How Much to charge:

admin

I've been using my new Hobart 140 daily.  I've made some items from horseshoes, garden stakes, nothing intricate and no WOW factor involved.Question is people (I have no idea why) want to buy these projects.  My question is how do you figure what to charge people for the thing you or I have.  I'm not looking to get rich and im not looking to overcharge anyone.  My time and material have a cost.  I just don't know what that cost is.
Reply:Come up with a minimum number to cover your materials/time and then see what people offer. If they don't exceed your minimum, then counter with it, otherwise take their offer. Anything is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Reply:Material cost should be easy. What did the actual materials cost you? If you use say 3 horse shoes to make a wall hook, and each shoe costs $3, then you are in at least $( to start with. Then there's things that are a bit harder to figure. Wire and gas with mig, Rods with stick etc, where you only use a part of a total. Here you need to estimate how much you used. Then there's other things like sanding disks, paint, any fasteners etc. Add all that up along with any other expenses, say business cards if advertizing, electric, shop rental and so on. Now you know what it cost YOU to make it. Now the big question is how much do you want to make. How long did it take you to make this item? 1 hour, 10 hours or whatever. If it took you 10 hours and you want to make $10 an hour, then it's $100 added to the cost to make it.The tough part is balancing that with what some one will pay for an item. It's tough say to make shepherds crooks for plant hangers. 1/2" round stock runs lets say $1/ foot to keep numbers easy. If you need 10' of stock to make a 6' crook with 2 hooks, cost is $10 in materials, plus pain, sanding disks, wire/ gas etc. However Wally world sells these for $12, so you really don't make anything on one unless you can convince someone to pay extra for yours. Ebay, Etsy and so on will often give you an idea what others are asking for something similar to what you are making. If simple 3 shoe coat hooks are selling for between $15-20 each on Etsy, then pricing yours at $45 most likely isn't going to get you many sales unless yours are special for some reason. If we use the original example and you spent $9 on shoes, lets say $6 on everything else, and you price it on the high side at $20 each, you make $5 on each one... It's up to you to decide if that's reasonable for your time. In some cases guys are happy to break even. Then at least their practice is "free". In other cases guys won't even bother to make something like this if they can't crank them out so fast that it takes only minutes to earn that $5. If not, they just won't bother..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:I really do appreciate the advice.  I can't compete with Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes etc.  There's nothing special about my horseshoe projects. They're horseshoes.  WELCOME signs, bookends, coatracks, hooks, Crosses, clovers etc.  breaking even is good and $5.00 more is $5.00 I didn't have before.