A fair price on your materials depend on a lot of factors:...if you buy a 1000 ft spool of wire for $100, and you install 100ft, what is a fare charge?....
Fair is a relative term. Fair to you or fair to your customer? You need to be fair to yourself first. If you feel the need to charge for the whole spool, then they own the rest of that spool. Leave it there. If it's usable, charge them for what you used plus markup. A flat rate for the job, as emahler proposes, eliminates all these worries.Trouyano said:... what is a fair[sic] charge?
Which is also another good reason to not breakout the materials price if you can figure out a way to not do that. Flat rate for the whole "job" and a lump line item called "material" are two such methods.bakerbrotherselectric said:Generally speaking, if you over charge your customer on materials, they may not say anything to you about it...but they probably won't use you again. They probably also won't pass your name on to friends and family.
bakerbrotherselectric said:There is some good advice already on this thread but we wanted to share how we do it.
We add 25% markup to all materials. If we paid $100 (including tax) for 1000' of wire then the new marked up price would be $125.00 for the whole roll. If we can re-use this wire on another job then we would charge the customer by the foot, which works out to $.125/foot.
If we used 100' of wire we would bill the customer $12.50.
KB
Generally speaking, if you over charge your customer on materials,
brian john said:K-mart had a certain woman's top for 5.75, my wife bought it, our neighbor NEVER shopped K-mart only Macy's she bought a similar top cost 25.00 more or less, they both wore them to a party (Won't even discuss this) anyway in comparison they looked IDENTICAL, both made in China. Did K-Mart lose money on the sale? Most likely not, Did Macy's overcharge NO, they charged what someone was willing to pay to shop their store.
mdshunk said:$0.00 to $0.49 x 6
$0.50 to $0.99 x 5.75
$1.00 to $1.49 x 5.5
$1.50 to $1.99 x 5.25
$2.00 to $2.49 x 5
$2.50 to $2.99 x 4.75
$3.00 to $3.99 x 4.5
$4.00 to $4.99 x 4.375
$5.00 to $5.99 x 4.25
$6.00 to $6.99 x 4.125
$7.00 to $7.99 x 4
$8.00 to $8.99 x 3.75
$9.00 to $9.99 x 3.625
$10.00 to $19.99 x 3.5
$20.00 to $29.99 x 3.375
$30.00 to $39.99 x 3.25
$40.00 to $49.99 x 3.125
$50.00 to $59.99 x 3
$60.00 to $69.99 x 2.75
$70.00 to $79.99 x 2.625
$80.00 to $89.99 x 2.5
$90.00 to $99.99 x 2.333
$100.00 to $139.99 x 2.25
$140.00 to $169.99 x 2.166
$170.00 to $199.99 x 2
$200.00 to $239.99 x 1.855
$240.00 to $269.99 x 1.823
$270.00 to $299.99 x 1.789
$300.00 to $349.99 x 1.75
$350.00 to $399.99 x 1.725
$400.00 to $499.99 x 1.6875
$500.00 to $749.99 x 1.6
$750.00 to $999.99 x 1.55
$1,000.00 to $1,499.99 x 1.5
$1,500.00 to $1,999.99 x 1.45
$2,000.00 to $2,999.99 x 1.4
$3,000.00 to $4,999.99 x 1.35
$5,000.00 to $9,999.99 x 1.3375
$10,000.00 to $24,999.99 x 1.3333
$25,000.00 to $49,999.99 x 1.33
$50,000.00 to $99,999.99 x 1.3
emahler said:some people actually believe that making a profit is a good thing...go figure