The key to pricing your work accurately

Two of the most difficult things about owning your own sign shop is how to determine your true shop costs and handle pricing. I believe most shops leave out many items as they calculate their costs—especially when it comes to their own time. The result is a lower-than-expected profit at the end of the year, plus some very long hours getting things done.

Our dimensional signs and projects are certainly more complex than most sign shops would tackle, which makes coming up with a sticker price seemingly challenging at times. Most of the sign people that I talk to believe it is a very involved procedure for us. But the truth is that we don’t spend much time actually quoting our projects. We have a simple formula that works well for us.