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Pro tip: a customer at my shop said one line that changed how I price small jobs
I run a small screen printing shop in Akron and a guy came in last Tuesday to pick up 40 shirts for his crew. While I was ringing him up he asked how long the job took me. I said about two hours of setup and printing. He laughed and said his old printer charged him for the setup time every single order, no matter how small, and that is why he left. I had been eating setup time on small runs for years because I felt bad charging people $35 for what looks like 15 minutes of work. But setup is where the money goes. The screens, the ink mixing, the cleanup. None of that shrinks just because the order is small. So this week I started quoting a flat $25 setup fee on anything under 24 pieces. I did four small orders since then and not one person blinked. Two of them even said they expected it. My hourly take on those jobs almost doubled. Do you all charge a setup or min order fee, or do you just bake it into the price per shirt?
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lily_schmidt5321d ago
Setup time doesn't care if you're printing 5 shirts or 500, it takes the same amount of work either way. Used to feel weird about charging for something customers can't see, but the screens and ink mixing don't care about my feelings. Baking it into the price per shirt just punishes the bigger orders anyway, so a flat fee makes more sense.
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