I have a client that thinks i should refinish a dresser for $50! There is ornamental drawer facings and A LOT of sanding required. I told her $300 at the very least. Am i wrong for this? I honestly thought it was a great price for such a time consuming project with intricate details
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Replies
It's 2025. I grew up listening to the Earl Schieb ads " I'll paint any car for $29 .95! " I suspect your client did as well. Today however $ 50 hardly covers the cost of the sand paper! I bought a couple boxes of Festool sanding sponges the other day and two $8 cans of spray paint and i was over $50 going out the door! I think it's a stretch on your part that you could refinish a dresser for only $300 ! Well , you could of course, that is if 10 or 15 dollars an hour works for you.
Run, now, while you have a chance. Any "client" who even utters $50 for anything is not worth the trouble.
A penny pinchers and extreme bargainers are customers for someone else.
Looks like the $50 is already wasted in negotiating, run Forest Run !
Pay them $50 to go away and call it a win.
I can give you an answer from actual experience with customers, it's always best to give the price that a project is actually worth. That way it's all out on a level playing field, you are telling them what is actually involved to do the work and what it's truly worth in terms of a price. No one can fault you for that, they just won't have you do the work. A person who wants a bargain price, that's all they are focused on, not what the work actually involves. The only time you might want to be flexible on price is if it a a true friend or a customer you think might bring you more work.
I would politely tell them they need to find someone else. Tell her what it will cost and move on. $300 sounds too cheap
$300 is waaaay to cheap.
Without seeing it I’d say you can expect to spend around 20 hours on it. You should be charging at least $30/hr.
Unless she is your wife or your mother, wave goodbye.
Everyone things everything costs too much; unless of course, they are quoting for someone else. I work in a completely different industry where we did contract manufacturing work so we had a pretty good idea of what it cost to do something and still stay in business. $300 sounds like a deal to me; if anything, you aren’t charging enough. I wouldn’t budge on pricing.
I agree with everyone who says even $300.00 is too little. Unless you've done similar dressers and know how long it will take, I would make a time estimate and add 50% to that. Then figure how much you want to make an hour. Then add on materials. Where I live, the minimum wage is $15.00 an hour, I'm assuming you would want to make more than that. If you lose this client because of cost (and I suspect you will), then good riddance to them!
To put it in context: If it takes you 20 hours (and it might if you include travel time, running out to pick up supplies, etc), that's half a week's work. Do you want to work for $100.00 a week (minus the cost of supplies, gas, etc)? Even $600.00 a week puts you at $31,200.oo a year, which is exactly the federal poverty wage in the US for a family of 4.
I agree 💯 with everyone else, when they tell you up front what they want to pay, walk away, because even if you can do it for that price, they are going to complain about something they don't like. Been down this road before.
You should look up how many liens are on this clown's property.
This is the exact subspecies of humans that steal from contractors.
This is an excellent idea.
Or it's not a valuable piece of furniture. Picked up at the Goodwill or something ,some of those 30s and 40s (for example) pieces of furniture look nice fixed up but they were cheap junk in their day and worth not much today. You got it for free and it you could fix it up for $50 or so it might be worth it. This is what DIY exists for!!
I had two roads to go -musician or woodworker and if you want a job where people think you should work for free try musician! At least as a woodworker I could make a living. But there are rules! Family, friends you want a favor I'm happy to help you move or get your boat in the water. If you want something that has to do with what I do for a LIVING then you PAY me! No exceptions, well except maybe for my children...I dont donate work for charity events because they'll come back. If I want to help I'll come and buy something!
People don't get it...if you take on a project every 8 hours of actual work on the project probably represents at least another 4 hours of planning ,procurement,cleanup etc. Oh, and meeting with clients. Then of course there's the thousands or tens of thousands invested in tools and equipment. Electric company just upped my rates by close to 50 %! What does the autos shop charge per hour, the plumber,or electrician or the carpentry contractor where you live? Those prices are about right to be able to be in and stay business. Your not an undocumented gardener so why get paid like that?