I do my pricing quite differently than most bridal alterations specialists. So you may or may not want to do your pricing my way, but hear me out. I don’t price according to how many hours it will take me to do the job. I have over thirty years of experience doing bridal work so I can get my work done much faster than most. I charge according to how much skill is involved to do a beautiful job and also how time intensive the job is.
Let me explain this using hems as an example. A regular lining hem is often done in the standard serged and then folded up and stitched method. The price for this hem is a basic low end price. If someone needs a horsehair hem raised, this is a high end skill and is also a more time intensive job. So I will be charging significantly more for that job than a regular hem. If someone wanted a lace hem I would charge tons more to do the job. Lace hems are very skill intensive. I have been doing them for years, so I can do them rather quickly. But I am in no way shape or form going to charge by the hour for a lace hem. My skill is worth far more than the time it takes me to do the hem.
I may make between $200 to $500 an hour doing lace hems and $125 per hour doing a simple hem. Since I have the skills and speed from experience, I have no problem charging more per hour for a job that requires more skill. Also, I get more work done in an hour than most bridal alterations specialists because I have been doing this for a while, so I definitely don’t want to work in a shop where the managers determine what I make per hour. There’s a point where you have to go independent in order to charge what you are worth.
I hope you keep an open mind about the way I do my pricing. It’s not an exact science that can be calculated perfectly, I just have a pretty good sense of what my skill and time are worth at this point in my life. I hope you will remember as you are trying to figure out your own pricing, what a rare breed you are. There are few who can do what you do, and you need to keep that in mind.
Have a great week.
Love,
Dee Dee Anderson