The story goes something like this: Someone publishes their price sheet. The owner has not given these prices any thought. They’re just nice round numbers that correspond to case sizes.

A few months later, a competitor comes along and sees these prices. They decide to chop $0.50 off the price then publish that list. They steal all of the customers.

Five years pass. Both print shops have long since gone out of business. But for some reason their price lists have stuck around on local search results.

When you search for screen printing in that area, you notice everyone’s price lists look suspiciously similar. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that every print shop in town based their pricing off some hare-brained list that a total joker cooked up in their basement one evening.

I wish this story was exaggerated. But it isn’t. It’s the reality for a lot of small towns and print shops … and even some big ones.

So what’s wrong with copying your competitor’s price sheet? Your shop’s overhead and fixed costs are unique. It takes your shop a unique amount of time to do one unique job. Another shop might be much slower or faster. Even a reprint of the same job could vary significantly. Your pricing needs to be focused on the financial and business niche that your shop is in.

More importantly, your prices reflect your values. Don’t like printing certain jobs? Raise the price. Love other jobs and clients? Lower their price. Prices can move your business forward.

Don’t let another shop do your homework for you. Some shops post bogus “sabotage” price matrices to confuse other businesses. Yes, really!