I have a dilemma

Right, so, as i've blatently said on these forums, I build for people. I tend to think that I do a mighty durn fine job of it.

The problem is, I have NO idea what to charge for this service.

Most customers I have want me to design and implement a building, from scratch, from a basic description. For instance... "A modern-looking 3-story house." or, "a nice, 2-story beach house with alot of wood." From there, I'm in charge of designing it all and making it look nice and pretty for all to enjoy.

I've succeeded, I'd say. But, I feel SO bad when I try to drum up a price for it all.

My going rate is usually "prim costs plus whatever tip you decide I'm worth". This usually amounts to prim costs + a sizable tip.

Why I feel bad is I don't want to gouge the customer, but I also want to make a living off of building (seeing as I can't make clothes, or script to save my life)...

My original idea was to charge for 10 dollars a prim and leave it at that... but oddly enough, my usual mode of selling someone their build (pieces of it, sold as an original, for one dollar) doesn't recover my prim costs, so I'd be breaking even all the time... which is alright, I suppose, but it doesn't take into account how much time I put into the build.

Anyone got suggestions or guidelines?

LF

I think a couple of pricing models would be fair:

Set Cost - Let the customer tell you how much they are willing to play for the building they want to commission, then determine how many prims you can use and still make a reasonable profit. (I'm guessing you have to work within prim limits for a lot of your customers, anyway, so it wouldn't be a big change.)

Costs Plus - the favorite of goverment contractors! Set a certain cost for your labor, say L1000?, and then let the buyer know the final cost of the project will be prim cost + that fee.

Exactly. When I build a home, I have the labor fee + prim fee + land fee = L$x000. I tell the person right off the bat, I'm asking $1500 for the labor, the prim fee will be $3100 and the land is $900. I'm negotiable on the labor fee, but, nothing else.

There's nothing wrong with asking for a profit.

I personally recomend the Ama method:

Total up the cost of the prims.

Then have them guess a number from 1 to 10. If they guess right they get it for free, if they guess 1 off its half the cost of the prims BUT if they are more than 1 off it costs 10x the prims.

Works like a charm.

Hehehehe I 'm just kidding.

Charge 20x if they are off.

I don't take a project if it's not going to be fun for me, so I usually say, "Whatever you want to pay" and if they are broke, that's fine.

If I need to be payed, it's because it was WORK and not FUN... And it's a game, so I'm just here to have fun.

But I'll always take cash.....

I like the Tiger method.

BTW, LF, I heard once that there was some kind of bug that makes you continue to pay taxes on an object if you sell it as an original...is that fixed?

That brought a smile to my face Without doubt, you are among the coolest folks in SL Ama

-AP

I'm a little confused. Why are you factoring in prim costs? When you give them a copy the prims are theirs, not yours, so you're not out money for prims, right?

Because in some cases its not feasible to copy prims back into the inventory and give the owner a copy of the building. Sometimes builds take more than the 30 prim limit and thus need to be exchanged when they are in-world. If you don't charge prim costs, you don't get the money back for the prims it cost to build it .

Zana

Zana, would you mind explaining a little more? I have a house in my inventory that's several hundred prims (granted, it's in a few pieces) but I would think I could drag that folder onto another avatar or give them an object with the house in its contets. And as for the 30 prim limit: I'm aware of that as a limit for physical objects but isn't the limit for nonphysical objects 256 per linkset (with size restrictions of course)?

As I see it, you build something that takes ten prims and so takes $100. You pick it up, putting it in inventory, and get your money back. You give it, from inventory without rezzing, to another person and lose no money.

Or, you make a house of 500 prims linked in five pieces. You put those pieces from inventory into the contents of a default cube and price it however you like. Someone buys it. I don't think you lose even $10 for the default cube you rezzed when someone buys it. Maybe if it's set Original but why go that route at all? I would hope the builder keeps a copy for backup or their portfolio or whatever reason.

Am I wrong in all this?

when a large part of complicated house building is lining up the various pieces people don't always want to exchange 10 - 20 things they have to then put to gether. Not everyone loves jigsaw puzzles.

However this is how the price should be at a minimum:
When you transfer the pieces don't sell them for $1 sell them for the rez cost. They will know exactly where their money is going for that then.

Then charge above and beyond for your services. This charge is more up to you, but the above should be a set cost - the buyer will pay the price of the prims. Doesn't make sense otherwise.