Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Quilting Fees...

When I started my business I looked at many different websites of Longarm Quilters in order to get an idea of what is a reasonable price for me to charge to do longarm quilting for other quilters.  I was a new quilter, so I wanted to be very reasonable.  I chose to use the average prices I saw that everyone else is charging and I noticed that they had many fees that were possiblely applicable...I was stumped by these fees, I chose not to institute them, because I didn't understand how/why they would be necessary.  The good news is that my business is growing very organically (by that I mean that is that I come across reasons to charge fees, I institute them not arbitrarily off the bat).  I have however found that there may be fees that will be very necessary for me in the future...  At first too, when I first started my business I was just getting the hang of all the paperwork and keeping track of everything for my taxes...and I thought the fees might make it more complicated.  However, now I think I am going to have to just deal with complicated.

In order to see my pricelist you can go to my website:  www.lizbquilting.com and then click PRICELIST on my home page and open the page. 

I think that I may need to institute the following fees:
Rush Fee
Loading Fee
Trimming Fee
Admin Fee
Thread Fee (I used to charge this in the beginning, but stopped because it was complicated).
I already have a quilt preparation rate, but have a tendency not to charge it...
I already have a Creative Design rate, but don't normally charge it...

I am also wondering what should be the amount of these fees...  Just thinking out loud any of you quilters that want to pipe up to let me know what you think - I would love to hear some comments. 

2 comments:

Karen Presecan said...

Setting your prices is so hard! You want to be comparable, yet you also deserve to get paid for your time. I get it! Interesting though, that you quilt for other quilters! I'm still learning about your craft:-)

LizB said...

Hey Karen, yeah...if you aren't a quilter - longarm quilting is a new animal... I did get some feedback lately that I need to institute these fees where applicable...it gives me the flexibility to stay in all the different budgets of my customers : D.