Potential client wants line-by-line breakdown of my quote

[Paul F]

Well, them is some mighty thin margins Josh. If you're a one-person shop, then the overhead is much less. We each need run our business our way. That's the beauty of it.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Thanks for the answers gents. . .I guess they're just philosophical differences. I will always tell folks I'm a terrible businessman, probably be never be rich or even "well off", but I simply can't add 30% to everying (gear and labor) and still be working. Client base/market won't support it. Not right now anyway. I'm simply not that special. The rates are what they are and they're not going to change any time soon.

If you don't charge a markup on your costs, you don't have a business, you have a hobby

 

[Josh Bass]

if its a hobby then i guess Im surviving solely on my hobby. I am a one man operation, furthermore Im usually a crew member, not really producer/creative developer guy like many of you. Again, this is all semantics for me because if I tried to make the margins that are often suggested I'd work 3 days a year and get turned down by everyone else who asked about my services. it does feel disappointing in a larger job to do all the work of hiring multiple people and the organizing that goes along and still only charge my typical one man crew fee for myself, so I think I will start adding a "producing markup" to those (rare) gigs.