help pricing osage rocker

I’ve often asked woodworkers who ran their own businesses the same question. The answer was fairly consistent across several people-1) Keep track of the hours you spent, and 2) Price based on an hourly rate of $20-50 per hour depending on the level of sophistication of the work.
I looked at your rocker projects and think your work is very high quality- different from the Maloof style rockers, but very good work.
Don’t let the economy dictate the price (unless you really need the money). Your skill has value and there will be people willing to pay for quality work from a woodworker. Once you start chasing a market that always wants the lowest price, it’s hard to raise it when the economy rebounds.
Hope this helps.

-- Gerry

I like Gerry’s advice. As woodworkers, we usually want to be fair to the customer and don’t want to charge too much, but most of the time we’re not fair to ourselves and end up giving our work away. If you don’t value your time or talents, then trust me, nobody will. Time and materials is a good way to figure your price. Materials is a must, labor is a little more difficult to figure. If you have a lot of learning time involved, then you may want to adjust those hours a little. Your customer shouldn’t have to pay you $50.00 / hour to learn a technique. Just try to be fair to both you and your customer.

-- John @ Myrtle Beach

I am a real amateur here, but as someone who does financial analysis all day (without getting too technical), just ask yourself: “If someone asked me to make a duplicate today, what would I charge them?” Meaning, how much money, factoring in supplies and other basic expenses, would it take to motivate you to do the project again? I think that will be the best determinant of what the piece is worth, to you.

It sounds like this is not your first rocker; so you should know about how many work hours you have in it. Also, a material multiplier method would not work here since you have a “discount” on them. I would say choose an hourly rate based on your skill level and multiply it by the number of hours you have in it. If it is higher than you are comfortable with or it is higher than comparable pieces, then you can always go down.

-- My Etsy store: http://jtcwoodcrafts.etsy.com

Duane-
You have recieved some really good info. I am guessing it might be hard to accertain how many “production” hours you have into that rocker.
I would think that somewhere around 40 hours might be fair. Now in our part of the country the door rate is approx. $25.00 per hour. (adjust according to your area)
40 hrs x $25.00 = $1000.00
You said the wood was given to you, but you should still figure the materials.
Maybe 40-50 bd ft of osage orange (bois d arc)
50 bd ft x $5.00 per bd ft= $250.00

So if I built this rocker and were to sell it in Texas , I would be asking between $1200.00 and $1400.00 for the rocker.
And even at that price, I think its kinda low for a custom built, one of a kind rocking char.

Hope this helps some, and good luck selling your chair.

Dave

-- MISSION FURNITURE-My mission is to build furniture