Shop pricing....

Originally posted by daveg



... i love helpn people out and seein their excitement when they finally have a bagged ride at like 35 with two kids and a mortgage.

down side is when it gets old hookin people up, and your 35, can't afford a mortgage let alone 2 kids, and masterbate to free porn instead of gettin laid...of course you could always barter work for use of your customers stuff...i.e. house, kids, sex. Let me know how it works out

I agree with the hourly deal, the only way that I will quote a job is if it is over quoted or I know the vehicle well enough to do so and even then it will typically make me more money than if it was straight hourly.

The idea of micro-managing the project with the customer will eliminate so many of the problems that are associated with custom work. They are more comfortable paying, they are generally more pleased with the outcome knowing that they made a lot of the little decisions and in the end, they are the ones who decide how detailed the project ends up. I've even gone so far on the larger projects to hire a project manager, that takes all of the stress out of it. I just get to work and he brings me a check every month.

So then do you guys that charge hourly send a bill every week, once a month, keep track of the hours till the end and give them one big bill or what? I like the idea of hourly work myself.

100$ an hour on custom work, period. at least in socal. and if you charge labor any way but hourly, your cheating yourself.

the shop i work for bills weekly. its 65 an hour and people easily get bills for 3250 in labor plus materials and parts. I have been working on a Nomad for over a month for various things. I bet this guy has 30k in putting a vintage air unit in, 700r4 swap, electric fan install, disc brake upgrade in the rear along with a billet specialties pulley/bracket setup.

we constantly get customers that bitch and complain their bills are so high. but my owner is the type of guy who would willingly fuck you for 400k on a vehicle that looks like its worth 100k at most. he just smiles cause he has your cash.

I try to have a general idea of how long a job generally takes, and I multiply that by my hourly rate and ad a few hours depending on the size of the job. This is only for quotes, because I find that most people want a general price on a project before committing. But I let them know it could come in way under, or way over, and thats its just an estimate, not a final price. I got fucked hard by letting a customer hold me exactly to a quote, after they added on a lot of things. I learned my lesson.

But I keep track of hours, and I bill weekly now. I'm currently at $55 an hour.

charge 75 and hour and always overcharge if not sure how long it takes. got screwed in the begining but this has worked the best also start labor charges for bags at 1500 and go up from there

THanks for all the input guys...the hourly deal is looking really good. 90% of the time I feel my price/profit is really good. But that 10% really burns me up. To put in countless hours of work on someone's truck just to make penny's off of it, if anything at all when it's all said and done. So far my experiences with telling customers their bill is higher than originally stated hasn't went so well, so I really want to stay away from that. I've already had to deal with the steel prices....it's doubled around here. That kind of changes the bills alot....Thanks again guys.

at my work our billable rate is 125 per hour and are restos start at 300k and go up to 1 mill and these vehicles usually end up being worth quite a bit more than the resto price and are bosses sometimes even have a hard time billing every hour we work..with that bein said i think you might have a hard time finishing a steady amount of work if you actually bill hour for hour..it sounds like a great plan but doesnt always work out..goodluck though

the guys building my ranger are 40 an hour and bill me every week but only ask for money when they need it and i pay the bill down and pay it off in the end