pricing guide

reparebrise · 01-18-08, 03:55

What can be charged for polishing a gelcoat finish? How are estimates worked up, by the foot, length x width, do you charge per the level of oxidation, ect ect. I normaly do cars, but a customer for whom I do his car happens to own a marina, and would like us to do his customers boats(between 2-300 per year) and he asked for a quote. He is a sly fox so he would not give me a hint, just incase I came in lower than he thought.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

SShine · 01-19-08, 02:28

i charge hulls by the foot, and it depends if it needs to be waxed, polished, or compounded. topside I take a look at how long it should take me and give an estimate based on my hourly rate.

TTWAGN · 01-20-08, 01:51

It may not be best to calculate by the length of a boat.

A 40 foot boat would have well over double the surface area of a 20 foot boat even though it is double the length.

However as bigger jobs usually offer a discount it may be worth offering say $50 per foot. This may suit you or may not, it will also attract the bigger boats as they get more bang for your buck. That way a 40 foot luxury boat that costs $500,000 the detail will cost them $2,000. $2,000 would be fairly realistic as it would take half a week to do a boat this size. However a 5 foot dingy would cost $250 which would only take you an hour.

However being new to boats i would not start off with $50 per foot. As you may get some bad and good condition boats its hard to offer a set price. So only give a rough estimate so that you dont lock in a price that is far too low or a price that is too high so you dont get any business.

Basically say if the white gelcoat is heavily oxidised and has no reflection then $50 a foot would be about right and explain how long it will take. Mention if the boat is small and good condition then $25 a foot may be acceptable as thats $125 for a small 5 foot dingy.

You cant give a quote on 500 boats unless you know the coniditon of all the boats and what condition they will be in when it comes to detailing them.

SShine · 01-20-08, 06:55

well obviously I charge more per foot on larger boats than small ones. and by $50/ft do you mean the whole boat? theres no way I could get $50/ft for just compounding the hull, maybe $25/ft or so. but $50/ft seems about right for top and bottom, but when calculating a price, I seperate the two, but give them one final price. since topsides vary greatly with center console, boats with a cabin, t-tops, ouriggers, etc etc its just easier to figure out how long it wil take you to do the topside, and quote accordingly. but $2000 for a 40ft boat is about what I get for a full detail and oxidation removal on the hull. I also no longer do anything with the hull if its in the water, I compounded a few and it was a major PITA doing it from a floating platform that wanted to push away from the boat no matter how i had it tied up.

mirrorfinishman · 01-21-08, 10:35

Your prices should always be based on how much you need to make per hour.

In most cases, a complete boat detailing of most boats under 30 ft in length usually takes about one hour for every two feet of boat length. For example, in order to make $50 per hour you would need to charge $25 per foot to detail a 30 ft boat. Since it would take about 15 hours to detail a 30-foot boat, the total charge would be $750.

Of course, boats over 30 ft are going to take much more than one hour per ft to complete due to the additional width and total surface area of larger boats. You can figure that a 40 ft boat could take anywhere between 35 to 40 hours to complete. So at an hourly rate of $50 per hr, that would work out to a price range of between $1750 and $2000.

Personally, I would be a bit cautious of anyone offering you 200 to 300 new boat detailing customers. Figure it out for yourself. There are only so many hours in the day. Taking on that quantity of work could turn into one long hot summer, especially for someone who has never detailed boats before.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

SShine · 01-21-08, 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirrorfinishman

Your prices should always be based on how much you need to make per hour.

In most cases, a complete boat detailing of most boats under 30 ft in length usually takes about one hour for every two feet of boat length. For example, in order to make $50 per hour you would need to charge $25 per foot to detail a 30 ft boat. Since it would take about 15 hours to detail a 30-foot boat, the total charge would be $750.

Of course, boats over 30 ft are going to take much more than one hour per ft to complete due to the additional width and total surface area of larger boats. You can figure that a 40 ft boat could take anywhere between 35 to 40 hours to complete. So at an hourly rate of $50 per hr, that would work out to a price range of between $1750 and $2000.

Personally, I would be a bit cautious of anyone offering you 200 to 300 new boat detailing customers. Figure it out for yourself. There are only so many hours in the day. Taking on that quantity of work could turn into one long hot summer, especially for someone who has never detailed boats before.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

yea, boats are ALOT of work, completely different than doing a car. but I love doing them

Greg Nichols · 01-22-08, 09:04

I did my first boat recently, and it is a lot more work than the cars I do. It was more taxing on my body. I did the boat for my dad it was a 19' open bow with lots of oxidation and it took me about 12 hrs , and I still think it needs more time.

I would bid out each boat individually, but give him a tease price of per foot as an intro price, then it goes up from there. It sounds like this guy is going to charge the customer a price and then pay you yours.........ie he is the middle man.......I would avoid that.

murf'n'surf · 01-22-08, 09:49

I would be careful on that deal. Sounds like he is trying to make money on your services. If you likes you that much, have him pass your card to his members and then detail his cars for free or at a discount rate depending on how many details you got from him.

Jakerooni · 01-22-08, 09:51

First off do you even know how to detail a boat? If not then I would turn this offer down. You can not detail a boat in the same way you detail a car. Two completly different animals. Require a completely different range of Products and techniques. And Unless you have a entire crew of people detailing, that many boats in a season is highly unrealistic. (unless your season is all year long then it's just mostly unrealistic) I charge $15/lf for "normal" sized boats ( I think the biggest one we had in here this past summer was in the 26' range) $25/lf for anything over 30'. That wouls be a wash deoxidize the hull, wax and seal and then wipe down and vaccuum the interior and do the glass and shine up and chrome. I also have teak oil to recondtion the teak but I have yet to get a boat in with any teak to recondition.

SShine · 01-22-08, 12:30

is the OP in Florida? lol

murf'n'surf · 01-25-08, 06:37

No oil on teak please!!!! That is a mess!! I guess it depends on what type of boat you may run into. A pure fishing vessel may want teak oil due to the constant blood but I detail pure pleasure yachts that oil would be tracked into the multi million $ interiors. I will use powdered Cascade and a scotch brite pad or better yet TCP 100 Teak Cleaning Powder from teakdecking.com. (stay away from Snappy Teak unless the teak is so bad nothing will help) Sorry, a bit off topic but good products to mention when the word teak is mentioned. Anyway, yes, be careful with bidding boats -- they can require a great deal of time and manual labor that will require more hands on deck.

Jakerooni · 01-25-08, 06:52

Good to know about the teak. I got a bottle of the Meg Teak oil conditioner. But like I said I've yet to ever have anything come in with teak on it. Mostly all fiberglass pleasure cruiser and stuff for the smaller lakes. I'll definatly keep that in mind should I get a request in for it.