How to Set Laser Cutting Prices
How to price laser cutting work competitively and profitably
Pricing laser cutting work is hard when your costs, utilization, machine rates, material assumptions, and market pressure are all moving at once.
This free guide walks through a practical pricing framework for laser cutting and sheet metal shops, so you can understand your true costs, quote with more confidence, and make better pricing decisions as your shop grows.
What you’ll learn
Inside the guide, you’ll learn how to:
Calculate a baseline hourly rate using absorption costing
Balance competitive pricing with sustainable margins
Understand how machine utilization affects your real cost per hour
Think beyond hourly rates and move toward cost-per-part pricing
Spot pricing problems through win/loss ratios
Add value beyond price through faster responses, better service, and consistency
Who this guide is for
This guide is built for laser cutting, sheet metal, and fabrication shops that want a clearer way to price work.
It’s especially useful if you’re:
Setting machine rates for the first time
Reviewing your current pricing strategy
Quoting from spreadsheets or manual calculations
Trying to protect margin while staying competitive
Growing your shop and bringing more structure to quoting
Hourly rate calcualtor
Use the guide with the free calculator
The guide includes a practical example of absorption costing and shows how annual costs, operational hours, utilization, and margin affect your baseline hourly rate.
You can also use the free Tempus Tools hourly rate calculator alongside the guide to work through your own numbers.
About Tempus Tools
Tempus Tools is quoting software built for laser cutting, sheet metal, and fabrication shops.
It helps teams turn CAD and PDF drawings into rules-based quotes, with tools for drawing cleanup, pricing consistency, repeat parts, Web Store ordering, production documents, and customer workflows.
If your shop is relying on manual calculations, spreadsheets, or one person’s pricing knowledge, Tempus Tools gives you a more consistent way to quote faster and manage work from RFQ to order.
