Originally Posted by
Peckish
I wonder what the quilting is like and how many customers they have. I took a class from Carla Barrett, who was a phenomenal quilter and then transitioned into a longarm teacher. Margaret Solomon Gunn was one of her students. Carla said she got to the point where she was so in demand that she raised her prices, then raised them again, because she was so inundated with customers. The demand was there and people were willing to pay the price. She finally would only do quilts for certain people, then eventually I believe she retired from quilting for others altogether. Now she just teaches.
I have a friend who has 2 longarms in her shop in the Portland area. Her rates:
Basic e2e (edge to edge) $.018 per inch
moderate $.025/inch
high $.028/inch
custom starting at $.035/inch
heirloom starting at $.060/inch
I'm a LAQ in KS (outside the KC area) and charge about what is shown above. I'm not partial to doing pantos--hurts my neck to work from the back of the machine, and find that many of my clients want ruler work, so when I was spending 20-30 hrs and several thread changes on a queen or king size quilt, I raised them to what you show.
BobbieLinks--if you are doing custom work, with thread changes &/or rulers, then you should raise your prices!