How much do you charge?

[joiner_sim]

Hello everyone!

I have been wondering what prices I should be charging that are reasonable, for labour, per hour when making bespoke furniture. When I have told my family how much I want to be charging they was shocked and thought it was a little high, but is it? £10 an hour? I am thinking to myself £10 an hour isn't bad and those that want bespoke furniture for anything cheaper, really don't want bespoke, they just want it on the cheap?

So what do you guys charge when its a fully priced job? :roll:

 

[wizer]

£10 is far to LOW!!

What you are experiencing is not uncommon. Indeed, I would think my friends and family would be shocked at the sort of hourly figure I'd want for commissioned work (which is why I'd never consider doing it). I think you might call it the Ikea Syndrome. Why would they pay £800 for a table that they could but for £150 from Ikea?

 

[Ironballs]

At work we pay someone £10/hour to photocopy and chase paper round, for someone with some skills we pay £30/hour and upwards

 

[joiner_sim]

Thankyou! My point exactly, you can't compare custom-made bespoke funiture to the stuff in the shops. At least its just not me thinking i'm over-pricing!

I was thinking about it today while I was working, after one of my family commented that I was charging quite a lot. For the price they thought I should be charging, I'd make nothing really after I'd paid for the timber. Maybe enough to stock up on some blades and sandpapers! :roll:

To me currently £10 an hour is just about right, in comparison to what I earn during the week for my company doing woodwork. However in a couple of years time my hourly rate will go up and so will the furniture prices.

 

[wizer]

I think it should be at least £15 JS. Stick to your guns with family and friends. If they can't see that they are already getting a bargain at those prices then that's their problem. In a few years you'll not accept less than £50 an hour and then they'll understand!!

It's the same with my profession. F&F expect me to magic PC's and Laptops out of thin air at a fraction of what they cost in the shops and then support them for the next 10yrs for free! :roll: :wink:

 

[Ironballs]

Ask them to break down what they're paid into an hourly rate and when they do it don't forget to add on the extra for paid sick, holiday, for pensions and for any other perks they get

 

[Pete Howlett]

£10 and hour - that is ridiculous. Your plumber costs £50 out here in the sticks as does the car mechanic and everyone else providing a service. Why are you devaluing your skills like this?

 

[joiner_sim]

Thanks for the sound advice 8) The way i see it, is, its my own private workshop, I'm open to jobs anytime, but I'm mainly in it for the love of woodworking. If that means working for free making myself stuff, then thats fine- plenty of stuff that can be done! And at some point, I've actually got to sort the shop out again, now I've been working in it for 2 months or so, as I have some ideas for space saving and that.

So what would you guys have quoted for my coffee table I made on the weekend? (labour only)

Image can be found here: http://www.freewebs.com/simonswoodwork/WIPcoffeetable/31082008127.jpg

At my £10 an hour, labour only would of been £200

 

[wizer]

I understand what you'e saying. Everyone does the odd job for beer money, just for either the love of what their doing or as a genuine favour to F&F. There is also the point of putting your name out there, getting people to know your work.

 

[Pete Howlett]

The other side of this is it devalues the marketplace for legitimate woodworkers - it doesn't matter if you are doing it as a spare time hobby. if that is your thing, then do it for free!

 

[joiner_sim]

I actually did that coffee table for zero money. It was for my nan. The timber wasn't even priced as I got that as an employee discount :wink: I did obviousy get some money for it after saying no for five minutes, but when asked how much I would charge she was shocked and thought nobody would be willing to pay that much. I'm just not sure here. I'm thinking if I get more orders of coffee tables, I want at least £100-£150 labour. The timber would be priced up on top of that. If people say what I'm charging is too much, do I lower the price to get the work and hopefully spread the word of mouth or do I just stick with my £100-£150 which is about £5-£7.50 an hour, aiming to at some point get £10 an hour, and then progress onto more? I don't really want to be going full time self-employed in furniture in the near future, so do I just refuse the jobs as bespoke furniture, is bespoke, and handmade furniture prices will never be able to compete with the mass produced furniture? (with good reason not to)

 

[joiner_sim]

The other side of this is it devalues the marketplace for legitimate woodworkers - it doesn't matter if you are doing it as a spare time hobby. if that is your thing, then do it for free!

Furniture is a "spare-time" thing, but I am in full-time employment with a small joinery firm 5/6days a week. And if I do any work outside of the shop, it gets put thru the books of my company and it gets TAX and VAT charged. The only difference would be that it is being made out of the comapnies shop, so I take all the profit.

 

[Pete Howlett]

I still don't understand your point - would you work for the minimum wage? I used to take any work at any price and quickly learnt that this was stupid! I'm not saying you are stupid but what i realised was that my clients were dictating the rules instead of me. And then in the early 80's I saw a TV program on a guy called 'Andy the furniture maker'. If someone tried to bargain him down, he would hike up the price. When they complained he'd raise the the price again until they got the point...

Take charge of your business - don't let others do it for you.

 

[joiner_sim]

Thanks for the advice. I'm not being paid very well at the company I'm working for at the moment. The money is promised to go up, but time will tell. I have now got my 5 years minimum experience, with NVQ level 2 and have been told next year will be a "full joiner's wage" they have never said what this will be, but I'm just holding on, especially when the construction industry is in trouble at the moment.

So to me £10 an hour is a bit more than what I'm earning in the week at the moment, and I'm only new to furniture making, and have very few overheads to worry about. Maybe get my name out there if I can and then if I find I'm getting enough work, put the prices up and go it alone full-time. One day I would like to be in a position where I own a small woodshop, like the one I'm working in (which would be worth about 1million for sale).

 

[filsgreen]

For what it's worth Simon I would think twice about what you write on these forums, you don't know who reads them 8-[ .

I think your Nan will be made up with her coffee table and so she should be, it's a nice piece of furniture. Please don't get cynical about what your worth and how much you could earn, it's not worth the heartache. If your happy to make things for family and friends, carry on.

There has just been a post about what you should earn and what the reality is. It doesn't make good reading. People aren't prepared to pay for real wood and quality, they're just used to MDF. No disrespect to Dan "who is turning it into gold in a northern town".

Phil

 

[Richard Findley]

Hi Sim,

The other way to look at it is with a slightly wider view, rather than per hour, if you want to make, lets say £300 per week and an item can be made in 3 days its.... :-k :-k :? ... £180 plus timber (plus a bit of profit on the timber, say 50%?) I guess it all depends how much you want to make but as my old man says: 5% of something is better than 100% of nothing!!!

Good luck mate,

Richard

 

[Gary M]

Hi Simon,
As you are finding out everyone wants you to make them a "piece" until they find out what it will cost :roll:
The cost of the timber alone can be staggering
As a general rule/guideline for friends and family i usually charge 2-3 times the price of the timber(depending on the work involved) ask for more and their off to Ikea.
I know of a furniture maker who was a big concern, 10 or more employees, and was in with the older money people who wernt afraid to spend their money. all dried up now (over 5 or so years) massive fully kitted out workshop almost dormant, with 1 employee left on a 4 day week.
You need to get in with the younger generation who have the money but require modern contempary furniture which is tricky to make in a shed :wink:

Enjoy your woodwork/ furniture making as a hobby (for now)
Cheers,
Gary.

 

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

I have been wondering what prices I should be charging that are reasonable, for labour, per hour when making bespoke furniture. When I have told my family how much I want to be charging they was shocked and thought it was a little high, but is it? £10 an hour? I am thinking to myself £10 an hour isn't bad and those that want bespoke furniture for anything cheaper, really don't want bespoke, they just want it on the cheap?

So what do you guys charge when its a fully priced job? :roll:

Think of overheads, paperwork, travelling etc. and you should probably be thinking 7 or more times that per hour if this is a business.

When I occasionally sell things i made for fun, I make around £45 per hour, but it is not a job that I do to sustain myself and family.

However, an hourly rate for furniture is a tricky one as people with different tools work at different rates. For instance, Philly is much faster than I am and could, based upon an hourly rate, undercut me by 50%!!!

Also, when making funriture at an hourly rate, forget about the fun stuff like hand-cut dovetails, the time is prohibitively expensive.

 

[seanybaby]

So Philly has twice the skill as you :roll: :lol:

Four a five finger dovetail i charge twice what you charge which is £90 per hour and i'm very proud of my business skills.

I can sustain my family on this income and a little help from the state

 

[p111dom]

I think it's difficult to talk about an hourly rate. It really depends on your skill and the equipment you have. I made a side table a few years ago which was pretty simple but it had 16 M&T joints all of which were cut by hand. I didn't have a biscuit jointer and the top required a lot of sanding. Then there was a lot of faffing around trying to get the finish to an acceptable standard. It took two hours just to machine the rough boards down to usable stock with P/T change over time etc and in total I probably spent 12 hours on it including finishing. Including material costs and labour at your £10 per hour the cost to a potential customer would have been about £150. However with the seperate better machinery I have now and a bit more experience compared to back then usable stock time is at least half. Biscuits reduce sanding time on large surfaces like the top and if I had a Domino I could probably make the same table in half the time or less inc finishing say 4-6 hours. That would be £90max which in my opinion would be too cheap. However it raises the question do you expect the customer to pay for more hours labour due to a makers lack of experience, slower working rate or lack of investment in tooling? I would probably keep the cost the same and justify it beacuse of the investment required. The thing is that the second table would be a better piece so it all becomes a bit subjective.

I've had plumbers out to the house who insist on doing pipework in copper. There argument is that it's more professional than plastic and that plastic is 10 times the price of copper. They're right on the price but the difference is 5p per joint versus 25p per joint or £5 versus £25 in materials for a job. However coppers takes 3 times longer and at £65 per hour I'll have the plastic thank you very much, much to their dissapointment.

In another instance I was getting an electrically heated floor put into the bathroom and the fitter was up there for ages. When I went up to see how he was getting on I found him cutting a channel for the themometer in the ply sub floor he'd layed by taking 6 million cuts with a utility knife. He'd spent an hour doing that. £65 that cost me because he didn't have a router. Had an argument over that hours rate which ended in me telling him to get out.

I decided from the off that I was never going to make any money at furniture making and so haven't tried. My passion when I was younger is now my job and that definately takes some of the pleasure out of that. Woodworking is a hobby that I enjoy greatly. I intend to keep it that way.