Pricing plexiglass letters

[jerry_stanek]

I may have a job cutting out Plexiglass letters. there are 4 sizes that need to be cut. Here are the sizes 2 inch, 4 inch, 5 inch and 11 inch tall. All will be cut out of 1/2 inch thick Plexiglass. The customer will supply the material. There are 30 11 inch 45 4 inch 20 5 inch and 30 2 inch. What would be a fair price to quote this job?

[erik_f]

What is it worth it for you to do it? I charge a set up fee, then I try and figure out the job by the hour including clean up and packing the goods. Set up fee is for getting the files ready to go to the machine. I usually charge $65 depending on how complicated the file is. Then I work pretty cheap at $50 an hour. Some places charge $120 an hour though. For example I did a last minute rush job for a guy that wanted to give me a $150 for the piece because I didn't set pricing up front. The files took me about 2 hours to set up and since the pieces were quite small I couldn't use vacuum or tabs, so I had to use lots of carpet tape which is a huge pain in tooshy to get off the table and off the pieces. He dropped off the material at 6pm and needed them done by 6am the next day. I finished at 3am. So 9 hours from start to finish and no sleep. I should have charged him $515 and a rush charge. When he heard that I wanted to charge him $600 he thought I was joking. He also thought since his "regular" guy was going to charge him supposedly $90 that giving me $150 was more than fair. We ended up meeting in the middle for $300, but I learned something that day. Never take a job without pricing it to what it is worth it for ME to do it. The customer said a few times that he shouldn't have to pay more since I didn't have as advanced of a machine and that it took me longer than his regular guy that had a $300,000 machine with vacuum and blah blah blah. The fact of the matter is his regular guys machine was broken and he was screwed if I wasn't willing to stay up all night. Did I lose a customer because I over charged him? If I gave my work away for the $150 would this guy have come back more often? Maybe, but he also would think its ok for me to work for 9 hours for $150 all the time.

[signtist]

My price guide for 1/2" acrylicic is 4"-$17 ea.
6"-$20
12"-$30
this includes the material.
1/2" acrylic costs about $12 sf !!!!!

[dakers]

If you have not done this before you will have router marks on the edge of acrylic which may or may not be a problem.
www.signletters.com (http://www.signletters.com) uses laser to cut 1/2'' and the edges are perfect. I have tried to flame treat some acrylic with varying degrees of success. you can see if they can accept them with the router marks. if so you will save time.

[jerry_stanek]

The router marks are what the customer wants. I suggested laser cutting and they said they needed a clouded finish for the look they want. I showed them a sample and they loved it.