The Framers Forum

i had to drop everything and do a rush job, mount back and wrap 15 photos 5x5x7 , 5x6x8 and 5x8x10 low cost materials but a lot of stress as courier was booked to pick them up i've no idea what to charge, i've been self employed for 5 years and still cant get my head around pricing! just me in a workshop low overheads, while im at it what should i be charging fof a 400x500 and a 500x700 with mount at 60p a foot ? with two teenagers to support i've got to get my act together stop being so nice and start making some money. i seem to have it in my head that because im in a workshop i cant charge high street prices, anyone else have this problem ?

I used to work it all out manually and i was never comfortable with my pricing structure, there was a lack of continuity, it all seemed a bit hit and miss, thats just for me. Things got alot easier when i bought a computerised pricing program and it gives me more confidance, the price is...as stated.
when i do a mount/back/wrap,say 300mm by 250mm, i charge the cost of the mount, say £1.50, the back, say 75p, and the sleeve, say 30p, so thats £2.55 materials(including mark up), nowadays i charge a flat rate for putting all together, - £5 - unless its really huge. so overall price per unit is £7.55. I find customers happy to pay this "fitting" charge. They know they will get a professional looking product without having to do all the fiddly stuff.

I would say its not unreasonable to charge, say £40 per hour whether ur in a shop or a garage, Its the expertise and experience they are paying u for as much as anything else, "a labourer is worthy of his hire". I find i do a lot of faffing about that i dont get paid for, like spending half an hour helping customer to choose a £2 mount, telling the grockles where the nearest toilets are, i dont know why they always come to ask in my shop!! so i think a higher labour charge redresses the balance. all i wish is that every job that came throuth the door was a £200 frame, then it'd be happy days!!

Being new to framing, would it be reasonable to charge what you would pay for the job yourself if you were the customer? or is it much more complex than that.

i have been going six months now and find it hard to charge what i should be, i get nervous and knock a bit off before even quoting. i tried the trial of estlite but didn't find that it worked for me.

i do alot of double mount with back and wraps about 12" x 12", i charge about £4 each but it is for an artist who i like and he brings alot of work my way. maybe i would charge £7.50 normally for a one off if i had the courage.

It's all too easy to disregard the time taken on small procedures. It may take only a couple of minutes to hinge a mount, hinge the pic and wrap it. But do 15 and that's half an hour. In reality it will probably take longer...... So in this case the price diff between supplying mounts/backs only and fitting the photos is and extra hours labour.

I found this out once when I was doing a big order for about 60 frames. I got them all done apart from fixing the hangings. That's the easy bit I thought. All downhill from now on...... But consider this: Average about 3 mins to string each frame (some were BIG). That's three hours. But also consider that standing at a bench continuously for three hours is tough going. In practice, Parkinsons Law come into play. Suffice to say, I was still stringing the last few frames as the customer was loading his exhibition into his van. 5am as I recall, Been stringing all night.

Basic pricing for me is 3x material costs + labour @ your hourly rate (hourly rate x2 if its a rush)
let the courier wait, your time is as presious as theirs.

Labour charges
look at how much money you need to live on; divide that by how many hours you work weekly.
thats your hourly rate.
You may find your working longer hours than you calculated thats tough I know but the better you get the more accurate your forcast gets. The better you get the better you feel about yourself the less stress you put yourself under (the courier can wait alittle longer) or you get to know what jobs you can do and those you dont want.

as far as your sizes as a rule of thumb you can get two gatefold
mounts (400x500) out of a sheet of board
if a board costs you £5 ~ £5 x 3 = £15 / 2 = £7.50
Labour cost @ say £12ph
average time to cut mounts (inc tape hinge) is 6 mins each ~ £12.00 / 60 = .20 per min x 6 = £1.20
You could add another £1 for the hinge tape and wrapping. £1.00

Total £9.70 each

Teresa wrote:. i seem to have it in my head that because im in a workshop i cant charge high street prices, anyone else have this problem ?

You cant really charge High street because your over heads are lower.(That is depending on what your workshop cost you)
Find out how much the TOTAL business costs you to run
Find out how much money you need to live
work out from the above how much money you need to bring in to cover these add 33%
(33% is the raw materials you'll need to complete the work)
that will give you a rough estimate of what your turnover needs to be.

Teresa wrote:. while I'm at it what should i be charging for a 400x500 and a 500x700 with mount at 60p a foot ?

I find charging per inch is a better system but that maybe just me

I have a simple way of pricing, I charge four times the cost of materiels, five times for rush jobs and three times for contract work, i have never been out of pocket and seems a fair way of dealing with customers, you will always get rush jobs in this industry, think of them as the cream and just work a little later to catch up again, there is no point as i see it in over, over charging for this work as they simply will not come back again and worst still tell people how expensive you were more so in a budget frame job. I see a lot of framers who go into overdrive with greed at such jobs and i just would not do this. A fair price for a fair job, Nor would i try to make the single customer give me my salary by overcharging it seems anyone doing this needs to find more customers and give a good job at a fair and honest price. As for framing at an hourly rate i never thought that a good idea.....Some framers are faster than others and some as slow as the next coming of christ what takes one person 1 hour may take 2 or three for someone else.....this is why i price only on cost of materiels.....this is also an insentive to get the finger out get it done and on to the next job, eg....42 frames to make for wednesday (rush job) email from someone in France 6 to do for tuesday (Rush job) i still have my customers work to do and all hell breaks loose on wednesday with my contract work.....I will not charge any more than 4.5-5 times cost of materiels for the rush jobs and will work a little later to catch up.

Davie wrote:I have a simple way of pricing, I charge four times the cost of materiels

If that works for your business Davie, stick to it.
It would bankrupt me.
It depends how you work. Occasionally i make frames that take a week. One of these used £100 of materials; one used £1000 worth. If i just multiplied my materials x4, one would not cover my outgoings for the week; the other would be overpriced.
The secret is to find the way it works best for the way you work.

With rush-jobs, I will charge a premium if it means working evenings or weekends, but if the job doesn't represent overtime they get the usual rate.

But maybe I'm too soft-hearted

Or too soft-headed

Thought I'd better say it before someone else does

I will stick to it thanks and im nowhere near bankruptcy......I guess a frame (hand finished i presume) and taking a week to do is hardly a rush job.....No i think we were talking of the ordinary framing jobs that come along as a RUSH job! if i do hand finished framing i do charge these at a premium, that said if its just oak frame or ash something of that nature with some wax or liming in reality is just another frame, the minute the gesso is applied im into another area altogether and the costs rise rapidly............42 frames ready as a RUSH JOB FOR MID WEEK will NOT be hand finished but are of good quality Lopez moulding. These will be started in the morning and WILL be finished that day with no problems and a very very healthy profit with no sign of me going bankrupt in the process, i should also say that these frames are mostly frame and slip only 12 with glass and the rest without ............the result a very good profit, My customer is delighted as am i the customer has used many many framers over the years who either cant deliver on time or the work is of poor quality, i have done this customers work for four years now and have never let him down and he gets a great price its just that i work bloody hard to get it all done within my own time frame....For me being self employed is not about being able to open and close when i like with a minimum of effort for maximum profit, its about building a business with a reputation of quality, value a curteous approroach and bending backwards not to mention biting my lip at times. I dont know about other people here but i have been in other framers workshops and the work ethics leaves me to think whilst they may not be lazy they just prioritise in a differant way, i even know of one who farms work out, NOT because he has too much but he just cant be bothered to work, but will sit on the phone most of the day talking to other framers and gallerys about how dreadful the industry is in, rather than get on and do some work.....Makes me laugh

Teresa wrote:i've no idea what to charge

You need a system that comes up, bar price increases, with the same figure each time - it's not difficult, and you need it before you say 'BOO' to the world as a framer or anything else.

If you work out, thinking on your feet, a figure of £X on that job and the same customer comes back 2 weeks later with something similar and suddenly the price is different - the customer's memory will be better than yours. If it's slightly more you can blame increases in costs, if it's slightly less you could say you have achieved a discount that you are passing on.

But it's better to be confident in your pricing system and not to have to rely on your memory, if it's different you need to be able to jutify why, especially if it's significantly different - and double confident if it's a penny less - people don't expect that.

My system's archaic but it works - a 'united inch' chart - prices per foot of moulding down the side and sizes across the top - a 20x16* frame would come under '36' across the top - so would a 19x16, or a 21x15, or a 10x25, but a 20.5x16.5 would come under the next column, which is '39'

Where the two lines meet - BINGO! That's the 'basic frame' price, which includes moulding, standard glass, single mount and undermount, backing, fitting and hardware.

Below, under each size, is a list of add-ons, (or take- offs) extra mount, mount only (this would be more than the extra mount, up to twice as much actually, but for 'a lot' (of the same size and maybe the same colour) - I'd use the 'extra mount' price) Washlines, single lines, embossed lines, needlework lacing, canvas stretching, boxed canvas stretching, fitting, different types of glass....... more.

Then, on the back of the chart, are things that are not covered on the front, such as sports shirts and mounting of 3-D objects. Basic guidelines.

Sometimes the system does not cover the situation, and neither would a computerised system if you had to source materials and/or information, in which case I could still give the 'basic frame' price and a pretty good idea/estimate of the rest. In those cases either the customer can wait, with a coffee, while I make some calls/do some calcs, or bugger off and I'll get back to them with an exact price ASP.

But it wouldn't be for something as basic as mounting and wrapping some photos, you really should be able to price that at a glance, it's a simple job - the customer sees it as such too.

I agree with Robo.....A book (chart) set out with all your pricing within at whatever markup band groups of moulding together eg, a group at say 60p-75p would be band A more at 76p - 90p band B and so on work on the mounts glass etc it is very labour intensive but it does work...I worked this way for years and based on this system put in a computor pricing system only because i find customers accept a computor and dont argue for a lower price whereas with the book i always got "can you do it a wee bit cheaper", As for backing and wrapping, Again i agree with Robo, This sort of thing is done at a glance, I know of contract framers who will mount the print with a double mount extra thick on top 2000 micron then back and wrap a 12x12 for £4....and do a mount on its own for £1 in whitecore 12x8, Now to me thats a wee bit of a joke, but they do make money and with 14 framers must be doing something right i guess....Ah the power of bulk buying

Being quite new to this business myself I can fully sympathise with you Teresa (and elly-d!). I found pricing correctly to be the most difficult area when setting up, but decided to go the computerised route from the start.

I’d be interested to know how long elly spent with EstLite, because I tried a few programs and found this the best and most comprehensive solution. It still took me quite some time to get my (thick) head around the program (and I only use the basic version!) but I think it was well worth the time spent.

It gives you confidence in the consistency of your pricing structure for one thing (once you’ve set it up as you require). Also, you can quote different prices and variations for different mouldings, glass etc. etc. with just a few clicks – makes you look very efficient and up-to-date. One commercial client I had was most impressed as I quoted various prices immediately whilst on their site with my laptop!

This is not to say that any computer program automatically gives you the other essential - confidence in quoting the given price! Quite a lot has been written on the Forum about quoting inadequately for work undertaken being the biggest mistake new starters make. I’m all too familiar with the ‘nerves and knocking a bit off syndrome’ and it’s a habit I’m trying very hard to break, but when you’re new and need the work and you can sense what your customer’s reaction is going to be it’s all too easy to cave in!

Courage and confidence is certainly what you need. As stated, whether you’re in a high street shop or a garage workshop like me, if you are carrying out a professional job then the customer must expect to pay for your expertise. How often have you knocked that bit off the price only to kick yourself a few days later when actually doing the job and thinking ‘D*mn! I should’ve charged more, not less, the time this is taking me!)