Quote from: BPalv on July 16, 2025, 11:05:16 PMInterestingly I find most folks seem to care less about their knives. I charge about double what most knife sharpeners in my area charge. My grinding isn't perfect, but I try to make them perfect every time. That's why I charge more, I sharpen every knife like they are mine. It takes time.
(And only you and I know they're not perfect)
I recently reviewed my pricing, and I created a framework where I would try to find a balance of two main factors.
The first factor was basing the average time spent per knife on an hourly rate, and how many knives I can sharpen within the work day.
The second factor was my pricing compared as a percentage of the cost of knives purchased by my target market. (People who buy German & Japanese knives, middle to upper range)
So now, whenever I get a customer who's holding their dull Japanese knife they had dropped $300-$400 on and complaining that my services are expensive, I ask them "Expensive as compared to?... It's either $40 to restore your knife, including polishing the blade and oiling the handle, or dropping a few hundred dollars for a new one"
The lights usually come on in their minds and they see the comparative difference.
My philosophy is that I wasn't involved in trashing the knife, so I'm not going to share in the cost of fixing it.