# How do you set your bid?



## leftcoaster (Jan 1, 2016)

First commission. Fairly simple piece in plywood with hardwood edging for the spec house of a contractor friend.

How do you work out your pricing once you know material costs? In other words, how much do you mark up materials and value your own time?


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## 1thumb (Jun 30, 2012)

4x material costs, lumber, plywood, etc, to cover fabrication costs. The most you can get per hour for hardware install, install of product, delivery, time spent gathering up materials, any and all other moves you make and include all costs. Sleep on it. Seems too cheap, charge more


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## WhattheChuck (Aug 26, 2008)

For a solid wood hardwood job, material costs X5 is usually about right.

Plywood doesn't save THAT much time. Fluency with materials matters! (I'm working now on improving my plywood fu!) Maybe materials cost X 3.

So much depends if you're working with an aware client. It's amazing how many people want my work to cost the same as what they see in Walmart. But the more sophisticated folks-they just want to get fin the queue. And they know I'm a (busy) amateur.


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## CWWoodworking (Nov 28, 2017)

Materials + how much you want to make


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## Axis39 (Jul 3, 2019)

Materials plus how many hours I think it's gonna take me, then how much I wanna make an hour.

Shocker of shockers, I regularly under estimate how much time things take me. So I like to multiply that number by 1.2 or 1.4 if it's a complicated project.


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