Commercial wraps pricing know-how

“How much to wrap [insert vehicle type]?” is a question we hear often. The answer to that question isn’t as cut-and-dried as a customer may imagine. I often describe my response as the start of an interview of sorts.

To accurately respond to the request for a wrap quote, we must gather a bit of information. Once we’ve gathered this info, we break our wraps pricing into three sections: design, graphics, and installation.

Commercial wraps coverage

The first determination is the coverage of the graphics. This should include all areas on the vehicle that will be wrapped in vinyl, including windows. You should also add a few inches on top and bottom for overlap.

It’s important to clarify exactly what areas of the vehicle the customer wants to wrap because sometimes customers will call spot graphics a wrap. Other times they really mean a partial or full wrap. We have instances where the customer knows the coverage they want from the beginning. Maybe they’re matching another vehicle or they’ve already done their homework and determined the look they’re going for.

Most of the time, though, the customer doesn’t really know what they’re looking for. They may have some rough ideas, but often they just know they want to advertise on their vehicle.

Budget

At this point, we ask about the budget, because that’s a big determiner of how much coverage we can give them for their price range. It also saves time for both us and the customer to know the parameters we need to keep the coverage within so we’re not planning beyond the customer’s budget.

Interview

The interview, so to speak, continues as we discuss what they hope to achieve with the wrap.

• Is it simply to look professional when you drive up to a client’s house? Here, we may go with less coverage. Perhaps spot graphics are enough if they simply want identifying graphics.
• Are they wanting to advertise a particular product or service? Here, we may look at a partial wrap or large image with supporting vinyl text.
• Are they wanting to incorporate their company brand into their vehicle? If this is the case, then a partial to full wrap might be the best plan to incorporate their brand colors, logo, and supporting text.

These questions help the customer think about what kind of return they’re expecting on their investment in the wrap. More questions often come up as we work through their expectations. Once we’ve narrowed them down, the questions continue.

• Is this vehicle part of an existing fleet? This question helps us determine if there are other vehicles we’re trying to match or that we need to tie in this vehicle with, so they build a consistent fleet. Many times, there will be other vehicles in their fleet that are a completely different make or model. The key is to plan the graphics to work across all different body styles.
• Is this the first vehicle with plans for additional vehicles? Here, we’ll keep those additional vehicles in mind as we plan the graphics. If a customer is just starting out and knows their business type will require multiple vehicles, I recommend creating a vehicle wrap design that clearly states who they are, what they do, and how to contact them. Then, we keep the coverage moderate, eye-catching, and effective. Overdoing it on the first wrap, knowing they’ll need many in the future, can hinder their growth.

Square footage

The first part of pricing out a vehicle wrap is asking a lot of questions. Once we’ve gathered that information, it’s time to determine the total square footage.

We always want to see the vehicle before we finalize the quote, but if the customer doesn’t have the vehicle yet or is out of the area, you can start with a template. We like using Art Station vehicle templates for estimating coverage, sketching design ideas, and designing simple layouts.

Art Station also produces a wrap dimensions guide, which is an excellent tool for determining wrap square footage quickly. The templates and square footage noted in the guide consider the excess vinyl you need — top and bottom — to wrap around the vehicle.

The guide also notes window square footage separately. You may wish to price perforated vinyl graphics higher than regular vinyl, so having this separately figured allows you to price them out. Also, the absence or presence of windows in some vans means the separated information lets you accurately determine the total square footage.

We’ve created a pricing guide for our shop that considers the total square footage and the material type. We have a separate price per square foot for premium, calendared, transit, perforated, view-through, and color-change wrap media. The total square footage of the graphics for the vehicle, times the type of media used, is our graphics cost.

For each media type, we’ve broken the pricing down with a sliding scale based on the total square footage. The higher the square footage, the cheaper the price per square foot. For example, a customer with a full vehicle wrap will pay less per square foot versus a customer with just a tailgate wrap.

You’ll often spend just as much time talking with the customer, loading material, and moving the graphics through production on a small wrap as you will a larger wrap, so the per-square-foot pricing helps cover this.

Design

The pricing for the design of the wrap itself is a separate charge. In our shop, we determine this price based on how long we think it will take us to design the wrap to fit the customer’s vehicle. This is considering what artwork the customer can provide us digitally, what we may need to reproduce or purchase, and how much we need to typeset. During the design phase, you should also consider color matching and sample prints that the customer may require.

For smaller wraps or those with simpler body styles, we can simply lay out the graphics on the template, since we won’t have tight coverage around obstacles. This also cuts down on design time, so we account for that in our quote.

On full wraps, we like to design the graphics on photos of the actual vehicle. This gives us the most accurate sizing and considers obstacles on the vehicle. We account for the extra time to create a custom template when estimating the design costs.

Custom template

To get an accurate custom template of the customer’s vehicle, we take straight-on photos of all sides we’re wrapping. The next step is to get accurate reference measurements of the vehicle so you can scale the photos to the actual size.

Horizontal measurements are the most accurate for scaling the photo. I also take vertical measurements for reference. You’ll need those reference measurements to correctly scale your final print files vertically.

Once the photos are scaled to the actual size using the reference measurements, you can design “on” the photo in either Photoshop or your vector program. This allows you to work around obstacles on the actual vehicle and looks professional when proofing the wrap for the customer.

Installation

This is the last element we take into consideration to give the customer a quote for their vehicle wrap. Some companies like to quote installation based on a per-square-foot price. For our shop, we determine the installation cost on how long we think it will take to apply the graphics to that particular vehicle.

A box truck may have a lot more square footage than a sedan, but we can wrap panels of graphics on a flat-sided box truck a lot faster than around the contours of a four-door car. When estimating the time, I look at the number of panels, ways we can make a wrap as seamless as possible, areas we’re going to have to trim, places we may use knifeless tape, concave areas we’ll have to pay special attention to, and any other areas that may take extra time.

If we’re wrapping a fleet of vehicles, the first couple of vehicles will typically take longer as we get used to the contours of that vehicle. But we usually get a lot faster as we go, so we’ll keep that in mind as we quote the job. If they’re ordering just one or two vehicles to start, we’ll keep the pricing at the higher price. If they’re ordering multiple vehicles at a time, we’ll often price a bit more competitively on the installation as we keep our speed in mind.