|
|
Setting a Shop Rate for Labor Time
Question
Forum Responses
There are two trains of thought on calculating per hour charges. They both start off with the overall yearly cost of doing business plus profit. Profit is what you make for working on the business and salary is what you make for working in the business. Make sure your salary is included in your operating costs, then add on profit. Here are the two different ways.
2. Take all the hours from the first way and separate the hours that are actually spent on just building the project and calculate the percentage of time spent building compared to overall time. Example:
This is a total of 80 hours spent on the project. However, the actual time spent to build - "billable hours" - is only 60 or 75% of the total time. Or, for every hour you actually work, you need to bill for 1.33 hours. So, based on your calculations of $50 an hour, you bill out at $66.67 per hour for working hours. Everyone's situation will be different and every project will fluctuate in how many actual buildable hours there are. In our case, when averaged over a year for every 40 hours put in, only 30 hours are spent actually working on a project. So this is the way we bid, and we do "free deliveries". Customer is happy and does not need to know that operating costs for delivery have been figured into the hourly rate. At the moment our rate is $75 an hour. We are in NJ. I think costs would be pretty comparable to CT.
It is impossible to state what your shop rate should be. If you only have a band saw, it would have to be very low or you would never get a job. If you have a CNC machine, it would have to be much higher to cover your capital investment. You can only sell your work for so much money - it really is market value driven. The best pricing method is to price your work by the units you produce. For example, x dollars per box, door, drawer, face frame, installation, etc. As you purchase more equipment, your selling price will remain the same. Your hours to build will go down and your hourly rate will go up. This will also provide a big incentive for you to increase your efficiency and thereby increase your rate. This will mean, in the beginning, your hourly rate will be low, but as you grow, your hourly rate will increase past the $50.00 per hour mark. Hope this helps. Pricing is the hardest thing I do. I'm also in NJ, targeting and doing very high end work. (It's important to *do* high end work.) My contracts say that any additional work not included in the contract will be billable at $125.00 per hour plus materials. (Surprisingly, lots of people pay it.) I seldom estimate using this figure, though. I use a linear foot/subjective pricing/what-are-you-willing-to-spend? type of guideline. I always ask for a budget, explaining that I can fill this wall with cabinets for $5,000 or $50,000. I continue to explain that without a budget, I am unwilling to even discuss design (which I will charge for), and perhaps they should contact someone else. My presentation and appearance is professional and polished (wedding ring, Rolex, nice clothes, etc.). Try to schedule meetings in the evening with both decision makers. Don't show up in the work truck (unless it's very presentable) - it's the first impression you'll make. Even your wife's minivan looks better than a beat up pickup truck. Play hard to get and exclusive, target the high end stuff. If you believe you're worth more than the competition (I don't believe I have any, and that any job is mine if I want it), then prospective customers will believe it, too. They'll also be willing to spend more to get you. I was a one man garage shop 7 years ago and dreamed of the day I might own an edgebander. I've got one now, and I own the building it sits in, lots of other cool tools (shopping for a CNC router), employ 3 people (I need 2 more), and work on residential projects in excess of $250,000. We are booked through 2005. My point is this: a "shop rate" is just a number. In order to grow your business, you have to make more than "enough to get by." I often say that I'm not building cabinets, I'm building an empire. Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
|
