pricing jobs

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EitanS

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Sep 26, 2014
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Hi, don't know if this is the right discussion board but I'll try.
I'm a self-taught woodworker w/ minimal carpentry experience but getting more and more requests for jobs as my skills grow. I typically know when to say 'that's out of my league', I think.
A friend asked for help replacing the top on a large (4'x10') kitchen/dining island built from an old school cabinet. Plan is to replace the top w/ nice plywood, trim the boarders w/ wide hardwood (not banding), paint the ply and poly everything. My main question is how others approach pricing jobs. I can calculate materials and estimate my time, but am new to carpentry work like this and have no idea what to charge for an hourly rate. Any insight is appreciated!

Thanks
 
Depends how much your time is worth and you feel time your worth.  Do you feel like your getting the most out of your hour or what percentage of your hour is going to the work.  I am a seasoned carpenter/woodworker.  I charge $30-40 an hour depending on the work.  If my clients dont feel im worth that much and or think its to expensive im not the right person for the job.  I have a line of other people willing to pay it.  If its a cool job that I really want to do for fun I will come down on my price.  Normally for friends I do not charge labor just have them pay for materials.    I found working with friends and if they want to help it makes the situation akward.  If I were you,  I would just come up with a flat price being its your friend if he wants to pay you.  Hope this helps. 
 
EitanS said:
I can calculate materials and estimate my time, but am new to carpentry work like this and have no idea what to charge for an hourly rate. Any insight is appreciated!
Click to expand...

You need to educate yourself and understand what the clients/market will pay for vs. what you can or want to give.

Ask a contractor or another carpenter in your area what they are getting/charging per hour. They may not tell you the exact number but you will get an idea.

Some magazines such as JLC, Remodeling on line sites will post the results of polls etc about annual/hourly rates for carpenters, framers etc in regions across the US.

Lastly, only experience (number of times) selling, estimating, pricing and getting it wrong or right will ultimately help you understand how and what to charge.

Tim
 
You need to work out a day work price that you need to charge to cover your overheads and at least earn more than a McDonalds staff member. With experience you can start charging more, as you're at a stage at the moment where you need to make recommendations and not the fortune. Overcharge once and that will be the last job you had from that customer. Usually you're also making money on materials as you pay a trade price. Friends are different. I would charge a friend much less than normally would, probably just enough to cover the overheads and a drink in a pub.
 
Don't give friends a price break, i don't operate a charity. 

You will learn real fast who your real friends are once money is involved.

Know your overhead. 

I try to hit a shop rate/hourly rate that would make most crap a brick. 

 
A friend in the trade, with experience had these points to make when I discussed the topic. You need to price to cover your overhead. Machines you own didn't just grow from nothing, you had to invest. Same with heat. Light. Etc. also, if you price  too cheap, you're undercutting all your friends in the trade. If you're work is good enough to charge for, it's good enough to price within reason of the local going rate. If local is $50/hr, you should be near there. Local rates can vary from region to region as well.

For if I'm going to give a "friend/family rate": you cover materials and consumables and you put in equal labor. If I'm the only one working, I'm charging.
 
Couldn't agree more. Friends and money typically do not mix.

Materials + man hours x hourly rate + overhead/profit = cost

Like Darcy, my rates are up there, but I know my overhead & profit #'s

Only you can figure that out

Dave

WarnerConstCo. said:
Don't give friends a price break, i don't operate a charity. 

You will learn real fast who your real friends are once money is involved.

Know your overhead. 

I try to hit a shop rate/hourly rate that would make most crap a brick.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for all the replies. I should clarify, while the job is for a friend, from day one I've never given a 'discount' unless it's a fair barter. Real friends should understand this anyway. I will try to ask a few folks around town to see what they might share about the local market rates. From there, I reckon if my hours estimate is off, I bite it. I guess I still need to figure out how to calculate my overhead.
 
If you have a Lowes store nearby checkout their instal prices then guess how long it would take you to do the job,see how much that would be per hour. Not good for everything but it's a start. No one gets it right immediately. It takes a while to figure out which things you are good and fast enough for to make money. I charge $35-45 but only on the things I feel I'm good at. Learning which jobs to take and which to turn down is part of it. A lot of people won't know if you're doing it the best way but they usually can see if you're struggling. 
 
Well it depends, how are you going to bid the job. I use T&M time and materials.

Figure out how long it's going to take to build and how much the materials cost, plus profit.

As far as friends go, I'll either do it for free or charge them reg price, no discounts.

I've lost friends giving them a discount. They sure don't consider the discount when /they come complaining about something believe me. At least if it's free you won't have the resentment you would if you gave them a discount.
 
Pricing is possibly the most hardest aspect of the trade in my opinion, with so many variables it's hard to charge the 'true' price of what the job is worth.

I still find it hard to price work so if anyone has any help they can give me either here or in pm i'd love to here from you!

To the OP,

as people have mentioned before, it's not just a case of materials and hours on the job, it's also about getting your investment in your tools back, the time you spent at college training and amongst other things experience.
I know its hard at the moment as your starting out to cover the experience part of it, but as it's a job for a friend, use it as a lesson, learn from the task at hand, do a good job and your reputation will grow as a result!

Best of luck!

~WW

 
When it comes to pricing I think the primary rule is that we have to remember we have two hats to wear; the "trade" hat, be it carpenter, builder, electrician and the "business man" hat.

The "trade" hat is easy to wear. We know what we're talking about, take pride/pleasure in our work and have trained to do the work.  When it comes to the "business man" hat, this scares a lot of us and our lack of willingness to wear the business hat can lose us a lot of customers.

Each individual's situation is different and it's impossible to give generic advice on how to price that fits with everyone's business. But the biggest mistake I see being made is looking at pricing as an inconvenient, secondary activity. We have to make time and take as much pride in producing detailed quotes as we do in building/making/installing. 

In the UK, I see it day in and day out, trade people losing business because before they've even picked up a tool, their sloppy attitude towards giving professional quotations give the customer a negative impression of them.

I guarantee that if when asked for a price you turn up with a quote that simply says (for example): build extension: £/$40,000, without any sort of break down/itemisation, you're losing business. 

There's a growing trend amongst the general public that they want to deal with intelligent business people who have a good skill-set, not people with a good skill-set who struggle with the business element.

In short, the days of the blue collar "he's a good worker" are over. People want to deal with professionals who are as much capable business people as they are skilled tradesmen.
 
WarnerConstCo. said:
Don't give friends a price break, i don't operate a charity. 

You will learn real fast who your real friends are once money is involve
Click to expand...
I have learned my lesson
Never ever I will do a job for friends or family
 
orm8426 said:
When it comes to pricing I think the primary rule is that we have to remember we have two hats to wear; the "trade" hat, be it carpenter, builder, electrician and the "business man" hat.

The "trade" hat is easy to wear. We know what we're talking about, take pride/pleasure in our work and have trained to do the work.  When it comes to the "business man" hat, this scares a lot of us and our lack of willingness to wear the business hat can lose us a lot of customers.

Each individual's situation is different and it's impossible to give generic advice on how to price that fits with everyone's business. But the biggest mistake I see being made is looking at pricing as an inconvenient, secondary activity. We have to make time and take as much pride in producing detailed quotes as we do in building/making/installing. 

In the UK, I see it day in and day out, trade people losing business because before they've even picked up a tool, their sloppy attitude towards giving professional quotations give the customer a negative impression of them.

I guarantee that if when asked for a price you turn up with a quote that simply says (for example): build extension: £/$40,000, without any sort of break down/itemisation, you're losing business. 

There's a growing trend amongst the general public that they want to deal with intelligent business people who have a good skill-set, not people with acontemplating  good skill-set who struggle with the business element.

In short, the days of the blue collar "he's a good worker" are over. People want to deal with professionals who are as much capable business people as they are skilled tradesmen.
Click to expand...
p

Good narrative, agree with you 100%.
 
Got some good business advice from my brother in law ( a super high end remodeler in Dallas average $200,000/job).

"I will go broke a lot slower by sitting home and watching Oprah than by being low bidder on every job"

Works for all businesses.

I bid the job not time and materials.  I can make a lot more money that way.

Bill
 
Discap said:
Got some good business advice from my brother in law ( a super high end remodeler in Dallas average $200,000/job).

"I will go broke a lot slower by sitting home and watching Oprah than by being low bidder on every job"

Works for all businesses.

I bid the job not time and materials.  I can make a lot more money that way.

Bill
Click to expand...

A friend of mine was in the cabinet making industry.  During a recent downtick businesses would undercut bids just to bring in money to almost pay the bills.  Sometimes losing thousands every month keeps the lights on and the shop open while getting no work cause you to go under within a handful of months. 

The moral of the story is it's best to reduce operating cost as much as possible and cover it the best you can consistently.  With a homebase shop I would agree it's better to sit at home and watch Oprah. If you're paying for your space though you could go out of business quickly doing so.
 
Scorpion said:
A friend of mine was in the cabinet making industry.  During a recent downtick businesses would undercut bids just to bring in money to almost pay the bills.  Sometimes losing thousands every month keeps the lights on and the shop open while getting no work cause you to go under within a handful of months. 

The moral of the story is it's best to reduce operating cost as much as possible and cover it the best you can consistently.  With a homebase shop I would agree it's better to sit at home and watch Oprah. If you're paying for your space though you could go out of business quickly doing so.
Click to expand...

One of the licensed trades that I'm in is HVAC.  There's a large HVAC company here that during normal times of the year I will come in at 50-70% of what they charge for a system change out.  However, during the slow times of the year they will sometimes undercut my price just to make payroll.
 
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