11 oz mug pricing

I see conde charges $4.50 but with a min. Off 144 mugs.

I never charge less than $5 per mug. No discount for volume as each mug requires the same. .printed image and pressing. I am not in business to have a minimum wage job.

sandhopper2 said:

Trying to find the price range for printing / pressing 11OZ mugs
If you had an order for 12 would $5 ea be in the ball park
If the quanity goes to 36 or more would you go to lowest $3.50
I don't want to work for free , but I do need to work
Larry

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Your pricing is way too low.

sandhopper2 said:

Trying to find the price range for printing / pressing 11OZ mugs
If you had an order for 12 would $5 ea be in the ball park
If the quanity goes to 36 or more would you go to lowest $3.50
I don't want to work for free , but I do need to work
Larry

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For "one offs" you should be pricing high, perhaps the $10 - $12 range for basic mugs. You should expect to discount for volume but that should be based on your expected net profit for your time ... for example how much net profit you need to make per hour.

charles95405 said:

I never charge less than $5 per mug. No discount for volume as each mug requires the same. .printed image and pressing. I am not in business to have a minimum wage job.

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You would charge the same price for 1 mug as you would for 24? Perhaps I read your post wrong. Just seems like to me that you are already discounting for volume in your existing pricing unless I don't really understand what you are saying.

Our 12 piece pricing is around $11.99, I can't remember exactly off the top of my head. My normal cost is more than $5.00

If someone wants 1 cup I send them to Walmart.....That is 9.99 I do not need.....The sad thing is there are folks doing custom stuff for next to nothing all day long and they wonder why they are not making any money...

Thanks for the replys
This is what I was thinking that the price should be no less than $5 until you get to do more than 100 mugs
Even getting the mug local and buying in large lot they still cost just under $2
The paper cost about $.10 and ink $.25 Cost of electric ? Time to print 1 minute time to press 5 minutes time to package 5 minutes
So 11minutes time @ $.25 +$2.75 + material $2.35 = $5.10
This would make $30 per hour

Thoughts ?
Larry

The work to produce the 24th mug takes the same time and effort as the 1st. I could charge more for one but I focus on local market and my shop customers. Been at this since 1997 and works for me.

charles95405 said:

The work to produce the 24th mug takes the same time and effort as the 1st. I could charge more for one but I focus on local market and my shop customers. Been at this since 1997 and works for me.

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This is not really true, a single mug requires a graphic created in the PC and this takes time. Duplicating multiples of the same design requires only a copy and paste of the design onto the page. Printing multiple pages means you are only going to set the number of pages in the print dialog.

You could take your same thinking and apply it to t-shirts, tiles, or mousepads and make your same claims ... The work to produce the 24th item takes the same time and effort as the 1st. So why would a mug be different then anything else?

You can't charge 12 bucks a mug for 24 mugs, and you can't make 1,2 or 3 mugs for five bucks and make any money.

royster13 said:

If someone wants 1 cup I send them to Walmart.....That is 9.99 I do not need.....The sad thing is there are folks doing custom stuff for next to nothing all day long and they wonder why they are not making any money...

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That may be your model for your business, which is OK for you. But if you are in the photo novelty business then one off orders are common and can be profitable. I have made good money making mugs when I did live retail or events.

Mugs are usually either a photo mug product or an ad specialty.

Unless high resolution photo quality is needed then at some volume it is not cost competitive to use sublimation.

So the sublimation mug business is largely people wanting a picture of their grand kid on a mug or 2, a small order where sublimation might be under the min to make a mug using other printing technologies, or a higher qnty order where the other technologies aren't viable due to photo quality, number of colors, or resolution.

sandhopper2 said:

Thanks for the replys
This is what I was thinking that the price should be no less than $5 until you get to do more than 100 mugs
Even getting the mug local and buying in large lot they still cost just under $2
The paper cost about $.10 and ink $.25 Cost of electric ? Time to print 1 minute time to press 5 minutes time to package 5 minutes
So 11minutes time @ $.25 +$2.75 + material $2.35 = $5.10
This would make $30 per hour

Thoughts ?
Larry

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Figure 12 mugs per hour with only a single printer and press. You can do more mugs than one at a time in a mug oven, but the dwell time is longer, so you end up about the same heating time.

Price for volume orders based on your net profit per items per hour you can make. But you need to research prices then see if your pricing will be competitive AND you can make money based on your hourly profit rate you need to hit.

If you want to get into the really higher volumes then you have to source a larger qnty of mugs at lower wholesale prices, then figure scale your equipment for more units per hour output.

sandhopper2 said:

Thanks for the replys
This is what I was thinking that the price should be no less than $5 until you get to do more than 100 mugs
Even getting the mug local and buying in large lot they still cost just under $2
The paper cost about $.10 and ink $.25 Cost of electric ? Time to print 1 minute time to press 5 minutes time to package 5 minutes
So 11minutes time @ $.25 +$2.75 + material $2.35 = $5.10
This would make $30 per hour

Thoughts ?
Larry

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Once you start getting up in the larger qnty orders of mugs you have to look at what is viable economically for sublimation.

Depending on the nature of the customers graphic requirement you can't sell $5 mugs at 100 pcs. and be competitive. Sublimation is niche printing ... does the order need a lot of different colors, or photographic quality. There are also limits on the bare substrates you can offer as well.

Custom Mugs & Personalized Printed With Promotional Logo

See their video "how it's made" on their front page.

mgparrish said:

Custom Mugs & Personalized Printed With Promotional Logo

See their video "how it's made" on their front page.

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That video is irrelevant. It doesn't even show how they make sublimated mugs. Plus, they stopped making sublimated mugs a LONG time ago. Let alone sublimated anything. They found out it wasn't cost effective to their business. Too many wasted mugs. Like you said, sublimation is niche printing and that is something they weren't able to keep doing correctly on a consistent basis. I believe they even removed their youtube video on the making of a sublimated mug. They had a video specifically for that and I don't see it anymore. Oh well, better for the little guys.

My bad my bad... I read your post wrong.. sheesh. Don't get your panties in a wad. I guess your sensitive to the word irrelevant. :/ I'll choose another word next time.

Sublimation still rox over screen printing and decals. When I go to craft shows and similar events, I take a sample of a screen printed mug and a decal mug. The screen printed mug is almost washed off due to too many dishwashings (you can still see the outline of the image). The decal mug inks have faded a bit over time. I tell them sublimation doesn't have neither of these problems as long as you don't have bleach detergents in your dishwasher. I have had a sublimated mug for almost 2 years with tons of dishwasher cycles and it still looks great.

Again, my bad parrish.

WalkingZombie said:

My bad my bad... I read your post wrong.. sheesh. Don't get your panties in a wad. I guess your sensitive to the word irrelevant. :/ I'll choose another word next time.

Sublimation still rox over screen printing and decals. When I go to craft shows and similar events, I take a sample of a screen printed mug and a decal mug. The screen printed mug is almost washed off due to too many dishwashings (you can still see the outline of the image). The decal mug inks have faded a bit over time. I tell them sublimation doesn't have neither of these problems as long as you don't have bleach detergents in your dishwasher. I have had a sublimated mug for almost 2 years with tons of dishwasher cycles and it still looks great.

Again, my bad parrish.

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No problemo.

Yes I've been making sublimation mugs since soon after you first could, and this predates inkjet sublimation by almost a decade. There is no perfect tool, we learn the tradeoffs and run with the best tools at our disposal for the job at hand. I have some sub mugs more than 15 years old and still look great.

I do mostly retail, have done just a bit of wholesale, but I'm at $14 for a standard mug, extra $2-4 for personalization, and $7 for wholesale (with a minimum order of $100).

Humerus said:

I do mostly retail, have done just a bit of wholesale, but I'm at $14 for a standard mug, extra $2-4 for personalization, and $7 for wholesale (with a minimum order of $100).

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You are my friend. If everyone would try as much as possible to stick to a standard such as this, our market value wouldn't be so low and maybe sublimation would be taken more seriously by consumers. Like parrish said below, sublimation is niche printing. There are way too many low balling shops out there, it's ridiculous. I mean $5 a mug? c'mon. @sandhopper2, you won't be doing this too long before you burn yourself out and notice either 1) it's not worth your time to do them so cheap or 2) run yourself out of business.

The ONLY time I do $5 a mug is when it's for a buddy's business.

My pricing is about the same as yours Humerus. I charge $15 for a standard/stock mug, an extra $2 for personalization, and I wholesale (custom biz logo) by the case of 24 for $7.50ea (48+ I'll go as low as $7.00ea MAYBE $6.50-6.75ea). Of course, I have unique images for my standard mugs, so I can charge $15 but even if I didn't, It would still be around $13-14 for a standard mug.