CabinetMakers How much for a box?

[andre]

I have been building custom cabinets for almost 10 years now and I am revisiting my pricing now that I have my cnc. I guess I never had a set formula for pricing the box part of the job and am looking for a solid structure how to price this part of the job to maximize my profits. I also want to beable to market cabinet components to smaller shops who might want to sub this part out. Is there a formula for square feet or per part or per box? I would love to hear any suggestions or comments from any one who's been doing this for a while.

[bleeth]

There are many formulas. They are all based on:
Cost of materials + cost of labor + cost of engineering + overhead + profit.
The profit part is where your intestinal fortitude and salesmanship comes in. The rest of it you can work up yourself.
If you wish to market "flat-pack" or preassembled boxes you can always put together some "Request for Quote" packages and send them to others already in the business. If your formula results in numbers either too much higher or too much lower look closer.

Dave

[dray]

Make a couple boxes keep track of your time, materials, overhead and go off of that.

In time your production will increase as you gain more knowledge of the software, cnc etc at that time you can again go over prices.

But by going off of other peoples prices for me anyways has no bearing on me or what I do.

There are always a million people fighting at the bottom for lowest price this or that but only a few at the top making high end stuff. The higher end you go the less the competition and you can charge what ever your conscience allows so long as you stay creative and consistantly do good work.

btw I didnt change my prices after getting the CNC and its pretty wierd how much faster and more accurate my cabinets are instead of a 2-3 day build for a large entertainment center its taking 1 day. Which gives me ore time to do other things and also add more detail to my cabinets giving my customers more value for their $$

[andre]

Thank you both
Thats pretty much what I have been doing and I have been making a good profit and now that I have my cnc those profits will increase just from the shear time saved. I thought maybe there was some magic formula that cabinet shops used. I learned cabinet making on my own and and of course I started by guessing and went from there
I am using part wizard to design my parts and I am finding it pretty easy now after testing dado fittings and placements and overall tool pating.
I am thinking of formulating a square foot cost for machining design and profit plus materials
I will let you know if it works for me

[handh]

Andre,

I would not price your cabinetry work by the square foot. I used to do that and a lot of other cabinetmakers still do, hence the phrase, "how much do you get a foot for cabinets". Contractors love this, but you will almost always lose money pricing this way. You need to price by the job including all the complexity and other upcharges.

Here is a example, lets say that a cutomer wants you to price a 8' run of cabinets. They just want a drawer door combination. Lets say you decide that you will make 4 cabinets 2' wide. Your material cost will be around 600.00 including regular square raised panel doors and slab drawer fronts. On the next example your customer decides well she would like 2 stacked drawer combinations and instead of 24" wide drawer door combinations she would want them 16" wide. This gives you a total of 6 cabinets in the same 8' space, and a material cost of around 750.00. Just on the materials alone you have a 150.00 difference, not even to mention that you have to build 2 more boxes so your labor is higher, the installation labor is more and so the square foot price is never going to be accurate. It has taken me 17 years to learn this and hopefully it want take you near as long. You would not be able to go into any home center and buy two 12" cabinets for the same price as one 24" cabinet. You need to price by the job and if you want you can price by boxes, create a spreadsheet and have each type of cabinet that you build priced indivual. Here is a CAD drawing to represent what I am trying to convey.

7389

7390

[handh]

Andre,

Also, you have mail.

[handh]

One thing that I said above was not to price by the square foot and what I meant to say was not to price by the running foot. I tried to edit my post but it was more than 30 minutes old.

[oscarg1971]

Don't know if this helps but I found this the other day.

http://www.bridgewooddesign.com/estimator/index.htm

[henrik_o]

I dunno what the price structure is like in the US, but here in Sweden standard prices at the retail level starts at about $40-60 for a flatpack unassembled box without doors or hinges but the necessary hardware for customer assembly. That's about rock bottom prices, mass produced flatpacks in standard sizes. Retail markup is --afaik-- very low on these, so I'd assume the producer gets about $30-50.

From there, the only way is up. A custom sized but otherwise 'standard' box unit could easily fetch in the area of $150-250, still as a flatpack. Delivery times are usually 4-6 weeks.

I'm not planning to move into the kitchen production sector, but if I did my target would be semi-custom. That is, I'd market to retailers who sell standard sized products but have a need for certain custom items. I know several retailers who would be willing to pay very handsomely per unit for such work, even at a net loss to themselves, because currently it's a great headache for them to get it done well and on time -- it's worth a lot to them to be able to offer it, and also being able to deliver it on time.

That said, I'm in Scandinavia and fully custom-built kitchens account for perhaps 0.25-0.5% of kitchens, if even that. I understand the market in the US is very different, but it wouldn't surprise me if over time you're moving in this direction as well.

[andre]

Oscar thanks for the link
that is a neat little estimator. I may have to try that one in excel

[andre]

Jeff thanks for the email.
I dont and will not charge by the lineal foot for cabintry for the reasons you stated. I was talking about a square foot cost for cutting the parts, seperate cost for assembly and so forth. I am going to revisit my over head cost my labor time so I can get a better grip on what my profits are. Always tweaking and improving. I love this forum and appreciated the input!

Andre

[lex]

I had a similar issue with people not knowing what to quote so made up an excell spreadsheet that not only estimates cost/time/margin, but provides a BOM as well. All of the fields can be populated with whatever numbers you want. You simply input your shop rates, number of whatever you want, and what margin you want and poof...(O.K. it's not magic really:P) Though I made it for my work at an industrial machine maker it should port over to Cabinetry without too much hassle. I will play with it a bit and send it to you. LOL it represents alot more time than I like to admit cause I sucketh at Excell.

[bleeth]

Pricing by the linear foot can work if your pricing formula is set up to take factors into account. For example, if you price base cabs at 150/ft on the assumption they are melamine boxes with flat panel p-lam doors and then have added factors for upgrades like; add drawer-$50/ft; add plywood construction (but still with liner interiors) 15%; add prefin maple ply 25%; add basic wood doors 25%; add small crown at ceiling $12/ft etc. This is the method the big boys use and the advantage of it is you always know you have the profit margin right. It also means that you are giving a quote in which you are able to itemize your scope so your customer understands that he/she is not being quoted based on a "ball-park" number but rather on a purely task definate number that they have the power to control precisely. You also have the ability to offer your options and value engineering to suit the customers budget in a way that they will have confidence in. When you do this correctly you would be amazed at the profit you can build into things like dovetail drawers, soft close hinges, undermount slides with self close, etc. And always make sure you have the right mark-up on your handles and pulls. Telling the client to go to Home Depot, pick their own and you will install them is throwing profit down the drain.

Dave

[andre]

Lex
I would like to see that spreadsheet. My excel skils are so-so
Thanks for the offer!

Dave,
interesting points, but that seems to only count the individual cabinet that has the drawer or wood door. I have actually never built a particle board cabinet, usually plycore or mdf with melamine interior for a lower cost cabinet.
I still like to keep material cost seperate from the type of cabinet and then charge by number of doors drawers and specialty things like pull out shelves, garbage bins, pantry's and of course all the upgrades with in each, dovetail drawers, door styles and those beautiful tandem self closing drawer glides. All of my estimates are usually within 10% of actual cost of which my clients have been happy to pay. I am thinking of moving part of my business to a bigger market so I know I need to be right on for my estimates.
I know some of my ways could improve, that is why I started this thread.
It is good to talk with fellow cabinet makers and share ideas

[handh]

Dave,
I agree with everything that you have said except I think we might differ on the linear foot starting point. I have done it for years your way but recently changed. I don't know if you understood what I was trying to say about the different size of boxes on a run of cabinetry. You might have 3 cabinets or maybe up to 8 cabinets on a 8' span. If you are building indiviual boxes you would have only 6 sides for 3 cabinets on the 8' but you would have 16 sides on the 8 cabinets. Thus this would require 2 more sheets of material. This would be around 40.00 for a white melamine material that you haven't not accounted for and the extra time to mill and install, or if you are using a more costly plywood even more money, sanding, finishing, etc. This is just for the sheet goods, also you have more hinges, slides etc. On using the linear foot pricing, I don't believe you are accounting for these basic things before you start adding in the extras. I used to sell cabinets and really push the upgrades like you are talking about because this is were I really marked up to make money. Now we make money on the basic cabinetry just the same and any upgrades are gravy. Just something to think about. It took me a while to grasp how much just changing cabinet sizes were impacting our bottom line. We now use a program that takes into account all of these variables and has really made a difference in the way that I now look at a project.

[gary_n]

Jeff,
What program are you using that takes into account all these variables?

[dmidkiff]

I am also interested in this program. I currently use a linear ft. method and add for upgrades. I have always stuggled with pricing and have never been able to find a guide that I was comfortable with. This is a very intersting topic and of concern to several users.
Thanks for all the comments.
Dave

[handh]

Hey Gary, Dave and all,

I use the Business Partner software. I have been so very happy with it. Let's say that you do the quote for a customer out of cherry with white melamine interiors and then the customer decides that they want cherry melamine interiors all you have to do is just a click of the mouse change and instantly have a new proposal for them. You are able to bid a large job in just minutes from start to finish. The program has already done time studies and has all of your componets built into the program. You have to set up the way that you build cabinets and everything else is handled by the program. It takes about a day to get everything right for your building style. You are able to get a copy for a trial from www.true32.com (http://www.true32.com). They offer a monthly rental or you can purchase it outright. You would need to contact them for the price. I will post a sample printout later today so that you can see what a proposal looks like.

[handh]

Hey guys,

Here is a quick master bath that has taken me from start to finish 10 minutes to quote. I am included the estimate, proposal and internal report.


ESTIMATE PROPOSAL
SHOPBOT PROPOSAL.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/SHOPBOT_PROPOSAL-20353.zip) (47.6 k)


INTERNAL REPORT
SHOPBOT ITEMS REPORT.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/SHOPBOT_ITEMS_REPORT-20354.zip) (22.6 k)

[handh]

OK guys I finally got back to my computer to show how a simple revision of the cabinet layout will affect the price. I change from a double sink layout in the first proposal and 2 banks of drawers to a single sink layout and 4 banks of drawers.


ESTIMATE PROPOSAL REV1
SHOPBOT ESTIMATE REV1.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/SHOPBOT_ESTIMATE_REV1-20359.zip) (48.0 k)

INTERNAL REPORT REV1
SHOPBOT ITEMS REPORT REV1.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/SHOPBOT_ITEMS_REPORT_REV1-20360.zip) (22.8 k)

[lex]

Man this 50K upload limit SUCKS!!!!! Had to drop alot and zip to make it work. You can add more cells and copy/paste the formulas.
cost spreadsheet
Filler1.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/312/Filler1-20364.zip) (44.6 k)

[handh]

Lex, LOL, it took longer to save and zip the files and upload them, than it did to made the files.

[myxpykalix]

If you would like to post something OVER 50k you can do it at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SHOPBOT/
there are no restrictions on size there.

[lex]

I wish
Like I said I am a novice at excell...It took me about 40 hours to figure out all the formulas. But in the end I have a tool that is flexible enough to do the job and give me a working bom. It was set up for auger fillers but with the right information it should be able to work for just about anything.