Pricing on a per shirt Job
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 12:20 pm
Hello to everyone in the Screen Printing world and a Special Thank you to Castspit Productions LLC for this opportunity.
I know that everyone has their own way to calculate shirt pricing and that there are several programs or spreadsheets out there to help you out with this.
After a lot of trial and error I have come up with a solution that made sense to me and works quite well.
This will work whether you have a store front or are working from home the pricing will work out the same no matter what your business volume.
when Pricing your jobs you will have to take into account everything involved in the making of a single shirt. Everything from the cost of your shirts right down to your monthly overhead.
the equation should be as follows
shirt cost+ink+emulsion+your time+overhead= the pricing of your job.
Shirt blanks usually run around $1.49 (for white) before shipping and handling.
Ink cost run, at most, .39 per shirt
Emulsion will run you at least $30 per quart and depending on how how you coat your screen will render you about 30 screens so your cost of emulsion will cost, per screen, $1.00. this is an estimate you will have to figure out about how many screens you can make from your current emulsion and then divide that number by the cost of the emulsion and you will have a per screen cost.
You will have to figure out how much your time is worth, the amount of time it will take to complete the job from artwork to the finished project
Finally Overhead. Hear is where a lot of beginners have a hard time. You need for figure out how much it will cost you to restock all your supplies and keep that number handy. Now you take all your essential expenses (phone, internet, electric water and equipment financing) for the month and you have a baseline to work with. for your bills, if you are working from home, you should subtract about 20% from each bill then add them together. The next thing you need to do is sit down and add all your expenses and take your total monthly bills and divide them by the number of weeks in a month, usually 4 weeks is standard. this will tell you how much you will need to make each week to cover your expenses. so if your business expenses are around $1500 a month you divide $1500/4= $375.00 per week. then divide this number by how ever many days your business will be open, we will use 5 days per week, $375.00 / 5 = $75 per day.
The next step is to figure out how much you want to make in order to live comfortably. Never set you eyes on the highest number because if you set you number too high and you don't make it then you start to lose interest in the business. so you will want to do the following. Let's say that you want to make $3,000 per month free and clear. then you would use the 4 week division and brake that down by the number of days you will be open will equal how much you will need to make per day to reach your monthly goal. Equation
1500+3000/4=1125/5=$225.00 per week is what you will be basing your shirt pricing. again these are just examples and work whether you have a store front of you are working out of a spare room in your home...
I am trying not to make this too complicated when in fact it is quite simple if you just write down the equation with your own numbers... in order to reach your goal you will have to do some marketing and a little footwork. in the end it will be the quality of your work, your professionalism, your pricing and your personal conduct that will decide whether or not your business will succeed or tank.
if there are specific questions please feel free to ask them and I will be more than happy to answer them...
I know that everyone has their own way to calculate shirt pricing and that there are several programs or spreadsheets out there to help you out with this.
After a lot of trial and error I have come up with a solution that made sense to me and works quite well.
This will work whether you have a store front or are working from home the pricing will work out the same no matter what your business volume.
when Pricing your jobs you will have to take into account everything involved in the making of a single shirt. Everything from the cost of your shirts right down to your monthly overhead.
the equation should be as follows
shirt cost+ink+emulsion+your time+overhead= the pricing of your job.
Shirt blanks usually run around $1.49 (for white) before shipping and handling.
Ink cost run, at most, .39 per shirt
Emulsion will run you at least $30 per quart and depending on how how you coat your screen will render you about 30 screens so your cost of emulsion will cost, per screen, $1.00. this is an estimate you will have to figure out about how many screens you can make from your current emulsion and then divide that number by the cost of the emulsion and you will have a per screen cost.
You will have to figure out how much your time is worth, the amount of time it will take to complete the job from artwork to the finished project
Finally Overhead. Hear is where a lot of beginners have a hard time. You need for figure out how much it will cost you to restock all your supplies and keep that number handy. Now you take all your essential expenses (phone, internet, electric water and equipment financing) for the month and you have a baseline to work with. for your bills, if you are working from home, you should subtract about 20% from each bill then add them together. The next thing you need to do is sit down and add all your expenses and take your total monthly bills and divide them by the number of weeks in a month, usually 4 weeks is standard. this will tell you how much you will need to make each week to cover your expenses. so if your business expenses are around $1500 a month you divide $1500/4= $375.00 per week. then divide this number by how ever many days your business will be open, we will use 5 days per week, $375.00 / 5 = $75 per day.
The next step is to figure out how much you want to make in order to live comfortably. Never set you eyes on the highest number because if you set you number too high and you don't make it then you start to lose interest in the business. so you will want to do the following. Let's say that you want to make $3,000 per month free and clear. then you would use the 4 week division and brake that down by the number of days you will be open will equal how much you will need to make per day to reach your monthly goal. Equation
1500+3000/4=1125/5=$225.00 per week is what you will be basing your shirt pricing. again these are just examples and work whether you have a store front of you are working out of a spare room in your home...
I am trying not to make this too complicated when in fact it is quite simple if you just write down the equation with your own numbers... in order to reach your goal you will have to do some marketing and a little footwork. in the end it will be the quality of your work, your professionalism, your pricing and your personal conduct that will decide whether or not your business will succeed or tank.
if there are specific questions please feel free to ask them and I will be more than happy to answer them...