# What to charge for creating templates??



## Bling It On (Dec 10, 2011)

Hi Ya'll!! I just competed creating my second template for another party and I have NO clue what to charge them!! These are small templates for rhinestone embellishment on cheer bows that I created and cut in sticky flock for a bow maker friend. She wishes to compensate me however I am at a loss for what I should charge her for this work. Any ideals or guidelines???


----------



## katruax (Sep 30, 2010)

Bling It On said:


> Hi Ya'll!! I just competed creating my second template for another party and I have NO clue what to charge them!! These are small templates for rhinestone embellishment on cheer bows that I created and cut in sticky flock for a bow maker friend. She wishes to compensate me however I am at a loss for what I should charge her for this work. Any ideals or guidelines???


You're creating your own competition?... I hope lots!!!

I think first you have to figure out your real costs... Then the time it takes you to cut and prepare the template to deliver... Then figure something for wear and tear on your cutter and blade... Then figure something for mistakes... They happen!!! Then figure what you want to make and decide if it's even worth fiddling with... 

My flock material is 20" wide... So what I do is take the width of the design... Add 3 inches and then multiply that by $1.50... I don't worry about the height of the template... It's not going to 20 inches so whatever is left over on the height is left over...

I add 1 inch to each side of the design for the weedbox allowance and then another inch for waster...

So if you take a 9 inch design for example... add 3 that's 12 x $1.50 that's $18.00... Now if it's a two color design... the second template is $1.00 per inch so the total would be $30.00 for a precut template...

I do fudge that number a bit for designs that are over 1500 stones...

That said for a bow design you are talking about a pretty small template... So I would actually increase my cost per inch... Maybe $2.50 per inch... It's a lot of fiddling with...

I have a friend who owns a photo album making business... People always gasp at the cost of his little miniature photo albums compared to the larger sized albums... He's always telling them the process to make a mini album is the same process and labor as the larger ones... The only real difference is less material is used... The bulk of the cost in making the album is not the materials but the labor to assemble the album... Most still don't get it... But it's true...

Then of course you still have the cost of design itself....


I think your pricing will depend on if this is a favor for a friend... Or if this is going to be part of your overall business plan... For your bow design... I'm thinking the $15.00 - $20.00 if it's part of your business plan... 

I would be interested to hear the input of others on this...

Kevin


----------



## Bling It On (Dec 10, 2011)

Thank you for your insight Kevin!! I appreciate your taking the time to answer my query 
I would have never thought about coming up with a per inch price but that is a very logical way to handle it.
I don't really view her as competition as she is a friend and we live in different parts of the country. She creates cheer joes exclusively and I create more shirts than cheer bows but if I did get a bow order that I could not fulfill for any reason I would refer them to her. She doesn't have a cutter and had been purchasing pre-assembled bling from someone online so now I'm cutting her templates and she is filling them herself and increasing her profit margin. These are very small (2 1/2x2 1/4) so I use very little material to create them. I was thinking that maybe I should charge between $5 to $10 each??? One took me all of 10 minutes to create and one took almost an hour by the time I got the design all cleaned up and ready to cut. For me the fun is in creating the design. I get a great deal of satisfaction when I can make the stones visually represent an image or an ideal for an image. I much prefer shirts over bows as they are so much faster and easier. Lol!!


----------



## hi-nrg-joe (Jul 19, 2008)

Are you doing the design/stoning as well, or simply cutting what they send you?


----------



## Bling It On (Dec 10, 2011)

I'm just cutting the flock for her. She is placing her own stones.


----------



## hi-nrg-joe (Jul 19, 2008)

Are you actually stoning the design?..I noticed you said creating and cleaning it up. I assume that meand you are placing the stones in the design before cutting. If so, I would charge more since more for design time, cutting, and material.


----------



## EastCoastTeez (Apr 6, 2013)

You can do a 2 color on the same flock. The way you do it, it has to be 2 different sizes. You cut both. You do the larger stone first and smaller second. Saves money. Try it.


----------



## katruax (Sep 30, 2010)

EastCoastTeez said:


> You can do a 2 color on the same flock. The way you do it, it has to be 2 different sizes. You cut both. You do the larger stone first and smaller second. Saves money. Try it.


Here's a video demonstration of it as well...

How to make a rhinestone stencil with 2 stone sizes from 1 piece of sticky flock - YouTube


Kevin


----------

