What should you
charge for this sign?
Enter the size, your material cost and your markup. Get your true cost, your price per square foot, and the margin you're actually running — before you send the quote.
1. Sign size
2. Material
Offcuts and unusable remnants add 10–20% to real material cost. Leaving this at zero is the most common way shops quietly underprice a job.
3. Production costs
Toggle what this job needs — every rate is editable.
Shop overhead
Charged against this job's design + machine hours.
Not sure what your hourly rate should be?
Work it out → close
Your true shop rate is what it costs to keep the doors open for one hour of production, plus the profit you want: (annual costs + profit goal) ÷ billable hours.
Rent, power, insurance, wages, software, and what your equipment is losing in value. Billable hours are the hours you actually charge for — one person full-time is about 1,960 after holidays, and almost nobody bills all of them.
4. Markup
This is the same maths that powers PrinterFlo's quoting.
Save your materials and rates once, then price any sign in two clicks — and turn it straight into a quote your customer can approve online.
Start free trial →Twelve seconds, captioned, no sound needed — the same steps you just did above.
Typical retail sign prices per square foot
Ballpark of what shops charge customers (materials + print + standard finishing, before installation). Your market may vary.
| Material | Retail price / sq ft |
|---|---|
| Vinyl banner (13 oz) | $4 – $10 |
| Coroplast 4mm (yard signs) | $6 – $12 |
| Foamboard 3/16″ | $8 – $14 |
| PVC / Sintra 3mm | $10 – $16 |
| ACM / Dibond 3mm | $12 – $25 |
| Acrylic 1/8″ | $18 – $35 |
Sign pricing FAQ
How do you calculate the price of a sign?
Multiply the sign's square footage by your material cost per square foot, add production costs (printing, lamination, cutting, grommets, design time), then apply your markup. Formula: (materials + production costs) × (1 + markup %) = price per sign. This calculator does all of that automatically.
How much should I charge per square foot for a sign?
Typical retail prices: vinyl banners $4–$10/sq ft, coroplast yard signs $6–$12/sq ft, foamboard $8–$14/sq ft, ACM/Dibond panels $12–$25/sq ft, and acrylic $18–$35/sq ft. Prices vary by region, quantity, and finishing — use the calculator above with your own costs to find your number.
What is a good markup for a sign shop?
Most sign shops mark up total job cost by 100–250%, which works out to charging 2–3.5× cost. Small-format quick jobs usually carry higher markup than large wholesale runs. If you're unsure, start at 150% (2.5× cost) and adjust for your market.
How much does a 4×8 coroplast sign cost to make?
A 4×8 ft sign is 32 sq ft. At roughly $1.25/sq ft for 4mm coroplast plus $1.50/sq ft for printing, your cost is about $88. With a 150% markup you'd quote around $220, or about $6.90 per square foot.
How do I work out the cost of a signage project?
Price each sign in the project separately — its own size, material and finishing — then add the costs that belong to the job rather than the piece: design time, a site survey, permits, install labour and travel, and equipment like a lift or bucket truck. Divide those job costs across the pieces if you want a per-sign number. Apply your markup to the total, not to materials alone, or you'll give away the labour.
How do you calculate flex printing cost?
Flex (banner) printing is priced by area: multiply width × height in feet to get square footage, then multiply by your flex material cost per square foot and add printing. Add finishing per piece — hemming by the linear foot, eyelets or grommets each, pole pockets — then apply your markup. A 10×3 ft flex banner is 30 sq ft; at $1.20/sq ft media plus $1.50/sq ft printing that's $81 cost, or about $200 at a 150% markup.
Is my pricing saved or sent anywhere?
The calculator runs entirely in your browser — your sizes, costs and markup are never uploaded, and refreshing the page resets everything. The one exception is if you ask us to email you the breakdown: then we send that summary to the address you typed, and keep the address so we can. Nothing else, and we don't add you to a list.
Stop re-typing prices
into spreadsheets
PrinterFlo saves your materials, rates and markup — then turns every calculation into a quote, an approval link, and a production job.
Start free trial →14-day trial · the calculator above stays free, no account needed