Picture Framer Hourly Rate Calculator
This free calculator works out the hourly rate a self-employed picture framer should charge for their time, starting from the income you need, then builds the per-piece prices clients actually pay out of the bench hours each piece honestly holds. Clients bring you a picture — a print, a certificate, a football shirt, a child’s drawing that matters more than anything in a gallery — and collect a finished piece at one price. Inside that price hides an hour structure they never see: the counter time spent choosing moulding and mount with them, measuring, cutting the mount, cutting and joining the frame, cutting the glass, assembling and finishing. Materials are a large and visible part of framing, which is exactly why they must not hide inside the labour rate: one walnut frame would bend the price of every plain print around it. With the honest presets below the rate lands near $78 an hour, $621 for a full bench day — and the work built from it: a standard 40 × 50 cm frame at about an hour and a quarter of labour, $97, before its materials; a large statement piece at about three hours, $233; a re-glaze and repair at about forty-five minutes, $58 — with moulding, glass and board billed as their own lines on every piece.
The pricing reality for picture framers
Framing is bought per piece and quoted at the counter, and earned at the bench: measure, cut the mount, cut and join the moulding, cut the glass, assemble, finish, wrap. The size the client states is the beginning of the job, not the job — two frames of identical dimensions work completely differently when one is a straightforward print and the other is a deep box for a shirt that must be stitched, spaced and kept off the glass. The piece price that ignores the bench hours underneath it is a guess, which is why the honest quote is built from hours first and expressed per piece second.
It is a neighbouring bench trade to the cabinet maker’s, and the economics rhyme: workshop rent and machinery ride on every hour, and the deliverable is priced per piece. The difference is what lies on the bench — the cabinet maker builds the furniture, the framer builds the presentation for flat and shallow things — and how much of the price is materials passing through: moulding, board and glass are a share of a framing ticket no cabinet job would recognise, and they belong on the invoice as themselves.
The numbers below are starting presets, not a survey: a $46,000 target income, $9,900 a year of expenses — workshop rent share leads, with framing machinery, the moulding, board and glass stock float, vehicle and delivery, liability insurance, tapes, blades and consumables, phone and admin, marketing, and training — a 25% tax estimate, four weeks of vacation, a 40-hour week and 55% billable time. With those starting numbers the calculator lands near $78 an hour. The billable share is the counter talking: advising, choosing, ordering stock and quoting take hours the bench never sees, and every piece pays for a slice of them.
Your numbers — picture framer presets
Your recommended rate
| Income + expenses needed | $0 |
| Grossed up for tax | $0 |
| With profit margin | $0 |
| Working weeks | 0 |
| Total working hours | 0 |
| Billable hours | 0 |
Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.
Costs picture framers forget to put in the rate
- Counter time. Choosing the frame is part of the job: the twenty minutes at the counter with mount samples and moulding corners is skilled advising that sells the piece and shapes the bench work. It is inside the billable share, and a framer who times only the saw is donating the consultation on every ticket.
- The offcut problem. Moulding comes in lengths and glass in sheets; every piece leaves offcuts, and some of them leave as waste. The stock float in these presets is the capital sitting in your racks — money already spent, waiting to be sold one frame at a time.
- The glass that breaks at the last cut. Some sheets fail at the final score, some joined frames get knocked before collection, and the remake comes out of your hours, not the client’s price. Breakage is a percentage of framing life; the rate carries it so a bad Friday does not come out of your wage.
- Deadline clustering. Framing arrives in rushes — exhibitions, graduations, the December wall of gifts — and the quiet weeks are real too. Rush work done at the standard rate in a clustered week is overtime given away; the margin in the presets is the buffer that lets the year average out.
- Finished work waiting. Uncollected pieces occupy the workshop — racked, wrapped and in the way — sometimes for weeks. Storage is bench space you cannot sell twice, and it is one more reason the rent line belongs near the top of the expenses.
How this calculator works
Start with the hours you can genuinely sell. Take 52 weeks, subtract your vacation weeks, multiply by your hours per week, then multiply by your billable percentage. With the picture framer presets — four weeks off, 40 hours a week, 55% billable — that is 1,056 billable hours a year: the bench time clients can pay for, once counter time, ordering and quoting have taken theirs.
Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together — $55,900 on the presets — gross the total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 25% estimate, divide by 0.75 to get $74,533 — then add your profit margin to reach $81,987 and divide by your billable hours. That final number, $78, is the rate below which the year stops adding up.
Now translate the hour into the prices clients actually buy. The piece is the quoted unit, built from bench hours plus materials lines: a standard frame at about an hour and a quarter, $97 of labour; a large piece at about three hours, $233; a re-glaze and repair at about forty-five minutes, $58; a full bench day at $621. Moulding, mountboard and glass arrive on the invoice as themselves, at cost or with a stated mark-up. Quoted that way, the client can see what they are buying: the right frame, honestly built — and a single per-piece price with no hours underneath it stops looking cheaper.
Picture Framer rate questions
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