Help with photo gift costing and pricing

[siancj88]

Hi Everyone
Can someone please help me? I'm in the middle of doing my business plan with the Prince's Trust to start up my own photo gift business but am completely stuck on costing and pricing.
I've bought a lot of equipment and stock and made a load of gifts as Christmas presents. How do i work out the cost to make each item?
How do i know how much the ink costs to make one mug for example?
I bought all my stock and equipment as one big bundle second hand so haven't actually bought anything like ink etc seperately yet.
If anyone can help it'll be much appreciated as it's getting very frustrating
Thanks
Sian

[socialgiraffe]

Hi there and welcome to the forum (presumably you will introduce yourself at some point )

Cost is very easy to work out and is based on a series of fixed items

Cost of blank item (don't forget to include VAT and shipping)
Cost of sheet of dye sub paper
Cost of ink which can be based on this link http://sawgrasseurope.indigofiles.com/t ... h_3110.pdf
Cost of electricity
Your hourly rate
Equipment cost

So if you took a mug as an example

Cost of mug £1.01 (including VAT and shipping)
1 A4 sheet of paper 17p
Cost of ink 12p
Cost of electricity 10p
Equipment cost 32p
Your time £1.25 (based on £15.00 per hour)
Total cost of mug £2.97

Needless to say the electricity cost is a bit of a guess and exaggerated by quite a bit, the cost of the equipment is based on a mug press costing £225.00 and making 700 mugs. Again a bit of a stab in the dark.

[pisquee]

Only edit I would add/make would be that you can get more than one mug on a sheet of A4, so some economy can be made there.

[MikeyMike]

socialgiraffe, set costing are easy as you quite rightly say but the awkward variable for me is the time spent producing the image. If the customer supplies you with an image that is not quite right do you go ahead and print anyway giving a sub standard finish or do you spend more time on the artwork to get the perfect finish. I am terrible for getting tied up with 'tweaking' artwork.

[Jason]

The simple answer is give this option to your customer, but make sure you charge for tweaking the artwork.

socialgiraffe, set costing are easy as you quite rightly say but the awkward variable for me is the time spent producing the image. If the customer supplies you with an image that is not quite right do you go ahead and print anyway giving a sub standard finish or do you spend more time on the artwork to get the perfect finish. I am terrible for getting tied up with 'tweaking' artwork.