Teach Soap

Hi, hope everyone is having a great day!

I need some advise on what I would charge for my TIME. In my business I have 2 different avenues that I have tried to merge somewhat together. 1. being soap and bath products and 2. I make non-edible towel cakes and diaper cakes which are made with towels or diapers. So today I had a customer call me and ask me about making a towel cake which I can do and I have a basic formula i use based on what I put into the "cake" but the question is if the customer picks up stuff off a registry and dropped it off what would YOU charge to put everything together for your time?
thanks
Pat

Hi Pat! When I used to sew for people (about 15 years ago) I would charge a flat rate of $10 per hour. If I was doing the same now, I would charge at least $15 an hour. You need to decide how much your time & experience is worth - if it takes an hour to put your cake together, is $15 enough for your expertise? You also need to consider what a customer would be willing to spend for your talent. Hope this helps.

_________________
Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

That's a tough one. I personally don't charge for my time because I have a baby at home, so there is basically no block of time (even an hour) where I could isolate exactly what I spent on labor. If I were to do it I would probably just tack on a percentage to the retail price, say about 20%.

Throwing some random numbers out there, if it takes you 30 minutes to make a loaf of soap that produces 10 bars and each bar is $5, you could charge $10/hour for labor and that would only be $0.50 per bar. That seems fair to me.

I must be doing something wrong if it only is supposed to take about 30 min. to do a loaf of soap >_< Each of my MP loafs have been averaging me about an hour all the way up to three hours to produce! But then again, I've been experimenting with all the different techniques I've been seeing on this lovely site and the other blogs and stuff, too, so those take time as well ^_^;;

But back on to the topic, you should definitely charge at least minimum wage for your time, but since you seem to have been really successful in the past on making and selling these items, you should definitely give yourself a raise! The $10-$15 per hour sounds like a decent rate to me.

_________________
Tamra
New to soaping, long time crafter and artisan, avid learner of new things!

thanks for the replies. I would like a raise,LOL. I was thinking $15-$20 / hour, but not sure people would want to PAY for my time. I think i will set a lump sum price. If it takes more than a couple of hrs. then I would just suck up the difference and learn how to move faster LOL

Thanks

I started to figure it out with all the intense detail on M&P I seem to be so fond of doing....so far, I'm making about 12 cents per hour. I definately need a raise.

_________________
Artfire: http://www.artfire.com/users/PureBlissEssentials
website: www.pureblissessentials

Wow, you are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy below the minimum wage! Yes it is time for a raise, or maybe as you set your line of soap you will be able to get faster at what you do.

_________________
Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

_________________
Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!