An Introduction to Pricing Decoration Products & Services
Pricing custom decorated goods and services can be a bit complicated. There are many variable costs that go into decorating a custom product, but it is important to be able to quickly and accurately quote a customer. When pricing custom-decorated products, it is best to try and keep the product and decoration price separate. This makes quantity discounts much easier to calculate, and lets the customer know the different product prices quickly. Screen printing is the most common form of apparel decoration, but the majority of the custom decoration processes are no minimum, full-color processes. Direct-To-Garment (DTG), sublimation, and wide format printing all use CMYK inks & digital printers to create full-color finished products. Embroidery is very much the same, but does not use CMYK inks. Instead, each color has its own thread (like screen print ink colors), but the setup of the job is minimal like with digital printing methods. Since embroidery and digital printing processes have no minimum order requirements, low-run orders with higher margins are more common when compared to screen printing.
What Determines the Screen Printing Price?
Screen printing and screen print transfer pressing are the two decoration processes that allow for larger quantity discounts because the costs associated with production come primarily from the setup. Each additional color in screen printing takes more time, and thus costs more money. Other decoration processes that use digital artwork and CMYK inks are much easier to print. Since each color requires more setup time in screen printing, the amount of colors in the artwork are one of the two big determinants of the price. The other factor is the total quantity of prints. Since the majority of the costs in screen printing come from setting up the print job, the unit print price actually decreases as the number of prints ordered increases.
How to Price Screen Printing Services
When pricing screen printing products and services it is best to keep things simple, both for you and for your customer. There should be no need for extra fees for a straightforward screen print job. Some businesses charge artwork fees, screen setup fees, and white underbase fees. A white underbase is a layer of white ink that is printed before a design, covering the entire area of the design. Printing color onto a white underbase helps the color stand out on dark-colored media.
As a decoration business, it would be wise to offer at least some help with artwork as a part of the price. Many decoration businesses offer around 20 minutes of artwork preparation help for screen print jobs, and then charge extra fees for additional time. Remember that nothing in life is free, however, and that the costs are moved from one place to another. Product decorators have screen setup costs, but most customers do not know or care what that means. All customers want to know is how much it will cost to decorate one or more products. It is just much easier for both a business and its customer if the business includes these anticipated costs in its pricing model so that the customer is a offered a single and simple price for their order. This is often referred to as an “all in” price.
Comparing Screen Printing Prices to Competitors
It would also be wise to offer pricing comparisons for your customers. CustomInk.com is an excellent example to compare your prices to because their prices are on the high side and they have a well-recognized, national brand. One reason that Custom Ink’s prices are on the high side is that, because they are a national brand, they have significantly higher advertising costs than most small decoration businesses. One way to help advertise your business while keeping costs down is to offer customers a deal. For example, in exchange for a reduction in price for their order, they allow you to print a small advertisement with your business’s logo and/or contact information on their media. This is called cobranding. For example, on a t-shirt this would mean printing a small version of your logo on the top of the back, or on the sleeve. This benefits both parties and, while not every customer will be interested in the deal, it can be especially attractive for a business on large orders.
How to Price Embroidery
While ethical businesses are generally against the practice of nickel-and-diming customers with excessive fees and up-charges, additional fees are occasionally necessary. Especially when it comes to embroidery. Prices for embroidery jobs should start with a base price determined by the product and the amount of stitches in the design. If a customer needs to have their artwork digitized, then that should be added to the base price. The quality of the digitized artwork is the biggest determinant of an embroidered product’s overall quality. The base price should include a set number of stitches, and anything over that amount should be charged per thousand additional stitches. For example, a shop might charge $7.00 for the first 4,000 stitches and then $1.00 for each additional 1,000 stitches. Sewing 3D designs onto hats and bags should also have a separate price due to the extra labor and material costs it requires.
How to Price Digital Printing Methods
Digital printing pricing is largely determined by the size of the artwork to be printed. The reason for this is the setup costs for a digital print job are minimal. Rather, most of the cost is split between the blank product and the amount of ink necessary to print the design. Since digital printing inks are far more expensive than screen printing ink, digital printing businesses must take into account the amount of ink necessary to print a product. DTG ink is typically the most expensive ink, and therefore decoration costs are typically the highest. Wide format printers typically charge by the square foot for their prints, as they can estimate the average amount of ink that goes into prints based on the product size. Sublimation printing prices are indirectly affected by the size of the artwork. Larger sublimated products are more expensive due to their size, and because more ink is required to create the design. When you consider the costs of ink, no minimum decoration processes should still include quantity discounts, but not nearly as steep as those for screen printing. The unit production costs for full-color decoration processes do not drop as much as for screen printing when production volume is high.
How to Price Blank Products
We, at Print Phase, recommend that you price blank products and decoration services separately, and therefore have two separate price sheets available for your customers. One sheet should go over the printing price, and the other should break down all the available apparel products and their prices. This allows the customer to figure out the price for the total number of prints they require and then break down the unit cost for each type of product, whether it be a t-shirt, sweatshirt, or anything else. This also makes it easier for you to calculate your margins and maintain a consistent margin from order to order. Keeping media and decoration prices separate also makes it easier to calculate quantity discounts, as they can be applied to either the media or decoration. Knowing how much to charge for each product and service will take time to learn, but it becomes easier with experience.
Conclusion
Regardless of the decoration process, you should have price sheets available to your customers. This will save you time and money that could otherwise be lost haggling or negotiating with a customer. To be sure that your pricing strategy is working, you need to keep track of your supplier costs, retail prices, and margins. There is a lot of variety in custom gift decoration. So, being aware of the difference between the processes, and how they affect prices, is critical to finding success in the product decoration industry. With our pricing templates, your decoration business can be as successful as you want it to be.
