Hahaha jk, but all my friends who would be most interested in using a laser are 2 hours away (they stayed local after we all graduated college). Everyone else I know is kind of far removed from the whole maker scene. I can see a few free one-off projects being made for family and family-friends. Anything after that for family I wonât charge (except for material costs if itâs a big project), but for family-friends there will definitely be some sort of charge, but not necessarily always money.
I think the only time I would do work completely free for not-a-close-friend would be if the person was going to or hosting an event or something where my project could be given a lot of public attention with the potential for attracting future customers
Iâm curious about the logic behind these two - usually production parts have a lower per piece price than one-off parts and material cost is lower. For context, Iâm speaking from a machining background where setup time is mostly fixed so production amortizes that cost over many parts, whereas the oneoff has to bear the entire setup cost. Also, to machine a 2-in long part may require the purchase of 6 feet of stock as would an order for, say, 30 of those parts. If you never use the remaining one-off stock youâll have to eat the cost of that 6-foot stick.
AgainâŚyou 'n me, both! When everyone else was commenting about getting referrals, I could not think of even ONE person who would be interested or who could afford a Glowforge. I have no friends, either. That being said, I do count my blessings having a great son-in-law who is nearly as excited about this laser as I.
Same here. Right now the only folks that know about mine (other than you all) are my husband and my mom. Kinda want to spring a surprise on my friends but not sure how interested they will be.
One other consideration to think about if you are going to charge for usage is paying taxes on the income. This is something that has already been factored in by those purchasing for their business, but if yours is a âhobbyâ machine and you charge for services, youâll have to file schedule C and keep records and all that hassle (in the US anyway). Even bartered goods are taxable.
Same here!! And I didnât really want to send referrals to my college friends because we were all introduced to the glowforge at the same time, so if they didnât order one because of the cost I didnât want to cause any awkwardness you know? Thatâs so great to hear! I gotta admit, it has been getting a little frustrating being around all the âso is that that stupid laser thing ever actually comingâ or âdonât know what youâre even going to use that thing forâ or âyeah sure youâll make so much money making thingsâ
Have you done commission work before? If so, completely ignore me, because I have not.
One piece of advice I thought was very reasonable (I think from Jimmy Diresta) is that you should not charge hourly. Everything takes you one day, so you charge your day rate as a baseline.
If you are selling things you made, then you divide your day rate by how many you can make in a day, add on cost of materials, and that is the cost per item.
With how often I misjudge the time I will need to do work for someone else, or how often I judge it accurately, but something goes wrong causing delays⌠working with day rates sounded like very good advice.
But, personal caveat is that I havenât worked/billed in such a way, and caveat from Jimmy is that he has lots of very high paying gigs that keep the lights on, so smaller things for friends or one-off deals donât mean much to his bottom line (ie - he can afford to refuse hourly work when people donât want to go in for a full day rate)
lol those quotes are pretty much from my parents, who donât quite understand why you would want to wait more than a year for something (I blame amazon primeâs 2-day shipping haha)
Iâve heard many discussions on what those rates should be. However, as someone who does this as a hobby, all the ânumbersâ Iâve heard would make my pieces far too expensive for me to sell that many of them.
For one example, they have advised that you charge $50/hour as your going rate (seems VERY high to me). I really enjoy making wooden mugs to sell to others (customized work). I estimate that I spend about 4 hours actually putting hands on the project (cutting wood, glue up, sanding, clamping, etcâŚ), but the process takes about 6 days to complete (For best curing, you want to leave a glue up for 12 hours, since I only do this in the evening, it means 24 hours in the clamps between steps). Just charging for the time Iâm actively MAKING the mug (letâs assume 4 hours for now), each should cost $200 to cover labor and about $10-20 for the materials (exotic hardwood gets expensive), putting each mug in the $210-$220 range. While I donât doubt that SOMEONE will buy them, I sell my mugs at $70 each and I can sell 3 of them quicker than I can sell 1 at the higher price.
Iâve never seen my hobby work as my main money maker, and I tend to REALLY limit how much things cost. If someone has a better idea of rates for a hobbist, Iâd sure like to hear them. In my head, I go with about $10/hour which apparently is really cheapâŚ
It depends on your objectives. If youâre trying to make a living thatâs cheap. If youâre doing it to keep busy and exercise your creative juices and you get intrinsic satisfaction from making and selling something unique & handmade and you want it to give some level of return as a method to measure it then maybe itâs the right number.
Nothing I do outside of work comes near to what my âhourly rateâ is from my employer. But Iâm not going to earn any more by working more hours at the office so the employment rate isnât relevant. So it comes to assessing what something is âworthâ which is what someone (or a lot of someones) is willing to pay. If I can make it for that and clear enough to make it worth my time vs something else then I will. If I canât then I might do it occasionally for personal satisfaction but not with the intent of making money at it. It just means I canât make that thing efficiently enough to make it worth my time or that I canât make it superb enough to make it worth more to buy.
If flipping burgers can earn someone $12 to $15 per hour, having skill to produce custom, personalized and unique products with tools that are several thousands of dollars, hourly rates should be at least 3 times that.
Once the materials costs are covered, it is your creative capacity that is of great value. When a product is made, it only is priced at what someone is willing to pay for. If it is very common, the price is lower.
My wife makes custom unique baby quilts. They are of her design and color patterning (matching the baby room). People say that the can get âqualityâ baby quilts for $50 to $75. I had to convince her that her quilts are worth $400 to $500. She spends about 40 hours making them, because she matches seams, intersecting patterns and hand stitches the quilting patterns.
That means she make $10 per hour and I think she could do machine quilting to bring her time down to 5 to 10 hours and still get $400 to $500. For her, it is wanting to put her personal touch.
It all boils down to what you think your time is worth (both dollar wise and non-fiscal compensation) and how you want to use your skills.
haha all I need to do is sell one lasercut design for an impressive price- though then Iâm sure theyâll just find something new to get on my case about
Thanks for the tip about paying taxes on any income I might make in the future. If and when that point comes, I will certainly give it all good thought before I even begin. It would all be very new territory to me and Iâd want to do it right or not at all.â[quote=âcynd11, post:64, topic:3448â]
surprise on my friends
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YesâŚI get you here, too. Iâve told a few friends and received a "coolâŚwhen do you get it?"responseâŚand any other further description of the Glowforge leaves meâŚas itâs pretty difficult to describe anyway, but especially to someone who really doesnât care.
Yep. My spouse quilts (on and off, when she has time) but always as a gift or for charity, because no ordinary mortal would pay a price even close to minimum wage for the time she puts in.
Ha ha! Only funny in the sense that no one but us Glowforgers can possible know the âreal truthâ to it allâŚand that we shall prevail and have the last word. We can make them eat their wordsâŚorâŚthey will all still be clueless and not give a darn after all! We wonât careâŚweâll be busy making stuff.
My background is in Jewelry design, where the formula is per hour rate plus materials cost times 2. For example if it takes 1 hour to make a ring and the per hour rate is $145 and the materials used cost $200 then the ring would be sold at $545 or higher. So my logic for this is thus: Someone comes to me with a project. They only have the idea and nothing made. Design time would be a per hour rate, and this would include set up for laser cutting. Then after all of that is when the materials cost and electricity cost comes into play. And if there is any left over materials those would be considered âscrapâ and would be used for future projects of my own. The reason the per hour rate is doubled is because if someone is wanting a design made for 100 items then they have the funds for those hundred items AND the overall total cost of the project is distributed over those 100 pieces instead of all being on the one piece. It still comes out to be more cost effective for a large run even with the higher price for design.
As far as any remaining stock⌠Iâm fulling expecting to charge for the blank material and not pro rated for the part of the material used. Just like if someone were to go build a deck, they have to buy so much wood even if some of that wood would get shortened during the project.
I have done commission work before, and I will stop the clock or reset the clock if Iâve made a mistake and I have no problems with that. As far as designs I make for myself to sell It would depend on the project⌠For example making a simple pair of geometric earrings would take, lets say 1/20th of a piece of stock material and ~if~ that stock is $10 that would mean iâve used $0.50 of it. adding the jewelry findings like jump rings and ear posts or french wires adds another $1.50. therefore I would sell those earrings for $5 or $10 if people ask why they are so inexpensive. Now lets turn it to another example. @danâs famous leather bag. Lets say that I get a good deal on some leather and get a whole hide for $60 BUT the bag only uses half of that. Then with all of the leather prep and then the sewing you end up spending 40 hours on the finished product. It would not be unreasonable to then sell that bag for $800 or more. depending how detailed the bag is. Now given that, I also have no problems adjusting costs based on market and the current economy.
For the most part I plan on doing my own designs and sticking to smaller pieces that will be more affordable and of interest at craft shows. BUT because Iâm interested in MAKING ALL THE THINGS! I donât doubt Iâll make some more complex and expensive pieces⌠AND Iâve been commissioned for more expensive stuff in the past too. So it depends on each design and each person I work with⌠I mean there is always the âjerk taxâ or the ânice person discountâ.
That being said, I do count my blessings having a great son-in-law who is nearly as excited about this laser as I.
