How to charge

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Bharat Mirchandani

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Mar 14, 2006
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Mumbai India
How does one charge. How much might differ from person to person and job to job, but I am interested in knowing “how to” meaning glass per sq.ft. mat per sq.in. moulding per inch etc. is there a system.I know rates will be different here in Mumbai but if someone can throw some light on the method.Thanks
 
You gave me a chuckle. There are many, many systems. As near as I have figured it out, if you can dream it up, there is a framer using it. United inches, sq whatevers, bury labor in markup, (materials * markup) + labor.

Most of the "systems" were developed to make it easy to get a price while the customer waits. These were set up before POS systems were available. POS or non-POS probably will drive which method you use more than anything else.

Then there's the "what's your minimum" question. A bunch of people will chime in with make sure you charge more than the cost of a lite/board/whatever even if you're only using 1 sq inch.

Unfortunately, I believe you can make any system work. You need to figure out what will work for you given your resources (POS/chart/hand calculator for instance) and make sure you're getting the profit you need.
 
one thing that I have found over the years is that most systems start at 5" x 7" for a price catagory.

I personnaly think that size is a bit small. I have set 8" x 10" as a minimum size. The labor is the same!
 
As Cliff hinted, if you poll 100 framers, you’ll probably get 110 different opinions; each defending his position as passionately as he would trying to extol the virtues of his favorite soft drink or cream filled cupcake.

I am of the opinion that since glass and mats are purchased by the square inch (or foot or meter), they should be sold by the square inch, too. I convert United Inches into square inches, multiply my wholesale cost by a markup and add labor, like Cliff suggested. Others strongly disagree. Okay, but it works for me.

I use a spreadsheet – it give me the flexibility to manipulate my data in whatever complex and off-the-wall way I choose. I have designed it to make changes to wholesale prices, labor costs and markups very quick and easy.

However, nearly everyone who has a POS swears by it.

Most of us view our pricing scheme as proprietary and may be somewhat reluctant to share them except in the broadest terms.
 
Originally posted by Cliff Wilson:

Unfortunately, I believe you can make any system work.
Click to expand...
That is so true. That is why there is no clear path to pricing Nirvana.

You just have to make sure that at the end of the day you have made enough money to cover the effort put forth. I know that sounds very simplistic, however I have met a lot of Framers that work very very hard to break even.
 
I always charge a minimum of four feet for a frame no matter what the size. Smaller frames are often more difficult to work with than larger sizes.

OK, I do have an exception. If I'm using a very expensive moulding and have a "scrap" in stock, then my customer's attitude sometimes will dictate my willingness to budge.

Pricing is very much a science and an art. I often get jobs which are fixing up someone's old frames and rejoining, refitting, re-matting, remounting, re-hinging, re-la-de-da-de-da-ing. I actually enjoy this type of work and dread it at the same time. The only way to do this type of job is to guesstimate the materials and time it will take to do the work. I take it in as a "labor-of-love" and do everything I can to preserve the providence of the frame and the work enclosed...including reapplying other framers stickers, copying information I find inside the frame package, upgrading everything I can to conservation quality.

New frame pricing, unless very customized, is fairly standard as shown in another thread now on this forum. Sure there are aberrations, but most prices fall into a close spectrum range. Differences can be explained by geographic locations and resultant overhead. Even though the formulas used for pricing vary greatly, the results tend to reflect the free market.

One thing to note, however, is that even though the prices are usually similar, it is the minute differences that reflect profit. A 5% difference may not seem large, but the difference over an accounting period on the bottom line is humongous!

I guess my best advise would be to price your work at what you feel the market will accept...and then add 10% more. Deliver quality work and the customer will generally never complain. That has been my experience.

Dave Makielski
 
One draw back to "sq in" or "UI", and we use both...is that is assumes a normal rectangle. But if you have a 60"x5" (300SI - 130UI) strip frame... it only sees and carges for 16x20 or (320SI - 72UI)[or 18x24 in the case of UI].

No system is perfect. They all just need a little minding and nudging once in a while. :D

Dave, if you nudge that to 5' minumum, you capture some of that shipping too.
 
Buy yourself a good pos software package and then tweak what they do til it meets with your local area.
 
Bharat, Don't want to go off topic but......have you ever been officially welcomed to the Grumble? I'd like to welcome you. Maybe it has already been discussed and I just missed it, but, could you tell us what the framing world is like in India, I'd love to know. Finally we have a new Grumbler who isn't from North Carolina and just happens to be from somewhere fascinating. If you want to share with us, start a new thread, I don't want to deviate from this one, I just had to ask.

Now, we resume normally scheduled discussion.
 
How do your competitors price their product?
 
I've come across 4-5 framers in mumbai who do a professional framing job, am in the process of getting quotes from them.Availability of mount boards is limited to 4 manufacturers viz.Crescent/Daler-Rowney/colourmount and Moorman-Karton.There are several street side shops who sell preframed pictures of Hindu Gods.In fact I remember reading somewhere that in an Indian Home the only frames you see are deceased ancestors and Gods.All thet is changing now with the new breed of interior decorators, thats where I come in the picture.
 
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