Pricing your builds

[markeebee]

Normally I just build for myself, or I give them away to buddies, or very occasionally I sell them to acquaintances or friends-of-friends.  My selling price is usually the cost of parts + £10 to buy more parts, so I guess people are getting a bargain.

But now I find myself inundated with build requests from acquaintances and friends-of-friends.  Note - 'inundated' means any more than about four.

So I thought that I'd jemmy up my pricing a little, and let my son build them in order to get some book money for college, which he will then spend in bars.  I don't want to charge mental booteek pricing, but I do want to make it worth my little feller's while.

I was thinking of charging cost of parts, plus 10%, plus £10/hour for his build time (based on the minimum UK wage being about £6/hour).  So that's, ooh, about £70 quid for a fuzz box, which doesn't sound unreasonable.  But might be seen as too little.  Or too much.

How do you price yours up if you sell them?  Or any other guidance, thoughts, inane humour welcome.....

[markeebee]

Just to save you some maths:

£6 = $10
£10 = £16
£70 = $112

Approx

[fuzzo]

giving price  is really hard task in my opinion. I've same issue with my stuff. As you I'll wait other opinions about it !

[Pyr0]

Compare with prices for similar pedals on ebay and pick a figure close.

[deadastronaut]

if i (or anyone for that matter) was to ask the 'actual' price for parts and labour/time it would be well into triple figures (diy pcb, not vero)...however people just see the box, and not the work that went into it. and aren't interested in paying for the graft!!!..

...but hey they can always go buy a joyo/behringer cheap as chips

i'd say it depends on the pedal complexity (amount of expensive-cheap parts) really, and the specific finish requirements too.  paint/waterslides/etching etc..

a simple boost=cheapest

a fuzz = cheap-reasonable

a chorus=not so...

a delay not so..

£70.00 sounds fair though.  

(sorry fresh out of inane humour)

[RandomGlitch]

Yeah sometimes people think that you making it will mean it's cheap!

Well it's not really like that is it? 

So what I've been doing is, tell people that such-and-such an effect (typically the boutique types) go for whatever (usually $200-300) and I can make one of those, for whatever it is. (70 pounds seems OK to me).

If they say too expensive I just direct them to the Behringer site!

For mates I just double the cost of parts, tell them that's a special them-only price. And those ones I say you might have to wait a while to get it, so I'm not stressing over it. I make a bit, so I can fund my hobby, but not getting rich or anything. lol. as if!

[samhay]

My general approach to this sort of thing - and it doesn't come up very much - is to ask double the parts cost so that I can keep one and not be out of pocket. I usually only take requests for builds that I find interesting, so perhaps this not such a good business model.
£70 sounds quite reasonable to me (I'm in the UK) as long as you are willing to offer some form of (very limited) after-sales support.

[arma61]

Ciao

+1 on parts cost and a fee for the building (10/15 euro).. that's .... when I sell one... , though something like this is the best reward for me!!     

(the 1590a close to he wah)





Ciao

[pickdropper]

IMHO, It really depends on cost of the parts + how long it actually takes you to build the thing.

My guess is at 70 quid, it is still a fairly low hourly rate.  For most, this is a labor of love.  If you are building one-offs as a business (and price it as such), you can end up with boutique pricing (at least the sane end of it).  If your son is building for money while in college, then I am guessing that he is doing it more for the extra scratch and less about doing it for the love of building.

Now, if you build a lot of the same model, then the labor aspect can be reduced as you introduce some efficiencies.  But that is not likely the case here.

[B Tremblay]

Depends on how much profit you want and/or your overhead.  If you enjoy building them and simply want to recoup the parts cost with a little bit money for your labor, then triple the cost of your parts.  Then you can build another without laying out more cash and you didn't build it for free.

[midwayfair]

Here's my thoughts:

When I build for friends, they cover my parts and sometimes pay a little above to help fund my next "me" project. I don't specifically charge, them, it basically they want to give me money and I tell them that I'm happy not to lose any.

But building for someone who's just a casual aquaintance, or someone I barely know? Or a "friend of a friend" (did they get wind how reasonable the price was?  ) Then you're talking about calculating expenses for a business. It's skilled labor. Work out whatever a common pay is in your area for skilled labor (here it's about $13-25/hour), work out the time it takes to build something, cover taxes, cover expenses in the WORST CASE, and cover the shipping costs for when they ship the thing back to you because they broke it by plugging in the wrong power supply. It's going to be more than what it costs to build for your friends, I can tell you that. PaulC charges $129 for the Timmy and he's cutting his own throat.

Now, I know you don't want your son to lose business by charging an actual fair price ... and that complicates things. In my case, I quote people a competitive price because this is a fun hobby for me, and I really don't particularly want to spend my free time building other people little boxes.

[bluebunny]

I'm sure we who know you would trust you to come up with a figure that you feel your work is honestly worth - if you were to quote £100 for a pedal, I think we'd all be happy to pay that, knowing that we were getting £100-worth of your work in return.  Like quoting for a gig, pick a realistic figure that you believe in, stick with it, and never be ashamed to ask it.  By all means, offer "mate's rates" discounts for friends of a friend.  (Like us!)

[haveyouseenhim]

I'm glad this thread popped up. I was just about to make a similar thread because I'm going to post some of my builds in the for sale section. I have to pay the dental surgeon 

Thanks markeebee

(I hope I'm not stepping on your toes)

[midwayfair]

I'm glad this thread popped up. I was just about to make a similar thread because I'm going to post some of my builds in the for sale section. I have to pay the dental surgeon 

Thanks markeebee

(I hope I'm not stepping on your toes)

Sorry to hear about your dental woes.

TGP might be worth the donation it requires to post in their Emporium ... you're not selling ice to Eskimos there. Just be sure to introduce yourself in the for-sale post so people can see that you didn't just start joining forums to post builds for sale. Harmony Central, too.

[Ark Angel HFB]

Maybe I'm evil but I when I've done this I normal factor up all of what it cost, plus shipping the parts to me, and then I double that and subtract 10%.

another way I do it is charge about $10 for every hour of labor I put into the pedal... Both methods seems fair to me. I'm not out to make a tone of money but get money means this hobby keeps it's self going and I can try and build more and more pedals.

And remember, valuing your time is not a bad thing if you do good work. $10/hour is also not an insane wage to ask for putting things together when yo go the full 9 yards on finishing and what not. (Don't count paint drying time in the time worked area btw. XD)

[Kesh]

If I'm interested in building something, maybe first time building something, but don't particularly have a use for it, I will do it for cost of parts, maybe for the cost of a drink or three.

If someone wants something I've made before (so is of less interest to me), I charge maybe parts plus maybe £30. Funnily enough this means less work for more money, as I don't have to design the board or enclosure again.

[deadastronaut]

you can never charge for breadboard time obviously, but even on a LOT of tried and tested circuits, i find i always have to have a tweak here n there,...for unity,tone, etc..

so i bread everything, and then i end up re-doing the whole layout too ...so in the end its a lot of work,and time consuming , but i also enjoy it, and in the end i know what i build is just so..

the plus side is i don't have a load of dust collectors waiting to be pulled apart for bits...

[Mark Hammer]

I have a hard time with this one. 

On the one hand, I'd like to think that my time is worth at least minimum wage.  On the other hand, the sort of commercial products you can pick up 2nd hand, in terrific shape, for a pittance, lead me to think that the purchaser should not be effectively overcharged for the fact that I don't have production methods nearly as efficient as big manufacturers.

Sure it may have taken me 6 hours to build something on perf, but it's built on perf for crying out loud.  I can't in all good conscience demand more money for a stupid fuzz that I had to make by hand (because I couldn't make it any other way) than a pedal of equal dependability and better construction quality made by a commercial company, just because I had to make it by hand.  I suppose there is some additional premium to be paid/charged because a pedal may be a one of a kind, or have some special features.  And if somebody asked me to make something for them, which now requires me to re-organize my time, then I am essentially charging them for my inconvenience.  But if I have some pedals lying around that I'm no longer interested in, and I want to sell them, I usually wouldn't charge anyone more than $60-70, and often less.

[rockhorst]

My policy is basically this: if someone asks me 'can you build me THAT pedal' I say 'buy THAT pedal'. If they ask 'can you build me THAT pedal  with an extra volume pot, switch etc' I get excited. Usually I double or triple the parts cost, that ensures that I could build one for myself as well (which personally I think is a better criterium than just adding $10) or have a little buffer in case I make a mistake (for instance with the PCB design). Of course, there's semi unlimited service and personalized artwork included. So with my current low volumes, my prices range between €80 (booster) and €175 (dual channel JFET distortion), depending on the complexity, which is comparable to shop prices, but barely keeps the hobby afloat.

Of course, I also accept payment in other pedals or backstage passes

[garcho]

and let my son build them in order to get some book money for college, which he will then spend in bars.

You want him to get educated, don't you?! 

In my experience, people were more than happy to pay me a reasonable rate to build them crap. By 'reasonable', I mean roughly double COGS. By 'crap' I mean things that make or change sound. Buying a Moogerfooger or Z Vex or whatever is great (if you have $$$), but there's still some magic in getting something 'unique' ('singular' is probably a better word), even if it's a Fuzz Face.