Professional seperations costs

[docsscott]

What sort of price would one be looking at for outsourcing seps?

[Nation03]

From my experience, $15 per color.

[Colin]

Are you talking CMYK/Index/Sim Process?  Or spot color?

Vector or raster/photoshop?  Jpegs or quality images?

Most pricing for cmyk/sim process/index is in the $15 per color range.  The other stuff will all vary.

[SEPSINK]

What sort of price would one be looking at for outsourcing seps?

I charge 15 a color over at www.seps.ink!

[Dottonedan]

All of you printers should call Scott @ Myseps and thank him.  I used to be the lowest price for high end seps at what averaged out to be about $20.00 per color. For the longest time (in the beginning), I charged per job. I'd quote it based on how long I thought it would take and # of colors and give one flat price.  I forget now, where I usually charged, (what average) but I can tell you, (you) came out better with a flat rate.

I took a poll once and asked what people preferred and most were wanting per color rates as that seemed to give them an idea up front (based on their experience at how many they needed and would give the customer a count...and if I came in less, that's all the better. Those in my level where typically between 25-50.00 (per color) with very few others at the $20.00 mark. That went on without question for many years. Like 15 years.

Those who offered seps for less, either did basic spot color seps or haphazardly used software that you all can buy but saved you the money, or their lesser skills were more obvious in your prints.

Then, A guy out in Cali who was victim of the economy at the time, started his own full time sep job out of his house. Similar to me, but I still always worked a full time job. Always have. I have to assume without good knowledge of what the "average sep cost was" he jumped in and charged $15.00 per color I'm sure with the intent to snatch up a lot of work fast.  It worked. People gravitated towards him and my business shifted while I was focusing on my screen print business at the time, so I wasn't bothered. IN fact my prices stayed the same for a while until thing schanged up again for me and I was back focusing on sep work on the side. So at this time, the norm in my paradigm was $15.00 per hr. 

Scott lowered that price for all separators. The difference with low baller's is that Scott is not a low baller. Just wasn't keen to what the temperature was for high end separations. Low ballers are often (not good at what they do) so they lower the price to gain customers.  Scott's good enough and cheap. He deserves a good kick in the nuts for not researching what the market would bring/what the cost were at the time, lol but that's business. Someone always comes in less.  I'm sure Mark Coudrey, jeff Campos, Serichrome and a few others wanted to kick me in the nuts a few times and felt like I was too cheap also.

He does good work and that's what some people have to compete with...or be ok with a decreased quantity of customers. I'm ok with that. I never did totally rely on seps but when you build your life around having that there, you get used to it. So, I sep.  I thought about raising my prices back up a little, and still might.  Right now, I'm at $15.00 and with that being the norm now, it probably will only get a little less per color. The demand is not their for his end (as much) as it was, because a lot of printers think their software seps are good enough and for many cases, it is.

Those who come to us, know why they do.

[tonypep]

Back in the day it was not uncommon to pay $600 to $1,100 for an outsourced sim process job. As there were basically three options for for separators to use, they charged what the market would bear. At companies like OATS, Winterland, Harlequin, etc well they figured it out themselves and the artists often had to sign non-compete/non-disclosures. Fast forward to today and well, obviously much has changed.
I think its fine to charge per color for basic design but to me, I believe it is more fair to charge by time for high end work. Factors like degree of difficulty, original file res etc often come in to play here.

[zanegun08]

Mark Coudrey, Jeff Campos, Serichrome and a few others wanted to kick me in the nuts a few times and felt like I was too cheap also.

Mark Coudrey runs http://netseps.com which depending on how many you do has a flat rate as low as $75 and possibly $50.  They also have a site where you can just upload the art and they run it and it goes on the site for download.  So it's pretty automated.

Where I work we used to charge by time, $60 an hour for separations but our separator is old and slow, so I have changed that and we now bill per color for separations, and still have an art fee for creative or reworking file as they are two separate services.

I just posted in another thread but I've used myseps.com seps.ink designsbydottone.com

All are $15 per color, and all give great results.

I think its fine to charge per color for basic design but to me, I believe it is more fair to charge by time for high end work. Factors like degree of difficulty, original file res etc often come in to play here.

The only problem with this in my mind is with the same file, it could take one person 1 hour, and the next person 3 hours and you could end up with the same result.  So in the end it's the customer who loses out.

We are seeing better results by subbing out than doing it in house, and then rather than a person being tied up for hours working on 1 thing, they can knock out 5 jobs, and the cost gets passed onto the customer anyhow so it's a win win unless you have someone in house that gets great results the first time and is efficient at what they do.

[docsscott]

It would be for sim process.
Good to know thanks guys, I'll be in touch.

[Dottonedan]

Zanegun08,

Mark Coudrey runs http://netseps.com which depending on how many you do has a flat rate as low as $75 and possibly $50.  They also have a site where you can just upload the art and they run it and it goes on the site for download.  So it's pretty automated.

To clarify, the above, are one in the same process of ordering. You just select the price/and quality level needed.


Mark offers three levels of service.

1st, NEW Economy: $50.00 per sep.  All day, any day.  (He has a job type description for what this option is good for). Sunsets, old baseball glove, stuff that does not require high end color accuracy. You get separations, but they are faster and more crude. Less of the quality configurations.

2nd, True Color: Those flat rate charges and quantity discounts are the same method at netseps where you upload a file and it gets sent thu the sep software and gets put into a folder waiting for payment. With this pricing option, the quality is jsut alittle more. it's probably standard for most automated sep software. I'd have to say tho, I expect his to be of a higher level than what you might get from a Simpleseps, Spot Process, QuickSeps etc.

The above are both still automated but still good viable options. No special human attention to the file. One and the same process for the $120-$70.00. based on quantity ordered.  These are both extremely good offerings. He's done the sep service thing very well by providing options.

3rd, He still offers the "high end" seps with a humans touch where they are given special attention. I saw on his website just last year, these were at 50.00 (per color) + imagesetter films were also available.