How much do I charge?

[grifter]

I know it's hard to be exact without seeing the job, but can anyone give me an idea of a price to charge. I have an average size hall stairs and landing to do with 4 doors and frames upstairs, and 3 doors and frames downstairs, basic prep, undercoat woodwork, 2 coats on walls and ceilings and glossing. I reckon there's 3 days work there. I was thinking of charging £280, and if I throw in white matt and gloss, £310. Is that reasonable?
Thanks

 

[settingsons79]

see you are in kent ie down south ,if you are agood decorator this is way below industry standard.but having said that if your happy to earn this little ,im happy to earn much more .moral of the story is would you rather earn next to nought or make good money ,or put another way ....too busy earning a living to make any real money!! lifes short ,get what you can.

 

[grifter]

Nice comments, but what do you suggest then? And yes, I can do a tidy job

 

[roughcaster]

You should be looking for "at least" £400 for 3 days work, plus the cost of materials.

 

[settingsons79]

i dont mean to be orrible ,if you do a good job and are looking at a future caree ,sometimes you have to loose money to gain money!!,ie do a good job reasonable money ,then next time they will come back to you ..up north i live in york ,the going rate for a pro deccy is bout £16/ £18 per hour ,so i guess down ther its 18/20 ,also dont under estimate the price of throwing in materials ,they come out of your wages if you do .if you charge cheep ,people may expect cheep ,so you need to be pretty savvy and say your doing a good deal and be the salesman too. make mistakes ,but please....learn from them ,all the best anyway

 

[grifter]

Ok, I'm obviously well out of range then. I was basing it on about £90 a day, but I think I'll re-evaluate. You can tell I don't do a lot of private work, I just work for a firm that pays 'us' crap money. More fool me I guess! Thanks for your advice

 

[TheDec]

I would take that advice with a mere pinch of salt, its hard out there at the moment and everyone has to earn a living. £280 is'nt a bad price yet when you take into account expenses such as traveling, tax, and a few other things as well one could assume it to be cheap.

The most important thing at the onset is to get the job, there are very many people who don't earn that in a week. So my advice would be to go for it, better to earn a living as opposed to not working at all.

Good luck to you

Dec.

 

[gregers]

bear in mind out of your £90 you have to allow,tax/insurance,then you have your running costs of your car again tax insurance mot then PETROL ,also dont forgat to add a little for cost of replacement tools.
now you will realize that 90 quid isnt a lot of money to be earning to be paying out all of that,and then the MATERIALS aswell.mmmmm

i would defo think hard about upping your dayrate/prices to give you a decent weekly wage that you can survive on.

 

[grifter]

Well, the job is only 10 minutes away from me and I'm doing it for people I know, although that isn't making me charge less because of that reason. Why should I. So it's only a private job, but I will probably get more work from it, so I didn't want to put them off by charging too much.

 

[gregers]

AH HA so its a m8s rate jobby then,well thats different,speculate to accumulate

 

[Nige F]

Well, the job is only 10 minutes away from me and I'm doing it for people I know, although that isn't making me charge less because of that reason. Why should I. So it's only a private job, but I will probably get more work from it, so I didn't want to put them off by charging too much.

Even so - you should be up around £100 a day .ie £300 for the job - and if the paint comes out of your stock - let them have it free That way people think more of you .Should be easy for a dec. to build up a stock of white/mag. Used to be £120 a day here in Sussex until middle of last year ( when I last heard) One good way is to relate it to pints of beer- or Gallons of petrol (4.6 litres ) When I was a 3rd year apprentice I did fiddle plumbing jobs for 4 pints an hour cash That worked out @ £1. but that was 1972