Encapsulation-what do you charge?

[SusanG]

What do you charge for encapsulation? Luckily I have the materials and my customer has a small pile of documents to be encapsulated. Do you charge by size or per document? Most are around 8 1/2 x 11 size. They won't be framed. Usually I charge a hefty amount for one document because it takes a lot of set up time to unwrap the mylar, set up my glass cutting surface, and to make sure that everything is as dust free as possible.... I have no clue as to how long the roll is to figure out my materials cost and I bought it quite a few years ago.

Any ideas on how you price encapsulation would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Susan

 

[Jim Miller]

Time and Materials

What do you charge for encapsulation? Luckily I have the materials and my customer has a small pile of documents to be encapsulated.

Apply your shop labor rate to whatever time it takes to create the mount, add material cost and profit.

For example, if it takes 2 minutes to dig out the rolls of clear film and 3M #889 double sided tape, plus 10 minutes to make one mount, plus 2 minutes to put away the leftovers, that's 14 minutes x $65/hour (in my shop) =$15.08, plus $2 for materials (which cost less than $1) =$17.08. My shop labor rate includes profit, and so does the material price.

I suggest putting a standard price into your POS software, based on frame size. That is, calculate your price for a typical mount and put it into $/UI. For example, if the $17.08 mount is for 11x14, that's $0.68 per UI. If the frame is big, so is the mounting charge -- but you probably have more than one mount in it. In my POS system, we have add-on labor fees from $10 to $100, which may be added as needed for extra labor time.

To compensate for multiple mounts, you could price a "setup charge" separately. I do not, however. A mount is a mount. If I can save cost by doing them in multiples -- for one or more customers' jobs at a time -- then that's to my benefit.