How to price out engraving work?

[bherr]

Being new to engraving I'm looking at how most people price out engraving. I'm doing custom engraving in aluminum with most work done on a one time basis, so I have to vector out things, then generate the layout and toolpath. I'm in the process of doing a small engraving now that takes 26,K+ lines of code and run time is around 44 minutes. any suggestion for future work and how you price the job?

thanks,
ben

[merl]

You need to determin what you need to keep your doors open and then what you need to make it worth your while to do the work. Some were in between is usualy what you should charge as an hourly shop rate. Then brake that down to a by the minet charge and include all aspects of the job from start to finish ( doing the actual quote to shipping or delivery of the finished product) then you give the job a time estimate that you will eventualy equate to $ in your pocket (the bottom line)
Keeping carfull records of all the things that affect the production of your product and a periodic review of same will help you to become and remain competitive in your market.
Even if your just doing this part time at home you should still keep some kind of profit and loss records and a history/sumery on each job. Otherwise yor just another ammiture wanna-be. The fact that you are asking the typs of questions that you are means shows you desire to get beond the wanna-be stage.
Best of luck to you!