Powder coating price calculator

The calculator follows the order a part moves through your shop: prep, coat, cure. It adds your fees at the end.

1. One coat per part. By the square foot: surface area × your price per sq ft. By the part: your price per part.
2. Extra coats. Each coat after the first is a share of the first coat price. Fixr says a clear coat adds about 50% to the finished cost, so 50% is the starting value.
3. Blasting. Square feet × your blast rate, or parts × your blast price per part. Turn it off if the parts come in clean or your coat price already covers prep.
4. Oven batches. Parts ÷ the parts that fit in one oven load, rounded up, × your charge per batch.
5. Setup fee. Once per order: masking, plugging holes, racking, a color change.
6. Minimum. If everything above comes to less than your minimum, a line brings the order up to it.
7. Rush. A share of the order, added last.

Here is the starting example worked through: four wheels priced by the part at $100 each, one coat, blasted at $25 each, all four fitting in one oven load, a $75 minimum and no rush.

Every line carries over to an estimate when you press Save. The coating line uses the per part unit, the blasting line follows it, and the oven line uses the batch unit, so the customer reads "4 parts" and "1 batch" instead of a lump sum.

Both ways work. The right one depends on what comes through your door.

• Per part fits repeat items with a known size: wheels, calipers, valve covers, brackets, bike frames, patio chairs. The customer understands it, and you can post it on a price list.
• Per square foot fits flat and odd work: panels, gates, fence sections, enclosures, signs, cabinets. It scales with how much powder and booth time the job really takes.

Published guides show both. Fixr puts powder coating at $1 to $5 a square foot, with gates and fencing at $6 to $8 a square foot and railings by the linear foot. Thumbtack lists items by the piece, like a set of wheels at $400 to $700 and a bicycle at $75, and also lists gates and fencing at $6 to $8 a square foot. Use those as a check against your own numbers, not as your price.

To measure a part for square foot pricing, add up every face the powder covers. A flat panel 2 ft by 3 ft coated on both sides is 12 sq ft, not 6. For tube and bar work, length × the distance around the tube gives the surface. When in doubt, weigh how much powder a similar part used last time.

Most of the cost of a powder coat job sits in the prep. A part that comes in rusty or painted has to be stripped or blasted to bare metal before powder will stick and last.

Fixr lists sandblasting at $25 to $300 an item, or $2 to $5 a square foot, when a shop charges it apart from the coating. The calculator starts at the low end of each. Raise it for heavy rust, old paint, chrome or parts that need chemical stripping or a burn-off.

Extra coats are where quotes often lose money. A clear coat over a metallic, a two-stage candy, or a second color for a two-tone finish each mean another trip through the booth and another cure cycle. Thumbtack notes that a standard color may need one coat while some colors need two. Charging each extra coat at a share of the first covers the time without repeating the prep.

Your oven runs a full cure cycle whether it holds one part or a full rack. That makes the batch the real unit of oven cost: the gas or power, and the hour or so the oven is tied up.

The calculator divides the parts by how many fit in one load and rounds up. Nine wheels with four to a load is three batches, not two and a quarter. If the batch charge is part of your per part price already, leave it at zero. If you want the customer to see it, give it a price and it shows as its own line with the batch unit.

Batching also helps you sell. When a customer brings one part, show them that two more in the same color ride along in the same oven load for little extra. That fills your rack and lifts the order past the minimum.

Three fees protect a small shop from jobs that look fine on paper and lose money in practice.

• Setup fee. Masking threads and bearing seats, plugging holes, building a rack and changing color take time on every order. A setup fee covers it once, whether the order is one part or twenty.
• Minimum charge. Fixr notes that a single small item that would cost $25 to coat can come to $75 to $100 once minimum fees and prep are added. Thumbtack also mentions minimum charges. The calculator starts at $75 and adds a separate "Minimum charge" line only when the order falls short, so the customer sees exactly why.
• Rush. When a customer needs the part ahead of your queue, add a share on top. It is applied after the minimum, so a rush on a small order still pays for the bump.

In Koira, estimates carry a setup fee, a minimum charge and a rush share as their own settings, and your estimates remember your defaults. The calculator's lines show the same math so you can check a quote before it goes out.

Once the number is right, the rest is paperwork. Press Save as an estimate and Koira opens a draft with your lines, units and fees. Text it to the customer. They approve from their phone, you coat the parts, and Koira texts them that the order is ready with a link to pay. The paid invoice follows from the same lines.

Customers can also send photos of the part through your quote form, and you price it from the picture before they drive over. For a rate that covers your whole shop, not just one order, work it out once with the labor rate calculator and use that hourly figure to set your per part and per square foot prices.