How to calculate your sq/m price?

Spitandpolish said:
You can charge whatever you like mate, that's just my advice to you, as a young bloke starting out .
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Wouldn't I price myself out of a lot of potential jobs if I ask too much?
If I ask what my competitors charge and use local and dirt cheap materials and actually manage to output 50m2 per day sustainably, I'm literally making around 10k a month after taxes. I did those calculations the other day.

Online, pretty much everywhere, plastering businesses say a good plasterer can do 20-30m2 per day on average. Based off of the things that were said here, they're clearing lying?
 
Woods said:
Wouldn't I price myself out of a lot of potential jobs if I ask too much?
If I ask what my competitors charge and use local and dirt cheap materials and actually manage to output 50m2 per day sustainably, I'm literally making around 10k a month after taxes. I did those calculations the other day.

Online, pretty much everywhere, plastering businesses say a good plasterer can do 20-30m2 per day on average. Based off of the things that were said here, they're clearing lying?
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Invest in a good website, get as many google review's as possible and if your work is good you can charge more than the others and still get the jobs.
 
Spitandpolish said:
Invest in a good website, get as many google review's as possible and if your work is good you can charge more than the others and still get the jobs.
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yeah I'm working on the website already and I'll give my first customers a small discount if they leave a good review and let me publish pictures of the work for my portfolio.

Do you guys charge for quote?
 
Woods said:
yeah I'm working on the website already and I'll give my first customers a small discount if they leave a good review and let me publish pictures of the work for my portfolio.

Do you guys charge for quote?
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No mate, quotes are free, you want to watch the small discount thing though, the majority will say ok great but never get off their arses to give you the review and you'll end up feeling cheated and out of pocket. Best just to send a request with the bill and forget about it.
 
Woods said:
yeah I'm working on the website already and I'll give my first customers a small discount if they leave a good review and let me publish pictures of the work for my portfolio.

Do you guys charge for quote?
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Just take pictures and use them mate, don't ask their permission or even tell them.
 
Woods said:
Wouldn't I price myself out of a lot of potential jobs if I ask too much?
If I ask what my competitors charge and use local and dirt cheap materials and actually manage to output 50m2 per day sustainably, I'm literally making around 10k a month after taxes. I did those calculations the other day.

Online, pretty much everywhere, plastering businesses say a good plasterer can do 20-30m2 per day on average. Based off of the things that were said here, they're clearing lying?
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Do you think you can get enough work to do 5 days of 50m2 every week?
 
spread95 said:
Do you think you can get enough work to do 5 days of 50m2 every week?
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yeah that's the goal. Plastering for people are building or renovating a house but they don't live there yet. Is that what you call site work vs domestic?
 
Woods said:
yeah that's the goal. Plastering for people are building or renovating a house but they don't live there yet. Is that what you call site work vs domestic?
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No mate, site work is on a building site of houses being built, most are taped these days anyway. Your looking at renovations, that's domestic work.
 
Spitandpolish said:
No mate, site work is on a building site of houses being built, most are taped these days anyway. Your looking at renovations, that's domestic work.
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most new builds in Belgium still have solid plastering done. It's actually cheaper because they one coat it.
Site work is working for contractors and developers then?
 
Woods said:
yeah that's the goal. Plastering for people are building or renovating a house but they don't live there yet. Is that what you call site work vs domestic?
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That's a lot of work to find, when are you pricing evenings,weekends.
How much work have you got in front of you.
 
spread95 said:
That's a lot of work to find, when are you pricing evenings,weekends.
How much work have you got in front of you.
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currently nothing. Am doing plastering and screeding work for family right now. After that, it's cold calling and referring potential customers to my website.

Why is that a lot of work to find tho? One job (one house) would get me roughly a month worth of work. Or do you consider that finding a lot?
 
Woods said:
currently nothing. Am doing plastering and screeding work for family right now. After that, it's cold calling and referring potential customers to my website.

Why is that a lot of work to find tho? One job (one house) would get me roughly a month worth of work. Or do you consider that finding a lot?
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But your giving figures of 10k a month! To do one house labour only?
 
spread95 said:
But your giving figures of 10k a month! To do one house labour only?
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1 house is on avg. 400m2 of surface to plaster.
base coat: 20€/m2
skim coat: 15€/m2
so that's 14 000€ in total. After taxes and costs, that's around 10k but probably a bit less
 
Spitandpolish said:
Yes mate.
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oh I see. Well in Belgium people who build houses are usually in charge themselves. Usually the architect or general contractor will offer them suggestions for plastering companies to work with, but ultimately the home owner pick themselves. Plasterers usually bill the customers directly.
 
Woods said:
1 house is on avg. 400m2 of surface to plaster.
base coat: 20€/m2
skim coat: 15€/m2
so that's 14 000€ in total. After taxes and costs, that's around 10k but probably a bit less
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It doesn't work like that, if your doing domestic work don't work on meterage, too many considerations to take into account,. Don't quote using photos either. Have a good look and put in a price, then put that to the back of your mind.
 
Spitandpolish said:
It doesn't work like that, if your doing domestic work don't work on meterage, too many considerations to take into account,. Don't quote using photos either. Have a good look and put in a price, then put that to the back of your mind.
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so you would go over there and spent time on a quote and not charge them for your time?
 
Woods said:
so you would go over there and spent time on a quote and not charge them for your time?
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Yes mate, get a handle on them, what they want and the job. You may realise that don't want the job as soon as you walk through the door or it could be a good one that you want. If its the first I always tell them that its not for me as I don't want them pestering me for a quote. They always say that they respect my honesty. If you do want it though get the price in as soon as possible, then you'll get the job.
 
Spitandpolish said:
Yes mate, get a handle on them, what they want and the job. You may realise that don't want the job as soon as you walk through the door or it could be a good one that you want. If its the first I always tell them that its not for me as I don't want them pestering me for a quote. They always say that they respect my honesty. If you do want it though get the price in as soon as possible, then you'll get the job.
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thanks! And if you say as soon as possible, do you think that means giving them a price (or estimate) on the spot?
 
Woods said:
so you would go over there and spent time on a quote and not charge them for your time?
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Ask them to tell you what they want done before you arrange to look though, saves a wasted visit if you don't want it, you still get bullshiters though and it f**k all like they said ! :ROFLMAO:
 
ok gotcha, thanks a lot.
Do you think it would be useful to cold call possible customers? Or get in touch with architects and general contractors? Basically starting out, I'm gonna have to hustle and go out and find clients rather than only depending/hoping they somehow find my website and call me
 
Woods said:
ok gotcha, thanks a lot.
Do you think it would be useful to cold call possible customers? Or get in touch with architects and general contractors? Basically starting out, I'm gonna have to hustle and go out and find clients rather than only depending/hoping they somehow find my website and call me
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No harm in giving it a try mate, good luck :tanguero:
 
Plastering is the easy part of the job.
Finding jobs and having a good flow of work is the hard part.
I always preferred to work for a contractor as they do all that, the downside is they tell you what their willing to pay! Probably half of what you'd like!!
That's why we speed up and do lots of metres.
 
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An example.
Your 2 weeks in to your first job with a week left on target to finish on time to start your 2nd and only job booked in so far.
You 3rd quote for 6 months work is accepted but they want you to start in 3 days time.
What do you do?
 
spread95 said:
Plastering is the easy part of the job.
Finding jobs and having a good flow of work is the hard part.
I always preferred to work for a contractor as they do all that, the downside is they tell you what their willing to pay!
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I agree. I've been self-employed for 10 years and finding/managing jobs is hard. I have always sold myself short when I was younger, and even though my work was good, it rarely lead to repeat business because I think people don't take you seriously if you don't make them pay. It's very paradoxical how pricing works, psychologically.

Working as a subcontractor for a contractor does provide you with steady income that's true. But one of the reasons I quit doing that is because they will pay you the bare minimum. And yeah sure, they take all the risk and have final responsibility but at the same time, if they want to keep their subcontractors, they need to motivate them as well. And seeing how they charged insane prices to their customers, it seemed rather selfish to not pay and treat their subcontractors better.

I think that the key to getting jobs is having good connections with other (local) businesses. For example: if you use a certain plastering product and have a good relationship with that company, they tend to refer you to their clients. Same with architects; if you build a good relationship with them, they tend to refer you. It seem like you kinda have to play ball and get some allies in the game.

Of course, being findable on google is also important... but getting referred by another professional in the business also works really well.

Trouble is, I've never been good at playing along.


spread95 said:
An example.
Your 2 weeks in to your first job with a week left on target to finish on time to start your 2nd and only job booked in so far.
You 3rd quote for 6 months work is accepted but they want you to start in 3 days time.
What do you do?
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me personally, I would tell them that I have a commitment that I need to finish first before I can start on theirs. If that is a problem, then they better find someone else. Also, I would ask them when they would like me to start before I price the job. And also, it is very common in Belgium to have to wait months for contractors to start. There's just a lot of shortage. People wait months for products to be delivered and months for contractors to be available. It's not unusual at all to see work sites completely abandoned for months at time. When they're building, things go fast, but in between work, things can take a very long time.
 
you've got social tax and then regular tax
social tax is 20,5%
regular tax is in brackets:
How to calculate your sq/m price?

but that's for one man businesses. Obviously if I make over 10k a month, I'd have to set up a corporation because then taxes are lower as long as the money stays in the corporation. You can then pay yourself a regular wage and only pay higher tax rates on that.
It's complicated in Belgium
 
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