Printing and pricing advice needed...

Dangleman

Dangleman

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Morning all

I have a semi regular gig that's come up - it basically invloves doing a big group shot for a corporate client who run week long business courses. As part of the package each person gets a nice big group photo (A4) in a cardboard mount/ frame at the end of the week.

I've taken the jobs on and agreed to price match the company they were using before, and have done 2 already. So basically I get paid £40 for the actual photography (which literally only takes about 20 minutes) and then charge £5 per A4 print and mount (average about 30). I think this is very cheap to be honest, and I don't particularly like doing dull group shots, but as a 'semi-pro' starting out I want to take on all i can at the moment.

What I really want to know though, and am having trouble working out exactly, is which is the most cost effective route to go down for the prints. I have an Epson R2400 printer (fantastic kit) and a Fotospeed continuous ink system using fotospeed pigment inks (also great, but only when it all works properly, and that's part of the problem). I like being in control and producing the prints myself.

I've worked out that each A4 print and mount costs me about £1 each to produce (paper and mount cost) but working out my ink costs is proving almost impossible. I know a CIS saves you up to 80% on ink but the software monitoring of the printer isn't accurate using this, and I'm having to just look at the levels in the tanks. I also had a 'blockage' on friday and I reckon I must have wasted about £50 worth of ink running the 'cleaning' feature about 10 times. Took about 4 hours to print 30 pics and it drove me mad :bang:

Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I *think* that it's not costing me more than £1 in ink per A4 print, so the full finished product costs me around £2 and I sell for £5. So is that an acceptable 'business profit margin' to you?

However, would it be as cost effective to send the pics away to a third party to print, and be less hassle, and does anyone have any tips for working out exactly what my ink costs are?

Any advice greatly appreciated :)
 
At a gross profit of around 60%, I'd be pretty happy with that... but then I'm in the construction industry, where profit margins are pretty low :)

WRT your printing, I'd guess it depends on the amount you're printing at the time, as to whether it'd work out cheaper or not.

Example:

Photobox charge £1.09 per A4 print... plus postage of £1.50 per order.

If you're only ordering 1, then it's cheaper to print yourself, but, if you order 2 or more, the cost starts to become lower than the cost of printing yourself.

Thats comparing to photobox, but there are obviously lots more printers, all with different prices etc.

Not sure how to calculate ink costs though :)

EDIT: Forgot to add in the price of the mount...
 
Those are only you're material costs, you need to factor in your time costs too to get a true figure.
 
..But if you want reliable, repeatable though not quite as cheap, talk to LeeP either here of at togsprint - my recent experiences with Photobox have caused me to switch - not only did photobox do a rubbish job, but they are not even answering my emails despite having acknowledged my first complaint (see my thread titled 'Anyone else having problems with Photobox recently further down this page, or maybe on page two now)
He may even be able to sort the mounts too..
 
Thanks fellas

Time - I know, this is the biggie and the thing that was most frustrating on Friday, but that's because my printer went teets up for a while.

In theory, if it's all working right I should be able to just click print and then walk away for 40 minutes or so, have a cup of tea and come back to 30 lovely prints. However, I don't have enough confidence (yet?) in my printer and CIS to do this, so it ends up taking a lot longer. And if I keep getting 'blockages' like this then that's another story isn't it...
 
Ink costs are a b****r!

I believe some or most printers will be able to output the amount of ink left in ml. If you were to run this process after each ink. you could divide the cost of the ink by how many ml, and then work out how much each cartidge is being used per print.

I think if you said £2 covering material costs, you wouldn't be far out there for an A4 print.

However, is £3 really worth your time / effort in taking the pics. You're saying you're selling on average about 30 prints, so that's £90...

Does the PP work, Time in printing / driving around for materials / to and from the gig etc all get taken into account?

Something to consider :)

Or - if you want to farm it out, let me know and for that volume of prints we can sort some discount out :)
 
Hi LeeP

I knew you'd be on this thread in a shot - only took you 20 minutes :D
 
Given how cheap it now is to send your images away for printing I personally feel that it's taken away the majority of reasons for printing at home & is much more cost effective to outsource imo. As long as you're using a calibrated monitor & proper profiles then I'd send my images away every time - even with CIS it shouldn't really make that much difference :shrug:
 
Dangleman said:
Hi LeeP

I knew you'd be on this thread in a shot - only took you 20 minutes :D
Click to expand...

I'm a busy man! :razz: :lol:

As andrewc has commented on, home printing is expensive. Business is business. Make every penny count!

If you can save 50p a print, that's an extra £15.00 profit you'll make!
 
LeeP said:
I'm a busy man! :razz: :lol:

As andrewc has commented on, home printing is expensive. Business is business. Make every penny count!

If you can save 50p a print, that's an extra £15.00 profit you'll make!
Click to expand...

As a fellow Yorkshireman I couldn't agree more :D Have you seen the price of a pint these days, the cost of fish etc etc
 
Absolutely!!

Thus, I own a fishing rod and I regularly purchase yeast :lol::lol::lol::lol:
 
Being a Southern Man, I am almost in tears at this - I am close to going down to the port tonight and sending a kilo of King Prawns and a tinnie over to you - at £3.50 a kilo, I can just about afford that, and if it saves the thought of LeeP sitting on some lonesome rivers edge, maggots in one hand and slack line in another, then it has to be worth it..
 
After all the grief you've had with the 2400, I'd be inclined to send the prints out. Less hassle and may cost you less in the long run.
 
I think I'm going to stick with doing it myself for a while, and see if I can suss out the ink usage/ costs more as i go. If it does keep blocking up though, then I'll have to re-consider. I sometimes need a very quick turnaround on these jobs too (one this week on wednesday, they want the prints on Thursday).

Would love to hear from someone else with a CIS though, and what they reckon it costs in ink per print (A4 preferably). I think it's got to be using less than £1 ink per print, so it is cheaper than photobox etc...
 
Hi Dangleman
I have a CIS for the r1800 I have never really sat down and worked out ink costs so can’t help you there, but as for the blocking up I only have trouble with blocking with the cyan ink. What I do is the day before I want to print do a nozzle check if blocked I do one head clean then leave it 24 hours and let the solvents in the ink work on the blockage and loosen it, I do another nozzle check the next day and 90% of the time its ok.
 
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