how much to charge for model making ?

[bazjones1711]

Scratchbuilt this cement terminal about 20 years ago, posted some pictures on the internet  with the prospect of building 2 more to be sold on , i have someone who wants to buy two , but as yet have not worked the cost . I obviously know the materials cost but need to now factor in the cost of labour , glue , paint etc ..  so how much do i charge without being excessive , i have asked someone in the toy fair trade who quoted me £12 - £15 ! would not even cover the materials . So what would people be prepared to pay ? i have a estimate of about £40+ each , which is only a bit more than a Hornby cement silo.

regards Baz

[Kris]

You need to factor in if you are trying to cover the cost of your time, or if the satisfaction of making the item will help recompense you for your time. If it is the former your cost will be higher than £40, if the latter £40 would sound reasonable. 

[Clearwater]

Don't forget a dealer has to make their own profit so are always going to quote low. They'd look at a 50-100% markup.

 

David

[DCB]

Work out the minimum wage and halve it as a starting point. You can always go down!      Its not quite professional model making where you pay someone to make a kit which has defeated you or to build something completely unavailable elsewhere, its more a sort of batch building where economy of scale cuts in and you might as well make half a dozen while you are at it and stick a couple on Ebay!    But like everything else hobby wise you will be lucky to break even and not make a loss.

[Dunsignalling]

Work out the minimum wage and halve it as a starting point. You can always go down!      Its not quite professional model making where you pay someone to make a kit which has defeated you or to build something completely unavailable elsewhere, its more a sort of batch building where economy of scale cuts in and you might as well make half a dozen while you are at it and stick a couple on Ebay!    But like everything else hobby wise you will be lucky to break even and not make a loss.

Don't you mean double the minimum wage? There's not much room to go down from half of it.

 

John

[Anglian]

Workout your material costs first. I assume you have a pretty good idea how long the original took you to build and doing two at once will give you a bit of time saving. Then comes the tricky bit – it sounds like you are doing this partly for pleasure but I'd still think about the minimum amount of money you would except per hour for your time. It may be very low but I'd still use it to calculate what you would want to charge.

 

Alternatively think about something you'd like for your own layout/collection (if you have one) and that will give you price. You could always ask your customer to buy said item(s) for you rather than handing over hard cash. A bit of 'horse trading' to coin Tony's (Wright) phrase.

[Robin2]

How much of the stuff in that photo are you planning to make and sell? if it is everything except the trains I reckon anything less than £150 plus materials would be giving it away.

 

There is a huge difference in the value of hand-made stuff compared to factory production line products that are made in their hundreds or thousands.

 

Think about how much you would want to charge if you had an order that kept you occupied 8 hours a day for a week - i.e. long enough to get tired of the whole bl***y thing.

 

...R

[bazjones1711]

I will be selling the cement terminals only , have started the two , even if i don't get to sell them ,i would probably make a small layout with them on.

Thanks for everyone's advice

Regards baz

[bazjones1711]

Bit of progress today !

[Robin2]

The finished one looks very good. Don't sell yourself short.

 

It would be a different thing altogether if you had 3 of them taking up space and you just want to dispose of two of them to a good home rather than throwing them in the skip.

 

...R

[chris p bacon]

£25 an hour was the figure on another thread.

[Junctionmad]

whatever the customer will accept is the answer

[LBRJ]

Unless you are capable of knowing your production rate and working at "professional speed", I dont think it is a good idea to charge by the hour.

Charging by the Item, maybe based on a rough idea of hours needed for you to create it, is a better way.

The main reason "professional" builders of anything are "professional" is because they can do something to a set standard, and quickly

 

I would think about £60 to £75 per unit finished to the standard in the OP was more than fair, to both parties..

[Enterprisingwestern]

How many can you build in a day?

If you're building a few at a time you'll get better production rates.

Charge yourself out at, say, £100 a day plus materials, then work backwards from that.

As a ball park figure, I'd say £65 per unit, I'd be quite happy to pay that for a bespoke building.

 

Mike.

[chris p bacon]

whatever the customer will accept is the answer

Where that falls down.

 

I build 12" to the foot houses, I like to charge the market rate of say £300,000 for a unit but the customer only wants to pay £50,000.

 

£25 sounds a lot but in the context of self employed is not unreasonable.  The poster has to work quickly and to a set standard unless this is purely for his own fun.

[The Johnster]

Much of the above advice is sensible in the commercial sense, and I have nothing further to offer in regard to that side of things, but I also think you need to assess a figure based on how much it would mean to you if you were to undercharge and then have a flood of orders that you could not perhaps cope with from people who see a cheap and effective way of obtaining a cement terminal or whatever else you want to produce in future.  This is where the advice to not undersell yourself comes in.  It is easy to be conditioned by the pricing demands of a competitive marked, but those rules do not really apply to a one (or two) off model of this sort!

 

I work to the principle that even the most unskilled labour is worth £10/hour as a matter of simple human dignity; I would not ever be happy to pay anyone less.  But this is not unskilled work, anything but.  If it were me, for what it's worth, I'd come to a figure that I think I'd be willing to pay someone else for the model, then double it; if the customer does not agree, come down half way to your original price.  Otherwise, don't do it and make some other model for your own purposes; don't get involved in negotiating and horse trading, which will suck your time and drive your resolve down until you accept a price level you are not really happy with.  And once you've set the level, word'll get around and you'll find it difficult to raise it for a while!