I normally make plastic parts used in the film industry on a CNC router. A kitchen cabinet guy forgot to order some doors for an installation and asked me to make them up for him. Drawing them was fairly easy calculating offsets etc. wasn't but went smoothly anyway. Apart from filling my shop up with MDF dust and filling my wife's head with visions of new cabinet doors it was a good job however I don't have a clue as to how to price it. If I
price it at my normal rate I get about $350 for 3 doors. That seems a little high. What do you guys
think? What would be the going rate for something
like that?

I can get doors like these for about $10/sq ft.
http://www.walzcraft.com/pages/Fraw.html

How about you make some kitchen cab. doors for me and I'll tell you what there worth? JK

Hi mate,

I this guy forgot to order some doors that is his problem. You have made the doors and charged them according to your hourly rate. You are not ripping him off. I work in a machining environment that specializes in one off projects. Some of the parts that I make sometimes seem very expensive for what they are. But making one or three offs as in you case is different to making ten or a hundred off. The larger the order, the lower the price. Stand firm and charge your hourly rate for the amount of hours that you spent doing the job. If I charged what I thought a part was worth rather than how long it took to make it, then we would be out of business in no time.

As a newbie, how do you determine what you rate should be?

Get some local prices for your area. Stop in to a local cabinet shop and ask what they charge for something similar. Your wife wanted new doors so go out and price a few. They will be quoting you Retail Price which is what you should charge Him as they are a one off job.

The price you charge and the price he pays at a big cabinet door warehouse are completely different and should be. All of your labor doing the program and mounting and such is spread over 3 units, whereas in a big shop it may be spread over 3 thousands units.

He should understand that, I think. I'd let him know why the price is what it is, and also let him know there would be much less setup and programming in the future, so future runs of the same part would be a lot cheaper.

Besides, if he's a carpenter, have you SEEN what these guys charge these days? I bet he's billing out at a princely sum, no reason you shouldn't get a fair wage too.

If he didn't ask for a quote or at least an idea of cost before having you do the work then he has to pay whatever you say. Your time is billed hourly if there is no agreement ahead of time. He was in a bind, you got him out of it end of story. Yes, it will cost more than if he had remembered to order the doors, but he didn't. Small runs are very expensive. Have you given him the doors without payment? I wouldn't, because once he finds out the cost, he may refuse to pay. By not having an agreement ahead of time, you could be out of luck. Contractors are great for not paying if they think it costs too much AND they already have the items.

Sound advice. We had one guy so late on payments (he "remembered" to pay our invoices only when he wanted to order more stuff) that we said "enough's enough" and told him we wanted half up front for his latest job or it wouldn't get made. He moaned, but agreed in the end. Even brought me a crate of beer when I brought the job in a week ahead of schedule :)