New to plasma cutting. New to the site. Information overload but I'm trying to soak it up.
I have a chance to cut some pieces for a local gift shop owner. They have provided me with the material (reclaimed corrugated metal 26ga.). I load and cut. Just simple designs from freedxf, etc. Really no cad time involved so far, just setup and cut. How do I charge for just cutting? Flat hourly, by the piece, by the linear inch?
I thought by the linear inch because each piece is somewhat different, its low volume, a hand full at a time. It would be easy to figure a price per piece. That leaves me asking how is price per cut inch figured? I've seen the spreadsheets. Figuring material costs is straight forward. But the cost per inch cut figure is on the spread sheets with no explanation as to how it was figured. Is this figure the same for everyone? Can someone explain where this figure comes from or the factors I can use to determine my own price per cut ?
First, welcome to the forum. You might check into becoming a contributing member, it helps keep the site up and running, it's cheap, and you can post and download files to use. Did I mention it's cheap and it keeps the place up and running?
Everyone's cut price is different. See below.
How much do you want to make?
How much does it cost you to cut?
What are your hard / fixed costs?
What are your variable costs?
How saturated is the market where you are?
What's your target audience?
Are you going to charge for pierces?
What markup are you going to use on your material?
What's your cost on your material?
Does the above number include your time for getting the material, gas, loading, unloading and racking, placing on the table, re-racking the drop etc?
Are you going to furnish clean parts, or will they need cleanup / grinding?
How much does it cost you to grind / clean them?
Last but not least, there are 11 pages of threads in the pricing forum. Go to page 11, and read backwards from there. If you get all the way back to this thread, and you still have questions, post them and we would be happy to help you. I'm not trying to be facetious, but if you bought a table, and are setting up a business to run, and have no idea about any of the above questions, I would suggest contacting your local small business development council. They can help you get your head around things like fixed and variable costs, operation costs and overhead, profit margin, market saturation, market development, and most important, can help you develop a business plan. With a solid business plan, you will quickly know what you need to charge to make money and turn a profit. If you are just doing it out of boredom, for practice, or any other reason, just pick a number, and grip it and rip it.
