the costings - seems a lot to me. I am an amateur woodworker and don't charge for my work - however in terms of materials and time I made recently c. 10m of oak shelving and 1.5m of zebrano shelving. The wood was under a couple of hundred and my time in cutting / prepping / sanding / finishing the shelves under 4 hours (and I am sure that I am slow) - fitting is yet to be done, but based on others we have fitted I would suspect a couple of hours, using simple brackets...

I appreciate that the example above includes a simple box, but the walnut is a simple straight shelf - where is all the time and cost going? We have had a lot of chippy work done in our house over the last few years, including the building from scratch of a library, I am struggling to equate the above with 2 days of work, or as suggested above 5 days of work! If I was the customer I would struggle to accept a bill for £800+

Out of interest, how are you making the box / attaching it to the wall? I assume that both need to float, so the walnut shelf will also need hidden fixings - but how is that going to take 8 hours to fix?

Sorry if I am missing something...

 

[MARK.B.]

Always charge a minimum of one week for that sort of job, if they don't want to pay, let them find someone else. You'll easily spend 40 hours sorting, collecting materials, making, finishing, and fitting a couple of shelves.

Ok playing the Devils advocate here so don't shoot the messenger, i only potter about in my workshop making stuff for my own benefit and that of family and friends, so apart from the cost of materials i have the luxury in that i can take as long as i want actually doing the job . I also believe that those that do a trade to make a living need to make a profit and should indeed charge a fair days pay for a fair day's work.But in the case of the op wilfage he is making and fitting two shelves and if he were to charge £35 an hour for 40 hours the cost of those two shelves would be £1,400 ,now i'm sure that the op will make a great job in making and fitting them and should be compensated for his skills, but asking £1,400 for this job is overkill in the extreme.Sure the customer can take it or leave it and i think that most customers would indeed go elsewhere , i also think that if the op were to quote for all his work at those sort of rates he would soon have zero customers on his books.

 

[Jameshow]

Pin nose on reindeer quote -

2 days at £200 p/d.

£100 materials?

 

[johna.clements]

Out of interest, how are you making the box / attaching it to the wall? I assume that both need to float, so the walnut shelf will also need hidden fixings - but how is that going to take 8 hours to fix?

Sorry if I am missing something...

If the job takes six hours who will pay his wages for the rest of the day.

I assume that the job is not next door to his work shop.

At the start of the day he is going to have to load the shelves into the van and secure them so they do not get damaged. Plus if he does not have a garage he will have to load his tools into the van. Half hour min.
When he gets to the work site we will have to be let in, turn down a cup of tea, and carry the work and tools inside. Half hour min.
Say he takes four hours to fix the shelves and tidy up.
Then he as to let the client inspect the work and turn down another cup of tea then carry his tools out to the van. Half hour min
when he gets back to his work shop he has to secure his tools. put away unwanted materials and email the invoice to the client. Half hour min.
Thats six hours excluding lunch and driving time.

 

[akirk]

If the job takes six hours who will pay his wages for the rest of the day.

I assume that the job is not next door to his work shop.

At the start of the day he is going to have to load the shelves into the van and secure them so they do not get damaged. Plus if he does not have a garage he will have to load his tools into the van. Half hour min.
When he gets to the work site we will have to be let in, turn down a cup of tea, and carry the work and tools inside. Half hour min.
Say he takes four hours to fix the shelves and tidy up.
Then he as to let the client inspect the work and turn down another cup of tea then carry his tools out to the van. Half hour min
when he gets back to his work shop he has to secure his tools. put away unwanted materials and email the invoice to the client. Half hour min.
Thats six hours excluding lunch and driving time.

Not sure I buy that - sorry... I may not be very good at hacking wood around, but I have spent 35+ years in management consultancy focused on setting up and building small businesses. I am not sure I know of a business that accounts for its work like that to the client - yes you can factor it into an increased hourly rate, but ultimately the client will pay an hourly rate for the time they see work being done and not the time spent drinking coffee or tea Most self-employed will work out a number of chargeable hours per day and then the rate needed to earn their desired salary. Time spent loading the van and driving to the client is not in those chargeable hours - much as if I employ someone to work at an office in e.g. London, they will be paid for their time working for me - I won't be paying them for their time putting on their suit in the morning, making their lunch and then commuting to work. Yes, ultimately the person earning has to feel that there is a match between hours worked and commuted etc. and remuneration, but the job pays no more to the person commuting from 2 hours away than then person who lives 10 minutes away. It is totally normal for someone to bill 8 hours but work 10 and then have the invoice sending and admin in the evening.

If the job takes 6 hours - who pays his wages the rest of the day... not the client's responsibility - so he either only charges 6 hours that day, or he spends the rest of his day working on a project for another client...

Besides, is it really going to take 6 hours to put hose shelves on the wall - no idea of planned method, but let's imagine that for the walnut shelf we use brackets like these: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Floating-Brackets-Supports-Concealed-Invisible/dp/B094FG5TPG and all 6 were needed, then we could allow:
- 5 minutes to mark out the holes on the wall
- 5 minutes to drill the holes
- 5 minutes to screw in the screws
Presumably the box will have a similar system?
even doubling that time only brings us up to an hour for both - and we have been putting up a lot of shelves in this house recently, so we know we can mark and drill holes fast - with the right tools it is not difficult - mark left spot, set up laser level, measure along line and mark end spot, measure for intermediate holes... drill in rapid succession, and then use an impact driver to push in the screws... I am really struggling to understand how that is a day's work - or in one example above, part of an entire week's work.

There is no desire to be unfair to someone who works for themselves, but there can be a lack of reality, and simply passing on increasing costs to the punter will stop work being requested

 

[Kayen]

intrigued by the costings - seems a lot to me. I am an amateur woodworker and don't charge for my work - however in terms of materials and time I made recently c. 10m of oak shelving and 1.5m of zebrano shelving. The wood was under a couple of hundred and my time in cutting / prepping / sanding / finishing the shelves under 4 hours (and I am sure that I am slow) - fitting is yet to be done, but based on others we have fitted I would suspect a couple of hours, using simple brackets...

I appreciate that the example above includes a simple box, but the walnut is a simple straight shelf - where is all the time and cost going? We have had a lot of chippy work done in our house over the last few years, including the building from scratch of a library, I am struggling to equate the above with 2 days of work, or as suggested above 5 days of work! If I was the customer I would struggle to accept a bill for £800+

Out of interest, how are you making the box / attaching it to the wall? I assume that both need to float, so the walnut shelf will also need hidden fixings - but how is that going to take 8 hours to fix?

Sorry if I am missing something...

No problem, I can totally understand why you might think that, but making things for clients is totally different from making them for yourself.

First off you have to go and meet the clients:

1 hour getting ready = shower + gather together or make pertinent samples + making sure you have the necessary measuring equipment and that those that require it, have working batteries + sort out the relevant portfolio and any other information required, based upon your initial conversation with the client.

3 hours to see the job, which would include travel there, time with the client, and travel back. I'm never late, so I always allow an extra half an hour+ for travel time, trying to find the house time, and parking time, I've had some city appointments whereby I've had to park twenty minutes walk away.

Clients usually want drawings, or at least mine do. It also protects me from difficult clients - if I have made it clear what I'm supplying, I'm covered. In this case, the drawings wouldn't amount to much, but I would show them situated in the agreed place so they can see exactly what the job would look like.

Again for this job perhaps not, but quite often there is some discussion and some changes made that require a re-draw - so this has to be factored in.

Once the job has been established, I would need anything from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks to determine a materials and cutting list.

I would then spend some time ringing around the three wood yards I regularly use, to see who has the timber sizes required and at what price.

For a small job like this one, I would have to go and pick it up - at timber yards that can be a very slow process - at least two hours from the time I left to the time I returned, I would expect, but possibly more.

Unloading and storing the timber would probably take another half an hour.

Working out what ironmongery is required and ordering it will be more time.

I haven't added it up, but that's probably more than eight hours of work without even starting the job.

I couldn't turn up at one of my client's homes with a job anything less than perfect, so I would spend whatever time necessary to achieve this.

Spraying is often thought of as quick, but it is anything but. Each coat (except the last) has to be cut back - this is really time-consuming. Each face will require 4 coats (two base + two top), with one-hour drying in between. Each side should be masked to stop any overspray from accumulating on the underside - again, this is fiddly and time-consuming and adds to the cost in both materials and time.

So to spray something you need to allow at least eight hours - you can spray quite a lot in eight hours, but if it's only a few things it can't be shortened.

I use Morrells PU lacquer - it costs around £100 per 5 litres when you include the catalyst and thinners. It doesn't usually take long to order this, but it can if a colour match is required, which more than not, it is.

There is also the cost of compliance - air filters, masks that cost over £200 a pop, and waste control and removal - all very expensive.

The furniture needs to dry overnight before it's wrapped - if it is damaged in transit it will cost you hundreds of pounds to repair plus you have a disappointed customer and is unprofessional, so wrapping is of utmost importance, something most home woodworkers haven't even thought about, or considered, or experienced. On a large job it can easily take us two days to wrap and load.

Fitting even the simplest job requires a lot of organisation, sorting out dust sheets, emptying and loading your vacuum cleaner, sorting out dusters and cleaning products, plus the extensive list of tools and equipment required to do the simplest job is ridiculous, as you have to over compensate for the unexpected. At home you don't have to think about this, you just go and get what you need.

When you leave the customer's house, you're still not done. You have to drive back, unload, put everything away, sort out any rubbish, check your stock levels on what you've used (glues, masking tape, screws etc.) and re-order things as necessary. This all takes time.

So yes, to do that job I would definitely allow a week, and can quite easily justify the cost - on a small job like that I would however ask the client if they have any other small pieces they require - they always do, especially as it won't add much if anything to the overall cost.

I've probably just covered the tip of the iceberg, you'll either get it or not

 

[Phill05]

No problem, I can totally understand why you might think that, but making things for clients is totally different from making them for yourself.

First off you have to go and meet the clients:

1 hour getting ready = shower + gather together or make pertinent samples + making sure you have the necessary measuring equipment and that those that require it, have working batteries + sort out the relevant portfolio and any other information required, based upon your initial conversation with the client.

3 hours to see the job, which would include travel there, time with the client, and travel back. I'm never late, so I always allow an extra half an hour+ for travel time, trying to find the house time, and parking time, I've had some city appointments whereby I've had to park twenty minutes walk away.

Clients usually want drawings, or at least mine do. It also protects me from difficult clients - if I have made it clear what I'm supplying, I'm covered. In this case, the drawings wouldn't amount to much, but I would show them situated in the agreed place so they can see exactly what the job would look like.

Again for this job perhaps not, but quite often there is some discussion and some changes made that require a re-draw - so this has to be factored in.

Once the job has been established, I would need anything from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks to determine a materials and cutting list.

I would then spend some time ringing around the three wood yards I regularly use, to see who has the timber sizes required and at what price.

For a small job like this one, I would have to go and pick it up - at timber yards that can be a very slow process - at least two hours from the time I left to the time I returned, I would expect, but possibly more.

Unloading and storing the timber would probably take another half an hour.

Working out what ironmongery is required and ordering it will be more time.

I haven't added it up, but that's probably more than eight hours of work without even starting the job.

I couldn't turn up at one of my client's homes with a job anything less than perfect, so I would spend whatever time necessary to achieve this.

Spraying is often thought of as quick, but it is anything but. Each coat (except the last) has to be cut back - this is really time-consuming. Each face will require 4 coats (two base + two top), with one-hour drying in between. Each side should be masked to stop any overspray from accumulating on the underside - again, this is fiddly and time-consuming and adds to the cost in both materials and time.

So to spray something you need to allow at least eight hours - you can spray quite a lot in eight hours, but if it's only a few things it can't be shortened.

I use Morrells PU lacquer - it costs around £100 per 5 litres when you include the catalyst and thinners. It doesn't usually take long to order this, but it can if a colour match is required, which more than not, it is.

There is also the cost of compliance - air filters, masks that cost over £200 a pop, and waste control and removal - all very expensive.

The furniture needs to dry overnight before it's wrapped - if it is damaged in transit it will cost you hundreds of pounds to repair plus you have a disappointed customer and is unprofessional, so wrapping is of utmost importance, something most home woodworkers haven't even thought about, or considered, or experienced. On a large job it can easily take us two days to wrap and load.

Fitting even the simplest job requires a lot of organisation, sorting out dust sheets, emptying and loading your vacuum cleaner, sorting out dusters and cleaning products, plus the extensive list of tools and equipment required to do the simplest job is ridiculous, as you have to over compensate for the unexpected. At home you don't have to think about this, you just go and get what you need.

When you leave the customer's house, you're still not done. You have to drive back, unload, put everything away, sort out any rubbish, check your stock levels on what you've used (glues, masking tape, screws etc.) and re-order things as necessary. This all takes time.

So yes, to do that job I would definitely allow a week, and can quite easily justify the cost - on a small job like that I would however ask the client if they have any other small pieces they require - they always do, especially as it won't add much if anything to the overall cost.

I've probably just covered the tip of the iceberg, you'll either get it or not

And do you really get work and repeat work with an attitude like that.

 

[Jones]

There's two ways of pricing work, add up costs and your time or just how much you think the client will pay. You can work faster and more efficiently to increase your hourly rate. I wouldn't pay £800 for two shelves but then I wouldn't want 8 coats of lacquer on them either.

 

[HOJ]

Can't help you @Wilfage on your pricing, however, within reason I agree with @Kayen , as a "professional" the amount of time & effort that goes in to delivering (mostly behind the scenes) even a simple looking, but bespoke job is considerable.

This may sound arrogant but I ask what is the budget, having had more than enough of people promise everything then admitting they've got no money.

I see hour/day rates quoted on forums, I know of chippy's working on building sites @ £400.00/day

 

[Kayen]

And do you really get work and repeat work with an attitude like that.

What, with an attitude that means I turn up on the day that I say I will, on time, and provide the highest quality furniture with care and passion? Err yes, I do thanks

 

[johna.clements]

Not sure I buy that - sorry... I may not be very good at hacking wood around, but I have spent 35+ years in management consultancy focused on setting up and building small businesses. I am not sure I know of a business that accounts for its work like that to the client - yes you can factor it into an increased hourly rate, but ultimately the client will pay an hourly rate for the time they see work being done and not the time spent drinking coffee or tea Most self-employed will work out a number of chargeable hours per day and then the rate needed to earn their desired salary. Time spent loading the van and driving to the client is not in those chargeable hours - much as if I employ someone to work at an office in e.g. London, they will be paid for their time working for me - I won't be paying them for their time putting on their suit in the morning, making their lunch and then commuting to work. Yes, ultimately the person earning has to feel that there is a match between hours worked and commuted etc. and remuneration, but the job pays no more to the person commuting from 2 hours away than then person who lives 10 minutes away. It is totally normal for someone to bill 8 hours but work 10 and then have the invoice sending and admin in the evening.

If the job takes 6 hours - who pays his wages the rest of the day... not the client's responsibility - so he either only charges 6 hours that day, or he spends the rest of his day working on a project for another client...

Besides, is it really going to take 6 hours to put hose shelves on the wall - no idea of planned method, but let's imagine that for the walnut shelf we use brackets like these: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Floating-Brackets-Supports-Concealed-Invisible/dp/B094FG5TPG and all 6 were needed, then we could allow:
- 5 minutes to mark out the holes on the wall
- 5 minutes to drill the holes
- 5 minutes to screw in the screws
Presumably the box will have a similar system?
even doubling that time only brings us up to an hour for both - and we have been putting up a lot of shelves in this house recently, so we know we can mark and drill holes fast - with the right tools it is not difficult - mark left spot, set up laser level, measure along line and mark end spot, measure for intermediate holes... drill in rapid succession, and then use an impact driver to push in the screws... I am really struggling to understand how that is a day's work - or in one example above, part of an entire week's work.

There is no desire to be unfair to someone who works for themselves, but there can be a lack of reality, and simply passing on increasing costs to the punter will stop work being requested

So you install the shelves in 15 minutes do not protect anything and do not clear up after yourself.
Next day you get an irate client complaining about the scratches on the shelves where you have just chucked them in the van and dragged them out. There is dust everywhere some of which has scratched the floor.

This job is on a price not hourly rate. It is normal to price all the activities directly associated with a job to that job. People do not work for free even though some people seem to think that they should.

 

[macca]

As with anything there are markets for every budget, Kayens approach will most certainly get repeat customers, no part of his answer even iterated towards his manor with regrads to a customer, his approach seems to me to be professional and thought out with enough allowance to actually perform a task in relatively predictable way thus (hopefully) not disappointing a customer.
Unfortunately people are accustomed to cheap commodities and this in my opinion clouds peoples judgement as to what services truly cost. Jobs inevitably take longer than you think they will when you walk through the process in your head trying to conjure up a timescale in order to quote, knowing how long it really takes unfortunately only comes with experience, as does speed. It is unfair to charge a customer too much for a project merely because you are slow, but equally people are inclined to rush a job because they haven't charged enough.

Slinging up a shelf in 15 minutes is not a respectful approach to fitting a bespoke piece of built in furniture for a customer, in that 15 minutes theres no consideration for the make up of a wall, mindfully checking the possibility of services where you are drilling, hell maybe the shelf needs scribing to the wall because you spent no time surveying the wall prior to install and now you have a significant task to conduct, on site, that will make or break the finish.

Running a small business in this industry to a respectable standard is not about how much you are charging, its about the work you are doing, you need to allow for contingencies because sh!t regularly hits the fan and if you are not prepared to deal with it professionally that is what the customer remembers.

With regards to this particular project I will say this, a very common misconception is that simple, minimalist design is somehow easy and or quick because of the simple design, it is not, to execute a flawless finish on such a piece is quite hard. Gloss finishes show up any surface discrepancies, matt finishes pick up dirt and are harder to clean, abutments to a wall are clean visible lines that stick out to eye when they are not correct, there are no mouldings, lipping's, trims or any such things to mask any aspect of the piece, to put it simply there is no way to hide any mistakes.

Care takes time, people want handmade, bespoke design because care goes into it, if people are not willing to give you time to stand back and think through a problem correctly and pay you for your expertise, they are not the customers you want in the first place.

 

[baldkev]

Interesting thread.
One thing customers dont necessarily see is the cost of carpentry / building. As others have said, seeing the jobs, meeting customers, drawings where necessary, pricing, invoicing etc etc.... but on top of the 'non work' bits, theres tools. Yep sure, you could get by with a handsaw, combi drill and a chisel, but realistically these days we all have thousands of pounds of kit. I have something like 900 quids worth of batteries. Most of my kit is now brushless cordless.
A high quality laser level isnt cheap. In fact high quality manual levels arent cheap.
A lot of kit gets bought to make a job quicker/ better, but that isnt supposed to benefit the customer, but benefit the tradesman. For instance, i bought a power barrow, when i use it i charge a hire cost plus fuel. I bought a ppn nail gun to speed up joist hangers.... if pricing a job i wouldn't allow 30 seconds for nailing up each hanger because i paid a fair whack to make it quicker, so i price it as if i was hand nailing, therefore slowly recouping my cost.

Pricing is hard.
Try not to undersell yourself

 

[Setch]

£800 is extremely fair, I certainly wouldn't want to charge any less. Loading, unloading, protecting painted or otherwise finished work for transport, all this takes time, and should be chargeable otherwise you're cutting your own throat.

I am constantly trying to remind myself to add 50% to my estimates before sending them as I inevitably underestimate how long things will take, and it's far easier to reduce a price if you've erred on the side if caution, than to ask for more money when you've underestimated.

 

[akirk]

I get many of the comments, but am amazed that anyone finds a client prepared to pay £800, let alone a week’s wages for just two shelves! I have over the years commissioned all sorts of work in various houses, and all sorts of artwork from high end fine furniture (bespoke oak /walnut desk, and oak chess table) to portraits, illustrations, other artwork… and I have never paid that amount proportionally (I paid more for the desk but it was worlds apart in terms of work…)

good luck to those who can get away with charging that!