Off My Chest
RULES:
I am looking for mods!
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Dumb question because I don't know your industry. What would a customer pay to have these 2 seats done that he is paying her $25 to do?
Very hard to answer. If it's a rectangle stapled onto a board: strip/cut+sew/upholster, about an hour? My shop rate is $100/hour. It can easily take longer with weird shapes, many seams, new foam ect...
If it takes 20 minutes to sew that's a fair price.
Your shop rate is what you charge the customer wanting the seat done right? So in our example here (allowing for speculation because we don't have specifics), the customer would be charged $100, and the internal labor costs would be $50 (because we were told there were 2 seats). So a 50% profit margin. However, that doesn't take into account any of the fixed costs of running the business or maintaining the machines. I also assume that this work has some amount of seasonality to it so having consistent work may be difficult, meaning larger fixed costs to cover time between paying jobs.
Does that sound right?
I bill time and materials. My hourly rate should cover all my overhead, taxes and my wage. I mark up my materials 100%. Some people will pay me for work as I complete it, but the vast majority want a quote. I have to guess how much material it costs and how long it will take me to complete. This is quite hard sometimes as weird shapes and matching patterns might cause a significant increase in yardage and time. Experience leads to accurate estimates of materials and labour. Newbies might order too little and need to order more for a long cut, or cut improperly and need more. All that wastes time and drops your billable hours. I'd say I'm pretty good at my job and that leads me to command a higher shop rate than others might.