old to vinyl new to tint

Hi peeps,
Just looking for some advice, I will spill it all if you bag on me oh well heres the deal. I started with a vinyl graphics company at a fleamarket here in michigan about 9 years ago. I rant it and made it grow for 5 years.

I couldn’t figure out what way to go the cars and decals were paying the bills I had a $160 a week rent as I took up 2 spots and still walked out of there every weekend with over 400 after paying that some times a lot higher but cant remember ever making less than that. I was always asked if I did tint but turned a ton of biz down as it wasn’t realy my thing at the time I had done a few cars and some tattoo shops windows to protect their art things like that.

I picked up a screen printer and a pad printer to be able to cover all my biz to biz needs but the calling was still automotive that was the market there. Most of the kids came to buy car stuff there so the calling was there.

Well my son was to be born 4 years ago so I had to pull out of there it was a bad bad bad birth we were not supose to have kids but we wanted one so we made it happen so the birth was dificult. I had to choose work for the man or stick with the biz, well I wanted my son so insurance and working were my choice I don’t regret it!

Now my kid is 4 happy and healty I been still doing graphics for some of my friends and such and on ebay things like that. But here in michigan there is no more work for a machininst especialy one of my caliber they all want 9.00 a hour kids to fill in and learn I cant work for that and wont bother roll my box in for that so im unemployed again and cant feed my family.

Ive decided to go back into the vinyl biz full time again and offer tinting this time, ive learned a lot from this site reading for months almost all the threads. Ive done my research and I am ready to go but heres the thing ive been looking around and found a few new people in the area doing $99 tint jobs and some doing 150-170 mobile. By no means do I want to low ball and undercut people. But im also new and thought well maybe I have to charge this to compete. And if I do will it be profitable, now I know the faster I get of course the better off I will be as efficiency gets better the profits will grow as with any thing.

Im just wondering if its actualy profitable, I see film for about 70 a roll (small roll) of the beter lines. I use to use sun guard and I think for the moment I will stay away and go with others atm but I don’t want this to be another discussion about what film is what there is enough on here about that, direction is ok but lets not get into a thing about tint or names not sounding proffesional, I don’t feel it’s the name its what you do with the name that counts!

Thanks peeps

Window tinting can be profitable, but that depends on a number of circumstances. The first I would consider would be your level of acceptable risk. If you have not tinted before then you will need to assume a satisfactory amount if you want to use a penetration strategy with your prices. Vinyl is much more forgiving than window film so you will trash a lot when you just start out. Which will cut into your profits, and could possibly create a loss.

It sounds like you need to bust out the calculator and work some basic math. Measure the width of some common car's windows, and compare that with your price/sqft. If the cost is less than the revenues then you have a profit, but if that is enough will depend on your needs. Not to mention, your efficiency with film. However, you should consider your competition's prices before you set your prices so you are not skimming an unnecessarily thin profit line off each job. Most window tinters don't worry too much about the guys that under price their jobs because they usually look at it as stuff they will get to fix for a hefty profit later. Those guys don't last too long anyway.

Hopefully, I answered your question in some fashion. Generally, window tinting is highly profitable, but its impossible to tell if it would be profitable for you, specifically. I can pretty much assure you that if you have no experience window tinting, and you want to set your prices low to attract customers then you will probably spend some time breaking even or assuming some loss.

but hey, you gotta crawl before you can walk

I do both window tint and vinyl, I make a lot of dollars in Both

Not trying to be ugly here but I wouldnt mind having you in my town tinting windows, I could always point and laugh and say this is why I charge what I charge.

If your gonna get in the tinting business and you do alot of vynal, start off doing some small flat glass jobs on some of the business fronts you do just to get a feel for it. Do your reserch on the right flat glass films to use then try some easy trucks to tint to get a feel for auto tint(2 different products----2 different kinds of adhesives). Pick and choose and progress gradually but keep vynal your main focus until you get comfortable to charge for something you know how to install correctly!