So I'm disabled from the army and I just started my own welding business. I am so lost a to what to charge. I know Jody said something about a dollar an inch of wild and a dollar for tacks. That just seems way to low. I want my business to thrive but I also don't want to rip people of either. I want them to want to come back. I have a job coming up that involves me making handela to go on aluminum caps that are used to connect to hoses on sugar rank trucks. For this job I'm not going to charge an hourly rate but a per item rate plus cost of materials. I'm just at a loss should my consumes and has be included in corset of materials or in the per item rate. Or should the materials just have the metal that was purchased for the job. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
- Otto Nobedder
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Weldmonger
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Posts:
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Joined:Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:40 pm
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Location:Near New Orleans
Welcome!
There's now a "Welding Tips and Tricks" podcast, hosted by Jody, Jonathan Lewis, and Roy Crumrine. Episode 6 is all about pricing jobs.
Find them all here:
http://wttpodcast.libsyn.com/
Steve S
There's now a "Welding Tips and Tricks" podcast, hosted by Jody, Jonathan Lewis, and Roy Crumrine. Episode 6 is all about pricing jobs.
Find them all here:
http://wttpodcast.libsyn.com/
Steve S
Hi.
I don't own a welding shop but I can tell you how my old boss did it.
Anything that comes in has a $20 minimum, otherwise the boss would tell them to take it somewhere else because this is a business, not a charity. Other than that he would just eyeball most jobs and know how long it was gonna take from experience, i.e. a hole in an aluminum rim was automatically a $70 repair while a rim that had been curbed was gonna cost $100. Rims, being what they are are not all repairable and anything over that $100 mark was not considered repairable. Most people will tell you not to weld on these things but I have seen, literally, hundreds of these things repaired and have never seen anyone come back due to faulty repair.
Saw a BMW engine come in one time with a faulty aluminum mig repair. This one cost the customer a bundle. Why? Well, I personally spent about 2 1/2 hours grinding all that old mig weld out with a carbide bur and the boss spent about 1 1/2 hours prepping and welding the block back up. The boss told me where to look for cracks before I started grinding and he hit the nail on the head. No teacher like experience. He had to weld over a water galley in the block without filling it in. That job required 320 amps with about 50% helium. The price was was $650 and the repair must have been sound because the customer paid the bill and we never heard anything else about it. Why $650? Because not everybody can do that kind of work.
Sometimes the customer is paying as much or more for your knowledge than they are for your labor, parts, equipment and consumables.
Every job is unique and you should get a feel for pricing them fairly quickly.
I often saw customers balk at the quoted price. The boss's response? The price is the price or you can always find someone else to do it. I saw many customers leave because of that and more than half of them would later return when they found out that it really was a good price or after someone else screwed the pooch when trying to do the repair.
The moral of the story is this: don't give your labor away cause that'll put you in the poor house.
Just be fair with your customers and do quality work. A good reputation matters.
I don't own a welding shop but I can tell you how my old boss did it.
Anything that comes in has a $20 minimum, otherwise the boss would tell them to take it somewhere else because this is a business, not a charity. Other than that he would just eyeball most jobs and know how long it was gonna take from experience, i.e. a hole in an aluminum rim was automatically a $70 repair while a rim that had been curbed was gonna cost $100. Rims, being what they are are not all repairable and anything over that $100 mark was not considered repairable. Most people will tell you not to weld on these things but I have seen, literally, hundreds of these things repaired and have never seen anyone come back due to faulty repair.
Saw a BMW engine come in one time with a faulty aluminum mig repair. This one cost the customer a bundle. Why? Well, I personally spent about 2 1/2 hours grinding all that old mig weld out with a carbide bur and the boss spent about 1 1/2 hours prepping and welding the block back up. The boss told me where to look for cracks before I started grinding and he hit the nail on the head. No teacher like experience. He had to weld over a water galley in the block without filling it in. That job required 320 amps with about 50% helium. The price was was $650 and the repair must have been sound because the customer paid the bill and we never heard anything else about it. Why $650? Because not everybody can do that kind of work.
Sometimes the customer is paying as much or more for your knowledge than they are for your labor, parts, equipment and consumables.
Every job is unique and you should get a feel for pricing them fairly quickly.
I often saw customers balk at the quoted price. The boss's response? The price is the price or you can always find someone else to do it. I saw many customers leave because of that and more than half of them would later return when they found out that it really was a good price or after someone else screwed the pooch when trying to do the repair.
The moral of the story is this: don't give your labor away cause that'll put you in the poor house.
Just be fair with your customers and do quality work. A good reputation matters.
Raymond
Everlast PowerTIG 255EXT
Everlast PowerTIG 255EXT
One other thing:
The price Jody told you about was for production work where little or no other work is required.
You won't be getting a whole lot of that kind of work until you have established a good reputation.
Mostly you are going to see customers come in with a bunch of greasy and nasty parts. The old boss would always tell the customers that they can take it back home and clean it or he was gonna charge them a minimum of $50 to clean it for them. Most commercial customers knew better than to bring in dirty parts but would occasionally bring them in anyway. The boss ALWAYS told those folks, You know better than to bring me that nasty shit. At that point they would leave and come back with it cleaned.
The price Jody told you about was for production work where little or no other work is required.
You won't be getting a whole lot of that kind of work until you have established a good reputation.
Mostly you are going to see customers come in with a bunch of greasy and nasty parts. The old boss would always tell the customers that they can take it back home and clean it or he was gonna charge them a minimum of $50 to clean it for them. Most commercial customers knew better than to bring in dirty parts but would occasionally bring them in anyway. The boss ALWAYS told those folks, You know better than to bring me that nasty shit. At that point they would leave and come back with it cleaned.
Raymond
Everlast PowerTIG 255EXT
Everlast PowerTIG 255EXT
Artie F. Emm
- Artie F. Emm
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Weldmonger
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Posts:
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Joined:Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:53 am
Welcome to the forum! Thank you for your service to our country, and good luck in the new business.
>>"For this job I'm not going to charge an hourly rate but a per item rate plus cost of materials. I'm just at a loss should my consumes and has be included in corset of materials or in the per item rate. Or should the materials just have the metal that was purchased for the job.<<"
It *sounds* like consumables would be included in cost of materials, but that means your per-item rate would be just your labor, and you might also include some kind of depreciation factor to cover the use of your machine. The podcast mentioned earlier discusses marking up materials, and applying the "pi factor": everything will take about 3 times as long, or cost about 3 times as much as you expect. The podcast also says you can expect to underbid some jobs and overbid others, and hopefully it all evens out by the end. Another good point: put some of the money away to pay for federal income taxes and employment costs, and put some away to re-invest in the business for new tooling.
Also, are you bringing your gear out to them, or will they deliver parts to you? If you're going to them, will the caps be immediately available to you, or will you have to wait around for trucks to return to the shop? That could be a time killer, and on a per-part basis that scenario would eat your lunch.
Just for curiosity: handles for aluminum caps on sugar trucks: will you use MIG or TIG? Is there any risk of overheating these caps and warping them so they will no longer fit on the tanks?
Good fortune to you in your business, let us know how it goes!
>>"For this job I'm not going to charge an hourly rate but a per item rate plus cost of materials. I'm just at a loss should my consumes and has be included in corset of materials or in the per item rate. Or should the materials just have the metal that was purchased for the job.<<"
It *sounds* like consumables would be included in cost of materials, but that means your per-item rate would be just your labor, and you might also include some kind of depreciation factor to cover the use of your machine. The podcast mentioned earlier discusses marking up materials, and applying the "pi factor": everything will take about 3 times as long, or cost about 3 times as much as you expect. The podcast also says you can expect to underbid some jobs and overbid others, and hopefully it all evens out by the end. Another good point: put some of the money away to pay for federal income taxes and employment costs, and put some away to re-invest in the business for new tooling.
Also, are you bringing your gear out to them, or will they deliver parts to you? If you're going to them, will the caps be immediately available to you, or will you have to wait around for trucks to return to the shop? That could be a time killer, and on a per-part basis that scenario would eat your lunch.
Just for curiosity: handles for aluminum caps on sugar trucks: will you use MIG or TIG? Is there any risk of overheating these caps and warping them so they will no longer fit on the tanks?
Good fortune to you in your business, let us know how it goes!
Dave
aka "RTFM"
aka "RTFM"