Pricing questions

4

4point0

New member
Hey guys, I run a small paint shop in the Chicago suburbs pretty much just for fun. I work full time for a medical company so I do paint work by appointment only because I just don't have the time to take on a steady stream of "walk-in" type customers. 100% of my customers are friends/family friends and people that they refer to me. I do ZERO advertising or anything like that. My point is -- I don't do high volume out of my shop.

Anyway, people (mainly my family) tell me that my prices are too low. In my neck of the woods, quality body work (in my mind) is way over priced. For example, my friend broke the mirror on his car so he bought a new one... and the dealership wanted $180 just to paint it! I told him to cover the cost of materials and add $20 for my time. I think that is fair. That same friend backed into his mothers car so I did a tiny bit of body work to both cars and painted a rear bumper, a quarter panel, some misc trim pieces, and wet sanded and buffed it; all for $275 (including materials). I mean, I gave him a good deal because he is my friend and I wanted to help him out especially since he is a poor college student. But is that far too little to charge for something like that?

I have also seen someone pay $400 just to have a front fender painted! Is that really a reasonable price? I guess I don't really know that market anymore because I've been painting my own stuff for so long.

I try to average it out so that I make about $25/hr on any given paint job. Keep in mind that really only do light collision type stuff with the occasional custom paint job and I really just do this for fun. It's not a primary stream of income for me. Should I raise my prices?

Thanks,
Chris
 
TAZ

TAZ

Administrator
Staff member
From what I've read, their prices are too high, and yours are too low.
I would probably charge about $60 to paint a mirror.
I would probably have charged about $175 to paint the fender and probably $100 to blend the adjacent panels.

Keep in mind, on the latter one above I priced. YOU are responsible for the color match. If you're lucky, it might match. If not, you could spend 15 minutes, half out, 1 hour just color matching. THEN after all that, you pull it outside, and it still is off. Now you have to repaint again. So you could have 3-6 hours incuding wetsanding.

From what I've seen, most people, for whatever reason, tend to include EVERYTHING with the price when they are talking to other people.
I'm sure if you looked at the invoice, it was not $400 JUST to paint a fender.
They could have forgotten to mention that the price was really $380 - tax. Plus the fender probably had bodywork. Plus that cost probably included materials (approx $100). It could have also included blending panels.
So now your down to about $150 JUST to paint the fender. If it's a tri-stage paint (candy or white pearl), then the material cost could have been closer to $175-$200.

$25 is not too bad if you don't have a lot of overhead (most side job painters don't). But somewhere along the line, it'll end up biting you in the butt.

I, unfortunately, did everything the right way. I bought $28,000 worth of spray booths certified by the county, have a $2500/month shop. Dispose of my hazardous waste properly. Have expensive filter lines and filter system, have to have compliant guns...blah, blah, blah, so I HAVE to charge higher hourly rate, and make sure if something goes bad, I'm more or less covered.

Raise your prices a bit, and you'll be glad you did!
 
W

WarrensParadise

New member
I live in northern california. That should be enough said as far as cost go but I will expound just for grins for people who don't know the costs associated with living in this ridiculous state. I have done body and paint work for almost ten years and understand fully what needs to be done for prep work. I recently took my project to a couple shops to find out what they would charge to spray color and clear for me as I dont have a controlled enviornment. two tone, pastels mind you no hard to shoot colors or metallics. With NO body work just mask and shoot I have been quoted between $5000-$8000 . talk about ridiculous. these are "normal" shops not the brizio's of the business but normal paint shops that will actually work on hot rods. most shops around here wont touch anything except insurance collision repairs
-Warren
 
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4

4point0

New member
Thanks TAZ. I have another side job coming up this weekend. I'll adjust my prices a bit and see how it goes. I know there is going to be alot of body work with this one and I am probably going to be painting half of the car.

What is the going rate for body work these days? I know mechanical work from a dealership runs about $125/hr around here. I don't know what body work has gotten up to.
 
picasso

picasso

New member
Chris in the n. Virginia area, body and paint work is $45.00 per hour. Paint materials are $26 hour. For me to make a decent living painting in this part of the country I need to turn at least 3 hrs for every 1 est. hr ( I get $17 per hour and have to pay my helpers out of that) . Not hard as long as a painter is organized and plans his day.I have been painting for 35 years now, and have taught 7 painters that now make more than I do.. As for pricing the work I do on the side ( I only do custom and resto work on the side, the stuff my shop wouldn't touch) I try to charge $35 per actual hour plus material. The cost of materials is what really gets me on the restoration work. Seems I always underestimate the cost and it goes up all the time. I use Dupont, Spies and or Sikkens for side work. Maybe time to start looking for an alternate Paint.
 
G

Gatorman

New member
Doing work for friends and family as a favor and to satisfy your desire to do this works is fine. But if you are going above that, you would need to find out the cost of doing it legally. You know, taxes, fees, overhead and such. Is the work you are doing basically for free hurting your local businesses who are legal and paying taxes and supporting your local economy? You might not think it matters but if 20 or 30 of you are doing this than it adds up. I am a retired businessman and I know from experience that this kind of situation does have an effect on your local business and government. Just think about it next time you ride down the street and you look at play grounds, fire dept, police dept and other businesses. Money turns around 7 times in the local economy. Businesses that charge a lot more usually have a good reason, taxes and overhead. It all has to be figured in. JMO
 
4

4point0

New member
Gatorman said:
Doing work for friends and family as a favor and to satisfy your desire to do this works is fine. But if you are going above that, you would need to find out the cost of doing it legally. You know, taxes, fees, overhead and such. Is the work you are doing basically for free hurting your local businesses who are legal and paying taxes and supporting your local economy? You might not think it matters but if 20 or 30 of you are doing this than it adds up. I am a retired businessman and I know from experience that this kind of situation does have an effect on your local business and government. Just think about it next time you ride down the street and you look at play grounds, fire dept, police dept and other businesses. Money turns around 7 times in the local economy. Businesses that charge a lot more usually have a good reason, taxes and overhead. It all has to be figured in. JMO
Click to expand...

I see your point. I am pretty connected here in the local custom building and painting scene here in the 'burbs... and honestly, I don't even do enough painting to hurt any local businesses. Although I cannot say that I am 100% legal, I do pay the taxes and whatnot on everything I do. But at the same time I am able to write off things such as tools and stuff because these side jobs really do supplement my primary stream of income (basically I make just enough to fill my truck up twice a month).

Now for a completely different topic. My friend wants me to paint her car just to kinda spiffy it up. It's got a little rust here and there but it's not that bad. She got a quote at Maaco and they wanted almost $3000 to do it. I thought that was insane. I just don't understand where they get that number. Even with them paying taxes, fees, overhead, supplies or whatever else... how can they charge that much?! I just told her that I could do it for $1700 including supplies. Am I just way off base when it comes to pricing? I mean, it really doesn't take a lot of work to properly prep and shoot a car, especially when I don't even have to do the jambs.
 
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