We quote jobs accurately by each specific job. We don't have a typical - we do pretty much everything.
Most of the time we can give a quote based on a drawing or ideally a 3D model (see our Digital File Guide). Without that, it's pretty tough to quote from "nothing."
Let me give you an analogy, let's say you wanted us to make you dinner. It might go something like this:
Customer: Can you make me dinner for four?
Cook: Sure, what would you like?
Customer: Well, I'm not sure, maybe food?
Cook: Oh, uhh, I can probably make food. Any particular fare?
Customer: No, but I'd like to know how much it will cost for us four for dinner tomorrow?
Cook: Well, I need to buy ingredients and I don't yet have a recipe so, I'm not sure how to answer that.
Customer: Oh, well I just need like a rough price?
Cook: Do you want steak? Lobster? Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?
Customer: I just want food, how much?
This is a pretty good analogy for why "rough quotes" without enough information are nearly impossible. We always love to help and get a project started but we need something to start from.
Budgets
Letting us know your budget early on is always helpful so we can help guide the project towards or under that price.
Rough Quotes
We strive to give accurate quotes. Over time we've found that "ballpark" or "rough prices" don't serve our customers or ourselves well. The only "safe" way to ballpark a quote is to over-inflate the price and that discourages clients which don't make for good projects.
That said, don't let this stop you from contacting us, we can help get things started.
First Runs vs Second (+) Runs
A first run is always the most expensive. While we optimize everything we can, every job takes time to prepare for – whether it's been done before or not. Files are optimized, CAM setup and confirmed, tools are set up on the machine, g-code exported, tweaked if needed, etc.
However, after we do a job once, the 2nd run (and any future runs) that don't need significant changes will most definitely be less costly per part. We charge for the work we do, nothing more. This means cheaper parts for you.