Price check please

[SharonB]

Hi. If I put this in the wrong place please forgive me. I have been asked to help with making wedding invitations (I'm so excited about this). Anyone heard of the decathlon athelte Tom Pappas? It's for his wedding. His fiance (sp?) is the sister of a very good friend. Anyways, I have no idea what to charge on top of the cost of supplies. She is having a print place print the information and cut the paper, so I do not have to do that. I will score one side of the paper, attach two papers together, tie a bow and attach it, stamp and emboss a small design a few times, and spray with shimmer spray. She wants 120 invitations. Does $50 sound OK? Too much? Please help. Thanks!

Sharon

[mom2kjs]

I don't know I think that sounds a bit low for the number of invitations you have to do. You are doing quite a bit of detail work. Maybe time yourself to see how long one takes and then times it by 120 to see how long it will take you. You can then decide if $50 is a good reasonable payment for your time to assemble. Does that make sense?

[Tinnalee]

I really don't think $50 is enough. I would charge at least a dollar a piece.

[datgh]

I would do up a couple and see how long it takes you and figure out how much you think your time is worth. I usually figure mine at eight dollars an hour (after taxes if you declare your income). (I have been told I am to cheap but I am not trying to live off the income just support my out of control stampin habit.) Once you figure out how long it will take, how much your supplies will cost and how much per hour you want to make, it will be easy to figure out what to charge. I always add a little extra in too in case there is something I forgot to figure in. Hope this helps. Ann

[row4d]

The lovely ladies here gave me some help on this subject last week! I was told that first you should try to figure out how much the materials cost for one card, then add $1.00 or so on top of that for your time. Charging only $50 for 120 cards means you're getting less than 42 cents per card -- Kinko's charges three or four times that for their cheapest, smallest, most basic wedding cards, and those are printed on a machine!

[swissstamper]

I know how you feel. I made 250 invitations for my sister's wedding. I stamped the heart swirl background(can't think of the exact name at the moment) on white paper brushed silver pearl ex over it. She had her info printed professionally on vellum paper. We bought black glossy paper at the art store in big sheets and cut them down to 5X7 at kinkos. I attached the vellum to the pearl ex to the black with four silver eyelets. Yeah, call me crazy. But really it wasn't bad because I did it all in a production line. I seriously did them after school (I was teaching at the time) sitting in front of the tv on the floor! That was before I got my stamping table. My sister paid for all the supplies and I just came up with the design and did them. Being family I didn't charge her, I wanted to do it.

A suggestion I have for you would be to check out invitation books (some party stores have them or Hallmark) and see what a similar design sells for and price accordingly. Sure you need to factor in your time but the idea that homemade is cheaper is not always the case. Maybe ask the bride what her price range was for invitations and work with that.

[kallyn]

I agree that $50 is too little. If you go for an hourly rate I would charge at least $15 - $20 an hour (my housekeeper gets $20 an hour - why shouldn't you!)

Good luck!