How much should I charge? [SOLVED]

Reznik

I'm printing out some wedding invitations for my mom's friend's daughter. I originally thought I was going to be designing them as well as printing them but.. nope! The job is so dead easy I don't know what to charge. This is what I did/am doing:

1. Found a nice font, laid out the invitations and reply cards
2. Made a couple mockup .jpgs of each with different fonts, e-mailed, she picked the one she liked best
3. Printed invitations and reply cards on blanks that she bought and gave to me (90 of each)

I mean, I'm going to charge for refilling the ink cartridge but other than that... The bulk of the time was spent finding a decent enough printer to print the cards on. It took maybe 10 minutes to lay out the margins and fit the text, and I did a couple different mockups so they could decide on fonts.

So yeah. I was asked today how much (they insisted from the beginning that this wasn't a freebie), and I really have no idea what to tell her. Any insight would be awesome.

urahonky

If this hasn't been answered by morning I'll ask my wife how much we spent on our invitations. We made ours too, but I can find the cost if you'd like. If you're feeling generous just charge how much it'll be to refill your ink cartridges and to buy the paper.

T-bolt

Here's what Staples would charge: http://www.staplescopyandprint.ca/Downloads/BrochureENG_pricelist.pdf

Bendery It Like Beckham

Back when worked in a copy/print at staples 90 prints of wedding invitations on card stock in color was around 1.09 a copy using our card stock, .49 using your card stock. +tax and a full service charge. + folding ($.02 a sheet)

so for 90 prints it would be

$44.10 for the print
$1.8 for machine folding
first 2 hours of printing/folding $10

$10 for every hour after that.

hand folding was .25 a fold. + an extra charge depending on hour. Looks like they have it on there as $40 per hour.

That shit got expensive quick, but when I had to call in another employee to help me fold and collate 1000 books of 10 pages by 10am the next morning because some idiot didn't think of giving us a few days in advance to get their job done, I didn't feel bad charging upwards of $400 for a job.

I don't care if you are a church.

Wezoin

Desktop publishing at print shops has a going rate around $40/hour, mine charges $38/hour.

So you could probably just base it off of that for the time you spent finding fonts/laying stuff out.

Also, I would advise strongly against charging Staple's rates if you really want to keep business. Staples nickles and dimes people and, sure it makes you more money on the one off customers, but anyone who actually looks for alternatives runs as fast as they can away from Staples.

Bendery It Like Beckham

Wezoin wrote: »

Desktop publishing at print shops has a going rate around $40/hour, mine charges $38/hour.

So you could probably just base it off of that for the time you spent finding fonts/laying stuff out.

Also, I would advise strongly against charging Staple's rates if you really want to keep business. Staples nickles and dimes people and, sure it makes you more money on the one off customers, but anyone who actually looks for alternatives runs as fast as they can away from Staples.

troof

Seeks

I printed out a bunch of cards for my sister's wedding. The cards were approximately $1 each, I think. They came in little $25 boxes that included the blank card, a "slot" for a photo, and a sorta-see-thru piece of plastic/wax paper that was meant to hold the text.

Needless to say, it was a lot of trial-and-error before I was able to figure out how to print on those little see-thru sheets reliably. I'd say that overall, probably about $150 was spent on the cards, and $30 for an ink refill. We just used regular print paper for the photo, if I remember correctly. It was mostly obscured anyway, by aforementioned sheets.

If they're paying for the supplies, I'd just charge them for ink and time. Maybe $10/hour or something, since it's easy work. Probably end up costing them a total of $40 or $50, not including the supplies they provide. You don't need a special printer for this stuff, I used an HP inkjet 4850 (I think, can't remember the model no. exactly), and it works just fine if you get creative enough.

If you (or she) have already made the trip to Barnes & Noble or wherever and bought the blanks, most of your work's done for you. Go to the manufacturer's website, they'll almost certainly have printing templates as well.

Reznik

Thanks for the advice. I ended up charging $40 + ink (which was like... $11)