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How to price signs

A price is three things: what the material costs you, what the time costs you, and what's left for the shop. Most pricing trouble comes from guessing one of them. Here's a way to work them out that a small shop can actually keep up with.

1. Know your real material cost

Start with what you paid, divided by the square feet you get from it. A $220 roll of 54 inch media, 150 feet long, is 675 square feet, or about 33 cents a foot. Add ink and laminate as their own costs per square foot, because they move separately.

Use a separate cost per material. One blended rate hides it when a substrate goes up, and it under-quotes your pricier materials every time.

2. Add waste

You pay for what you cut off. Roll media might run 10 to 15% waste. Rigid sheets are lumpier: if a job needs a little more than one sheet, you may be buying the whole second one. Check how the job nests before you trust a flat percent.

3. Price time at a shop rate, not a wage

This is the big one. Your rate has to pay for the building, insurance, software and your own pay, not just the person doing the work. Add up a month's costs and divide by the hours you can really bill. The shop rate calculator does the arithmetic.

Then time real jobs. Design, file setup, printing, laminating, weeding, mounting and packing all count. It's easy to think "it's just a simple panel" and leave half of that out.

4. Set a minimum charge

Every job costs you a phone call, a file check and a machine setup, however small it is. A minimum stops a tiny job from costing you money. Many shops charge a minimum for install as well.

5. Let the price per unit fall with volume, on purpose

Setup only happens once, so the 50th yard sign costs less than the first. If you build your price from material plus time, with setup as its own line, this happens by itself and you can see why.

6. Keep install and travel separate

They change from job to job and have little to do with the sign. Separate lines keep them from getting forgotten, and they show the customer what they're paying for.

Putting it together

A 4 x 8 ft panel is 32 square feet. At $3.50 a foot for material, print and laminate, that's $112, $128.80 with 15% waste, and $257.60 at a 100% markup. Add 45 minutes at $85 an hour, $63.75, and you're at $321.35. Try it with your own numbers. There are versions for vehicle wraps, banners and yard signs too.

Those numbers are an example, not a suggested price. Once you know your costs, look at what your local market pays. If your price is far under it, you're probably leaving money behind. If it's far over, look for the cost that's out of line.

Now make it stick

Working out a price once is the easy part. These are the things that go wrong afterwards:

Where SignQuote fits

I built SignQuote to do the second half of this: one price book for your whole shop, so everyone quotes the same number, with the customer's PDF in one click and a list of who to chase. It's $49 a month however many people you have, and I'll load your prices for you.

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