How do you set your pricing?

[Joey]

I’ve looked around in here and haven’t seen much discussion about determining how much to charge. I bring this up because I just got the wicked edge and have been bragging to a couple of the guys at work. One of them happens to be a bit of a knife guy and asked if would do one of his knives. I told him I would once I got better with the WE. Then the next question was, how much would you charge me? I blurted out about $5 a knife without really thinking. He has a lot of case knives, most of which I assume will be three bladed knives. I really don’t think $5 would cover the amount of time it takes to set-up and sharpen three blades.

I’ve tried to think of different pricing schemes but depending on the knife they either seem to be too costly for the customer or not worthwhile for me. So how do you charge your customers?

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

There was a thread about this not to long ago? I just tried to find it but no luck? It really boiled down to what you are doing and what you think is worth it?
I read one guy who charged $3.00 for the first blade and $2. for each extra blade. Those little pocket knives are tricky for pricing?
One of our guys charges $5.00 a knife period. He keeps it simple for mail in ect. I’m sure he will chime in soon?
After doing it a bunch of different ways? I decided $1.00 an inch for v grind and $2.00 a inch for serrations. All the other ways I tried to price it out it almost always worked out to be very close to $1. and $2. an inch.
On the little little Swiss army knives and such> if they have a good attitude I will just knock it out at no charge and tell them to bring back their kitchen knives.
Hope that helps a little?

[tuffy braithwaite]

I’ve looked around in here and haven’t seen much discussion about determining how much to charge. I bring this up because I just got the wicked edge and have been bragging to a couple of the guys at work. One of them happens to be a bit of a knife guy and asked if would do one of his knives. I told him I would once I got better with the WE. Then the next question was, how much would you charge me? I blurted out about $5 a knife without really thinking. He has a lot of case knives, most of which I assume will be three bladed knives. I really don’t think $5 would cover the amount of time it takes to set-up and sharpen three blades.

I’ve tried to think of different pricing schemes but depending on the knife they either seem to be too costly for the customer or not worthwhile for me. So how do you charge your customers?

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just google knife sharpening prices.

you get cross section all over the country.

[Leo Barr]

Not only do you need to research sharpening for kitchen knives would charge more for good quality folding knives since if you take them as far as strops it will take some time to do a good job ; I would expect a normal kitchen knife will take between 10-20 minutes so what do you think your time is worth per hour and then consider the ware & tear on the stones so your hourly rate needs to be better than the minimum wage.
I would also make sure that you are not learning on other peoples knives so you should consider owning at least one Japanese knife , one good quality folder or hunting knife & one good chefs knife then once you can do those properly you should be confident to ask a realistic price – too little will not get you descent work I think most people know that if something is too cheap it wont be any good .
Tuffy points out that there are lots of people displaying their prices on the net so that should give you a very good idea as well .

[Josh]

You can check out my website if you want and see what I charge. But I would say that it will depend on several factors: 1. How desperate you are for money 2. How much competition you have 3. The cost of living in your area.

For example, Eamon lives in California. The cost of living is much higher there so he can feasibly charge more.

These are all of the factors I took in to account when I was determining my pricing structure, and believe me that it evolved over time. Some things that I found were just taking too long I would just jack the price way up so I wouldn’t have to do much of them. I believe a realistic goal is to make $.75-$1/minute after you get good. For example: I charge $5/knife regardless of size (up to a point) for knives finished on my belt sander, and $10 and up per knife for knives done on my wicked edge. By machine I am down to about 3-4 minutes/knife from start to finish, and on the weps I can do them in about 11-12 minutes (if everything is already set up). So you can see how I charge accordingly.

Hope this helps. Oh, for multiple bladed knives I charge $3/blade I believe. 🙂

[Joey]

The google search and checking out razorsedge’s website was helpful. I don’t plan to make this any kind of business but, still wanted to see how others handled the wide variety of blades out there. Most of what I will do will be for family, friends and maybe friends of friends. I’m not at all desperate for money, I get paid quite well at my job so this is more of a hobby/favor for some family and friends. I would however like to recoup some of the cost of the WE. The competition is literally none in about a 100 mile radius other than some machine shops doing industrial cutters (mills, reamers, etc..) and some saw shops doing band saw blades and other saw mill cutters. If I wanted to set-up shop I would have a locally monopoly. Cost of living in my area is higher than the surrounding areas but on a national level probably falls closer to the middle somewhere.

As for learning on other peoples knives…I have now sharpened 10 knives with the WE and while I don’t claim to know everything but, I will say I learned a quite a bit from them. I own and have used my WE to sharpen all those knife types with the exception of a Japanese knife. Honestly I don’t expect to run into anything too odd and if I do, I have no problem turning away a knife I don’t think I can tackle properly. I only plan to sharpen plain edge knives, no serrations (yet anyway, don’t have the proper equip.), no swords, machetes or Karl’s “Sling Blade”…

I think I’m leaning more towards a $1.50 per inch pricing scheme with a $5 minimum per knife and $2 minimum per blade on multi-bladed knives.

[Leo Barr]

Here in Palma de Mallorca I have essentially two starting prices one is for local restaurants who struggle outside of the tourist season & the other are for the luxury yachts .
I do any knife for a restaurant at 5€ which I feel is charitable it means I both win & loose but I think people like a simple price so it may be a paring knife or a ten inch chefs knife .
The Yachts I charge 8€ per knives the exceptions been knives like Yanagi which may include Uraoshi sharpening , working on the Shinogi bevel & lastly the cutting bevel so this is 3 knives work so 24€ (these I do on benchstones ; lastly ceramic knives I do at a bit of a loss since they probable take three times longer to do but I charge 16€ – the price of two knives.
So most of the knives for the moment I do on an EP although I hope to have my WE soon and hopefully the finer DMT plates will be ready soon for Ceramic sharpening which will be quicker on the WE since both sides can be sharpened simultaneously .
I would like to get something like a Kally that both Tuffy & Razor Edge have but I think dust is a concern in my apartment especially since I do them in the kitchen (they must create a bit of dust )since the restaurant knives would be more profitable done with that.
I think simplicity in pricing is best at least I think so the trick is to get it right and if you get too busy raise the prices .

[tuffy braithwaite]

Here in Palma de Mallorca I have essentially two starting prices one is for local restaurants who struggle outside of the tourist season & the other are for the luxury yachts .
I do any knife for a restaurant at 5€ which I feel is charitable it means I both win & loose but I think people like a simple price so it may be a paring knife or a ten inch chefs knife .
The Yachts I charge 8€ per knives the exceptions been knives like Yanagi which may include Uraoshi sharpening , working on the Shinogi bevel & lastly the cutting bevel so this is 3 knives work so 24€ (these I do on benchstones ; lastly ceramic knives I do at a bit of a loss since they probable take three times longer to do but I charge 16€ – the price of two knives.
So most of the knives for the moment I do on an EP although I hope to have my WE soon and hopefully the finer DMT plates will be ready soon for Ceramic sharpening which will be quicker on the WE since both sides can be sharpened simultaneously .
I would like to get something like a Kally that both Tuffy & Razor Edge have but I think dust is a concern in my apartment especially since I do them in the kitchen (they must create a bit of dust )since the restaurant knives would be more profitable done with that.
I think simplicity in pricing is best at least I think so the trick is to get it right and if you get too busy raise the prices .

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kally = dust
to me leo, the WE has a great amount of dust from diamonds removing metal, when i do like 15 to 20 knives in one fare, my granite block looks really dusty and is. i have been thinking of even wearing 3M mask.
the kally and HF both cover my garage area and surrounding 2ft. or so on both sides – not good for apt.
just my 2 cents.

[Leo Barr]

I do not suppose you use power at a fair otherwise a portable fan positioned between the WE and you blowing the dust away would be a preferable to wearing a 3M mask all day !
It is certainly worth a thought when sharpening at home I can certainly smell my Atomas and see lots of black dust and end up with gun metal coloured fingers so a fan would be good when power is available . I don’t think a battery powered fan would last unless you ran it off your truck that is if it is parked near enough .
I suppose in your garage you could pick up an extracted fan for the Kally .

[cbwx34]

An idea to consider (on the dust)…

… and a thread on it…

Anyone else where a respirator while sharpening?

[tuffy braithwaite]

An idea to consider (on the dust)…

… and a thread on it…

Anyone else where a respirator while sharpening?

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thanks for that curtis

i must have missed the sponge and soap one – i will have a set up like that for my next fare and probably a respirator too, but not yet. want to see how the sponge deal goes.

[DARRELL ALLEN]

Curtis, thanks for posting Clay’s video as a reminder of what a great process this is with the foamy soap method…………….I have been using this ever since Clay suggested it, and it works great. One thing I do after using this though is to make sure I air dry ( using my compressor ) the diamond stones to make sure they don’t rust on me.

I also have 2 large sponges in separate containers, one for the diamonds, and one for the ceramics.

[Ziggy]

I’m about to revamp my page as well as prices.
IMHO, quality knife sharpeners are underpaid.
That said, you have to look at your target audience.

My new prices are gonna look like this, all going up to polish.
On Belts:
Kitchen Knives
1-5″: $5 minimum
6″ and up, $1 per inch
Cleavers $2 per inch
Scissors $8 and up
Folders $8 and up

WEPS, whole nother world of time and precision.
Folders $12 and up with agreement based on quote once I know what the knife is and condition

And, am thinking about adding a handling charge in addition to shipping.
Too much time spent packaging and if I have to go to USPS, Fedex, UPS etc.
Also a pickup charge … time is $.

Overall, IMHO, Quality sharpening should generate $50 with no interruptions.

[Jim Foster]

Why do you charge more for folding knives?

[tuffy braithwaite]

for the 2014 fair season i have pretty much set all my prices here:

straight bladed knives – $1.00 per inch.

serrated knives: $3.00 per inch

high grade japanese knives: $2.00 per inch

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