What do you charge?

[LaurenStamps60]

I've been asked to make several calendars and a few scrapbooks. Aside from obviously charging for all materials, how do you charge for items you make? Do you charge an hourly fee? Do you charge a flat rate for a certain size scrapbook or calendar?

[LaurenStamps60]

bump

[momis mama]

i am doing a scrapbook for a girl right now and i am wondering if i am charging enough...

i am charging a flat rate of $10 a page. i have a few friends that are telling me that i am not charging enough but i don't want to run the risk of scaring off future 'customers'. i also want to make sure that i am not doing this 'for the fun of it' even tho it is my passion.


i am interested to see what others think is a fair price. i know that it depends a lot on where you live, what the demand is and what people are willing to pay... blah blah blah LOL!

still- please just throw it out there!

[LaurenStamps60]

I did find some helpful information by a lady at www.creativescrapbooking.com. She gives lots of typical ways people charge for this service. Some by the page; some by the hour; some by the book but overall she stresses to not undercharge -- you can always discount without a fuss but try to increase your fees and you'll get a fuss. I think I'm going to go with an hourly rate. Some books will take longer depending on what the customer wants and I just don't want to charge a per page fee when I may have to end up spending more time on some pages than others. I know the pitfall of this is having to keep very good time records but I think it's easier in the long run and I'll include the documented time sheet for my customer. I can give an ESTIMATE of how much time it may take but will stress that this is not a definite fee and can go up or down depending on time spent. We'll see . . .

[HeatherHolbrook]

My experience in the past from working in a scrapbook store is that most people charge by the hour and momis mama is about average, I would hear most say they charge around $10 an hour plus supplies.
I've only ever done groups of cards for people (wedding invites, baby announcements, etc) and I think I way under charge at $6 an hour.

[stamphappy1650]

I can't give advices on what you should charge, but I can say that you really want to watch just how much time you spend and make sure you get enough to make it worth your while and not worry about loosing a future customer.

Last year I made these amazing calendars, each one took about 4 evenings to complete. I felt like I should have charged at least $50 but I felt like I might loose the sale so I charged $35. I made 5 of them for one person and she never ordered another thing. I felt taken advantage of and will never discount like that again. BTW - because I was making 5 of the same I was able to get them done with less time by going into production mode, but it still took me several days to get them done.

So make sure you don't cheat yourself for fear of loosing a customer.