Sell What You Engrave

Someone asks what you charge, and you realize you have no idea. Not because you lack confidence. Because you have never timed a job. And laser work has an economics problem most making does not: the blank costs a few dollars, the engrave ties up the machine for forty minutes, and the machine can only do one thing at a time. Price by material cost and you will lose money on every order. Price by feel and you will quote a number on the first job that traps you when the same customer comes back wanting fifty. This book builds a price from numbers you measure yourself. You will establish an hourly machine rate from your own electricity, consumables, and wear. You will cost a part from a sheet price including waste and rejects. You will log the setup time nobody charges for, and see why a ten-minute engrave can carry an hour of handling. Then it covers the jobs worth refusing: unusable customer artwork, colour matching, and the irreplaceable heirloom that one failed pass turns into a month of lost work. A price you can defend comes from a number you measured.