Screen Printing Pricing

[MC PRINTING]

I have ordered all of my equipment and everything starts rolling in tomorrow and I will be assembling over the weekend. During this time of waiting for my equipment, I have been looking at local screen printing shops to take a look at some of their pricing as far as how many colors and shirts that will be printed on. I have also been looking to see what their setup costs are for art as well as for each screen that will be used. Are any of you able to direct me to a good website or a book that can help me to figure out pricing per color, per shirt,  4 flashing and 4 setup. I do know that every location geographical location is different when it comes to pricing but any information would help me thank you in advance.

[1964GN]

The only way you can figure out YOUR pricing is to pin down YOUR costs. You can price yourself in the same ball park as your competitors but if your cost to produce a garment is higher than theirs, that's a bad thing. What ever pricing structure you end up with needs to be profitable for YOU.

Wish I had a better answer.

[Maxie]

Printing is easy, costing is the hard part.
One of the biggest problems with costing is caused by not knowing how many pieces you'll print or hours you'll work.     If that was constant it would be easy.
You should start by working out all your fixed costs, rent, wages (including yourself), electricity, accounts, bank charges etc.     Divide that by the numbers of hours you actually work and that's your cost per hour for running your place.     Anything you make over that is profit.
Remember when costing that if you print say 100 shirts an hour you cannot do that for whole day.
You need to cost on the average.
There is a lot of info on costing, doesn't have to be directly related to silk screen.

[Sbrem]

you can look at other shops' pricing, but it will be misleading. As Maxie says, you need to estimate all of your costs (since you have no history to go by yet) and decide if what you charge covers that, and makes a profit so you can continue to grow (takes money to make money right?) This is the part no one tells you about when you start a business, but please don't be discouraged, it's all perfectly doable, just be ready to work harder than you ever thought.

Steve

[GraphicDisorder]

Take a look at shops that are where you want to be. If possible look at their pricing. Use it as a guide. Doesn't mean yours should match it but you can use it to see a ball park. You need to know your own math for sure as far as daily running cost just to open the door and power up everything and keep your personal life turning. Then work from there.

My pricing is right on my site, feel free to look at it if you'd like a shops pricing to consider. My pricing isn't perfect, I was for years considered a bottom feeder. Now I see we are often not the lowest posting here. In either case we have modern everything here. 12/14 Challenger 3D, Starlight, CTS, Sprint 3000 and all the other supporting equipment. In fact everything in this building is 2013 or newer equipment other than our 3 x SWF Embroidery Machines. We are looking at adding a second press this year and doing a expansion in our building that will probably cost us 6 figures. Things are going well.

[3Deep]

As been said already you can compare other shops pricing, but what's going to really determine your pricing besides your cost to produce the prints, is your area.  By that I mean the economics in your area, if that is going to be your base market, if you have a sells team then price will be base on the area that they work, everyone want's to make as much money as they can but yet still treat the customers right.  Sometimes I really wonder if any of us get this pricing right, we've been in the biz for 15 years and still it's a debate LOL

[Frog]

I just remembered that you mentioned that you are going to be working out of your garage.
Do not, I repeat DO NOT make the common mistake of figuring no, or at least hardly any overhead because you are paying for the home already anyway.
Just as with your taxes, for a home based business, you will need to figure the percentage of your home that is used for your business and figure that same percentage to figure some parts of your overhead (called indirect expenses on your taxes)
Rent, mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities (unless you have a way of determining direct expenses for your business electricity) all need to be figured in.

Those who ignore this advice find major problems if and when they move to a separate business location and suddenly have trouble paying their bills.

[Northland]

I have ordered all of my equipment and everything starts rolling in tomorrow and I will be assembling over the weekend. During this time of waiting for my equipment, I have been looking at local screen printing shops to take a look at some of their pricing as far as how many colors and shirts that will be printed on. I have also been looking to see what their setup costs are for art as well as for each screen that will be used. Are any of you able to direct me to a good website or a book that can help me to figure out pricing per color, per shirt,  4 flashing and 4 setup. I do know that every location geographical location is different when it comes to pricing but any information would help me thank you in advance.

Here's a basic time/cost estimator I use for developing my pricing. It's only a portion of the total cost of a job.... but it's a starting point.

I figure about 45 minutes per screen and about $4 material cost (for one or two color jobs)
Task                          Time         Material cost
Coat                          2 min        $.75/emulsion
Process art                8 min       $.00
Make film positive      2 min       $.75/film
Expose                      2 min        $.00
Washout and dry      4 min        $.00
Tape                          3 min        $.25
Register in press       3 min        $.00
Ink screen                 2 min        $.00
De-ink screen            4 min        $.25/chems
Remove tape            1 min         $.00
Reclaim                     4 min        $.50/chems
Order shirts              5 min         $.00
Draft invoice             5 min         $.00
Screen life  (20 cycles)              $1.50
Totals                       45 min      $4.00

[Prince Art]

There is/was a book out there called "Pricing for Profits" for screen printers. I read it when I was starting out. But really, Maxie has given you the core of what you have to look at. You've got to look at ALL of your expenses, including ALL of your labor, and figure out what you need to charge to cover those expenses, including paying yourself fairly for the time you put in. But... to do that realistically, you're going to have to get used to printing in order to have the data you need to properly determine your expenses.

One huge thing you can do that will help you is to log your time on various tasks. I keep clipboards near my main work areas for this purpose, then periodically put it all into a spreadsheet to give me average times per task. I factor those averages into my job costing. (And obviously, keep track of your other expenses, too- ink/supplies, garments, shipping, building/maintenance, equipment, etc.)

Now, while you're just getting your feet wet, my suggestion is to go through the motions of setting up a pricing structure based on expenses & labor. For your own reference, compare this to other printers prices. And then, close or not, set your initial pricing to be in the same ballpark as your competitors. (WHY? See below.*) After you've figured out what you're doing, come back, reexamine your pricing, and tweak as you need to. And expect to do this as your business grows. The longer you do it, the better you'll understand what you need to charge.

Okay, why, somewhat arbitrarily, set your initial pricing close to your competitors? To stay within customer expectations. Reality is that on some tasks, when you're learning, you may not make a good hourly wage. RIGHT NOW, YOUR PRODUCTION IS ALMOST CERTAINLY A LOT SLOWER THAN YOUR COMPETITION. If it takes you 4 hours to get your seps right, when every other shop in town does the same thing in half an hour, you can't charge their hourly rate for art. And that applies in every area where you're still learning while putting out orders. So, you start where you can, don't try to be the cheapest, and work hard on improving your game in every area you can. And revisit your costs breakdown often to see where you're improving. As you get better & faster, you should start to see your "real" costing begin to yield a price that makes sense. As it does, you transition to offering customers pricing based on your real costs.

Just my opinion, based on personal experience. Hope it helps!

[MC PRINTING]

Thank you all on your input, my wife and I really appreciate your comments. Once all the equipment arrives and we are setup,  I will definitely keep a log to track how long it takes to finish certain tasks.

Michael