By signcraft
Posted on Thursday, March 9th, 2017
Time for a quick estimate: What would you charge for a 3-by-16-ft. storefront sign on aluminum composite material like this one? We’ll show you what five seasoned sign professionals would charge—but first jot down your own rough estimate. Quote it as a middle-of-the-road project for your area, neither basic nor super-custom, but in between.
We told these five designers that the owner of a flooring company has moved into a new location in an office/warehouse complex. He noticed a 3-by-16-ft. flat sign on aluminum composite material that you did for another company in the building and comes by to discuss getting a similar sign. He doesn’t have a logo, and the sign will be mounted on the wood siding façade over the entry.
Successful pricing makes the difference between success or failure of a sign business. Along with knowing your local market, it helps to know how others in the business would estimate a price for the work you do every day.
This is a fairly typical project for most sign shops. Here’s your chance to see how your prices fit with established sign shops in a variety of locations and markets. It’s the sort of practical help on pricing signs you’ll only find in SignCraft.
You’ll find the prices and other details in the captions as you click on the thumbnail of each of the images above as well:
Cathy Krommenhoek, Old School Sign Company, Le Mars, Iowa: $990 plus installation
Keith Smith, Brushwork Signs & Graphics, Caldwell, Idaho: $750 plus installation
Larry Elliott, Elliott Sign & Design, McLemoresville, Tennessee: Three versions from $750 to $1067 plus installation
John Oliva, C&M Sign Company, Bedford Hills, New York: seven versions from $1750 to $2000 with an aluminum frame and border, plus installation
To estimate sign prices accurately, you need to know your overhead and determine an accurate hourly rate. You can get help on this by going to the Sign Pricing page on SignCraft.com and scrolling down to the Determining Your Hourly Rate link.
These five sign professionals have been in the business for ten, twenty, thirty years and more. They know what it takes to price custom sign work successfully. You’ll see all their comments on how they would sell, design and produce this sign, along with pricing breakdowns, in the Design & Price feature in the March/April issue of SignCraft and online. You’ll also see 15 different designs that they created for the sign—plenty of great ideas for your next storefront sign design. Don’t miss it—subscribe today.
