Hi Jason and Welcome to art metal,

This question gets tossed around a lot, mostly because it's a difficult thing to explain. A lot of this depends on your area and market. I'm no expert, but I'll tell you a little bit about how I price things.

First, It's easier to put a price on something that has been ordered to be made, rather than putting a price on something you've already made. With the former you can calculate your time and materials much like any contractor and get approval or negotiate before you have any money into the project.

How much should you charge for your time? Around here, uneducated web designers are billed at $85/hr, larger fab shops are $50-$60/hr, mechanics $75/hr, architects/designers $80-$200/hr. With this info I calculate what I charge hourly for certain tasks, which are broken up as follows

- Grunt work: grinding, cutting, cleaning, etc=
lowest hourly rate

- fabricating, welding, layout, fitup, ie. stuff that takes skill and experience = a higher rate closer to other fab shops

- Designing: its tough to get paid for every hour you design, but as I get better and more unique my design fees increase. Eventually comparable to an architect/designer

- Specialty Skills: skills like hand etching with plasma torches, forging, signature patterns, ie. stuff that even an experienced fabricator might have trouble reproducing gets charged at the highest rate.

With these guidelines I can take on any type of job and be competitive. Whether it's 100 simple candle sticks or a one of a kind sculpture that takes 3 months. Each task gets charged appropriately.

These rates change every year or when I think a skill has improved. This system seams easy on paper, but I still have to work at not lowering my prices due to the fear of not getting a job. The thing to remember is that in certain situations you'll make more money NOT taking a job than if you did. Be fair to yourself and make sure your getting paid.

As for selling a pre-made item, you have to respect the market that you want to be in. If similar items are selling for $XX.XX then it would be fair to charge that much. Two things to keep in mind, usually 50% of the selling price goes to the shop owner, and a lot of "metal art" out there is made in an assembly line fashion thus lowering production costs. I have never had any luck selling pre-made items, although I know a lot of jewelry artists that have. Right now I have 30-40 wine racks from 3 yrs ago just leaning against the wall. I guess I need to either start a wine cellar or give them as gifts :). My suggestion is to make a sample of the item with sample pricing and put that in a store or booth. The customer would order this "hand-crafted, one of a kind piece of art" which you would make for them personally. That way your only spending money when your making money(except for the samples), the customer gets a piece that no one else will have, and you can make arrangements with the shop owner as to whether they get a percentage or flat fee for each piece. It's important to remember that unless the shop owner can make money as well, there's no sense carrying your product.

The last thing to take into consideration is how much money do you need to pay your bills and overhead? This may increase or decrease how much you charge compared to others.

I'm sure there are many other suggestions and methods, but this is the basis that I use. Hope it helps.

Jake

Dick Quinnell (blacksmith from the UK) summed it up the hourly rate figuring as:

add up the total expenses and personal income you need to cover for the year. 

Allow for the fact that you need a holiday once in a while, you might get sick or you might have to go and do a course or attend a conference, so you might get say 45 working weeks in the year

then look at the amount of chargeable time you get out of a day on average, say 5 or 6 hours a day - that doesn't count time spent answering the phone, getting supplies and doing your paperwork. 

Then divide your total income up by 1350hrs at 6hrs a day and there you have a your required hourly rate. 

Its also worthlooking at it as a weekly and monthly income level.  And of course this takes keeping records of what you do so that something you underpriced once doesn't bite you on the bum again.  We can but hope!! :-)

But when you don't have a history of information to work from, just gauging what other local trades charge is useful.  At least its a starting point.  We have a flat rate of $75/hr at our shop but I like what Jake mentioned about charging different work at different rates according to the skill they require.  Then of course working out how long a job will take to do is a skill all unto itself, and only comes with doing it as far as I've found.  We keep a simple time notebook in our shop and make a note of the time whenever we change tasks, even if its to go for a pee or answer the phone.

I think its the eternal problem myself!  Best of luck getting your charge-out time right.

Lynda

Lynda and Jake have given you some great information! I don't know if anyone can give you more informative answers. But I am going to try to just say that you have to decide what your work is worth to you. If you are doing this as a hobby or part time, and you have another income coming in, then maybe you just need to charge enough to buy some more supplies so you can learn more and fill your passion.

If you are just starting out, you may also want to charge less but do work that you love and then build onto your portfolio for future work. The thing is to feel good about yourself and what you are doing with your metal art.

There is more to wealth than money...