How Much Do You Sell Your Guitars For

[Johnny Foreigner]

I appreciate this can be a sensitive subject - for both personal and commercial reasons, so feel free to tell me absolutely nothing.

But I was interested in what sort of ballpark number GOTM standard, handmade guitars go for - if anyone wants to share.

[WezV]

I am still keeping prices lower than other more established UK luthiers so prices start from about £1000, but prices can rise very quickly as the spec list grows. 2 of my GOTM wins have been for family or friends - so were done cheaper than that, and i make guitars for myself which i occasionally sell off cheaper too. I didnt charge for much more than parts on my first 16 or so builds though and have built up prices slowly since then, just happy to have people wanting me to build for them, why should they pay for me to learn?

The full time & professional builders i know vary between starting prices of £1200 up to £2500, again going much higher depending on spec

why do you want to know? thats the real question. if you are trying to decide what your builds are worth there is only one answer... whatever people will pay for them

[Metalhead28]

I sold my first few for barely more than the parts. I feel more secure and capable now, so I've started raising my prices to actually make it worth my time, at least some of my time. Still, I think I'm pretty cheap, as I start out at around $1,000 and go up depending on the specs. But I don't have an established reputation, so of course I'm not going to charge a premium price.

Also I have a day job - so I'm not trying to put food on the table with guitars. Just more tools in the workshop.

[NotYou]

The first commission I got was $1500 and he supplied the pickups. They're now generally around $2500 and the most expensive yet was $4000 (I just got that order too). I just took an order for $1500 with the customer supplying the pickups again, though. It all depends on the guitar.

I've been doing it full time for a few months. I'm thinking of getting a CNC and making a cheaper, non-custom, line for well under $2000. I'll keep those separate from the handmade ones. It'll have to wait until I get time to set things up, though.

Edited April 2, 2010 by NotYou

[Johnny Foreigner]

why do you want to know? thats the real question.

nothing more than idle curiosity, and a far off thought of being able to break even on my guitar building habit

[Vinny]

Selling for the cost of parts and wood might be considered 'break even' for some starting out who want to get to the next project. Add a marginal profit to finance the next one and you're off and running. Note, I have not sold any, My CNC build has put guitar making on hold but when done I hope to stream line the build process by using the CNC Table. Remember: Time = Money. -Vinny

[WezV]

i think its worth remembering when you start that 'breaking even' means you get to do what you enjoy for a lot less money and is not a negative thing - getting quality up to scratch should come before a profit. SOme manage this in a few builds, others (myself included) take longer, and enjoyed the process

[Johnny Foreigner]

'breaking even'... is not a negative thing

absolutely agree. to me, the dream of being able to sell one to finance one for myself and break even, is a dream in which i don't have to justify to the wife why i'm spending YET MORE money on wood and parts and supplies.

[soapbarstrat]

Under 10 *properly built* guitars under your belt : gotta think "introductory offer" price-wise.

[Vinny]

10 is also a target for me, when Ive built that many I should have a good understanding of the process. Number eleven is what I plan to show around to some pro players to get their opinion on quality, feel, overall finish etc. -Vinny

[avengers63]

getting quality up to scratch should come before a profit. Some manage this in a few builds, others (myself included) take longer, and enjoyed the process

FWIW: I'm about to take on my second commission. The 1st was for my brother-in-law. This one is for a dude at my church. The 1st I did for cost. Because this one is for a church brother, I'll give him a good price, but he fully expects to pay me for the work, so it's all good.

Edited April 2, 2010 by avengers63

[Southpa]

I don't sell my guitars, however, I gave one away for a charity raffle at work. I was also curious about how much interest it would generate. Of course, what was raised for charity ($1800 @ $5 / ticket) doesn't represent the value of the guitar. Its whatever someone wants to pay. :0

[Dadovfor]

I have 3 completed builds and 2 more on the go. But they're all for my kids so I ain't getting paid a cent!!

[B. Aaron]

10 is also a target for me, when Ive built that many I should have a good understanding of the process. Number eleven is what I plan to show around to some pro players to get their opinion on quality, feel, overall finish etc. -Vinny

Whereas if you talk to some of the great Classical guitar builders out there (i.e., José Romanillos), they'd suggest that "somewhere around a hundred guitars you start to get a feel for the soundbox," which never made sense to me when I was just reading all the "how to assemble a classical guitar" style books, so I ordered a few expensive texts to see what the fuss was all about... I'm starting to realize how magically intricate they are now that I own both of Ervin Somogyi's "The Response Guitar" books, as well as "Left Brain Lutherie" by David C Hurd.

[Vinny]

Granted, an Acoustic is a whole different animal, one that I am no where near attempting. The Builders of Acoustics to me, are the Enzo Ferraris of the Guitar World. -Vinny

[Our Souls inc.]

The Comicaster - my first "sold" guitar , went for $5 more than the parts cost me. I probably won't sell any more , and that one was an assembly more than a build.

I agree with the general consensus though... they'll sell for what they're worth in the end.

[stereordinary]

This is always like the hardest part for me. Often I look at the people asking me to build them stuff as friends and give them friend prices, but then I don't make anything on it. But then on other occasions I can see the difference and I ask something that sounds fair. Some people are ecstatic because I can make that for so cheap, other people are like, no way that's too much. With those people I try to come down on my prices and get the job.

I'm currently building full-time. But you could just say that I'm unemployed and I'm trying to scrape together my rent money by making guitars. Because honestly, I am not a luthier. I do not consider myself anywhere near pro-level to be making guitars for a living. I'm just procrastinating on getting a new job, and so far it's working. It's only been two months.

I specialize in Fender-style solid bodies, mostly unfinished in custom configurations that you can't order from places like Warmoth or USACG or GuitarMill. That's my bread and butter. But occasionally I get someone who wants a whole guitar. So far I haven't delivered any of the full guitar builds, but then again, I've hardly been paid for them either. I go ahead and start on builds for people with them buying the materials as their down payment. It's really along the lines of feeling privileged that someone believes in me. Someone actually has enough faith in me, usually based off of pictures that they saw of my work on the internet, that they are willing to give me money for me to use and play in my work room. For that I am grateful, and I just try my damndest to make their guitar the best one I've made yet. I think I'm making about 16 guitars right now. A lot of those are just experiments that I'm building for myself for fun, or because I hope to someday offer them to customers.

I have no business calling myself a professional guitar maker or attempting to share the market with guys who have been doing this longer than me, or who have built way more guitars than me. But the fact of the matter is that before I ever really honed any real skills I said yes. Just coming from a customer service background, I couldn't help but accept people's offers to give me money to do what I love doing and would have been doing anyway. They became financial backers, so to speak. I shouldn't have said yes to them. I still shouldn't be saying yes to anyone, I'm simply not that good.

Earlier this year I was depressed and just generally hating my life. A big part of that was not getting enough time to devote to my craft. Another big part was that I was fed up and in trouble at the lousy job that I had for almost seven years. It paid good. But that's all it had going for it. I decided that I had to live the money isn't everything lifestyle and I quit. I was just going to go right in to another day job, just hopefully one that left me with a little more free time. But my friends and family all said great so now that you're not working there anymore, you are gonna make guitars full time right? I thought there was no way in hell I could, but they all looked at me like I was a fool if I didn't take the opportunity I had, go balls out and just do it. So I did. It's been two and a half months and I'm doing fine. I am going to have to take a few commissions to make sure I can pay rent next month. I don't want to take those commissions, I want to spend this whole month catching up on all of the work I've already started.

I'm still learning. God, am I still learning. I am really not very good at this. But I want to do it and so I just am. Living the dream, and just begging, hoping for the approval of my peers.

With that said, I generally ask about 1k for one of my full guitar builds. That's just for a body neck and pickguard with a finish on it. The customer provides all the hardware and electronics, which I will install for them for a little extra. So far nobody has actually paid me that much. I've got a lot of down payments for materials, and consequently I have a lot of bodies and necks in piles waiting for more money so I can continue on them.

Needless to say, I'm working on a backup plan.

Edited April 3, 2010 by stereordinary

[SwedishLuthier]

It all comes down to what I'm doing. I have done guitars with cheep ready made Strat necks and only done a customer designed body (more or less a partscaster) for under 1000$ and I have made customer designed (no templates, one off type instruments) for above 4000$. So there are no definite answer to that question.

[Crusader]

My brother bought one of the guitars I made but I think that was just to make me feel good. I asked for about 200 dollars

His kids are starting lessons and apparently when the guitar teacher saw it, he was all over it asking "Oh wow, who made this...?"

That thing has a SD Invader in it...I want it back!

[WezV]

Whereas if you talk to some of the great Classical guitar builders out there (i.e., José Romanillos), they'd suggest that "somewhere around a hundred guitars you start to get a feel for the soundbox," which never made sense to me when I was just reading all the "how to assemble a classical guitar" style books, so I ordered a few expensive texts to see what the fuss was all about... I'm starting to realize how magically intricate they are now that I own both of Ervin Somogyi's "The Response Guitar" books, as well as "Left Brain Lutherie" by David C Hurd.

which is all well and good, but you know they will still sell those first 100 guitars. but what they should have after the 100 is consistency and hopefully be starting to develop their own voice

with electrics... i do agree that 10 is a good general number to be starting to look at profit, but just like with acoustics you cant claim to be an 'expert' after 10

[Bmth Builder]

You probably can’t claim to be an expert after 100

I've always thought I wouldn’t sell the first 10, and I'm glad this is the general consensus in here as well.

After 10 I will not be actively selling guitars rather allowing myself to take commissions from friends and family as an intro to building for someone else, these will be done for little more than the cost of parts.

After that I will take commissions for complete strangers and I expect to make profit on them.

[Prostheta]

I agree wholeheartedly on that one Wez. Once design, methods, equipment and technique produce predictable, repeatable results then those can be transferred to a workpiece for "output" to a client. Before that point, it is still just getting your toes wet.

Yesterday I was routing two 6mm rounded slots for inlaying CF to a bass neck, and decided to use a parallel guide to do this. What I didn't count on was the grain of the Walnut being so buttery in places and "draggy" in others, which caused slight nips out of line in the rout. In hindsight, I should have used a router table and a pair of pin guides instead. Now, this really didn't affect the quality of the build in any way shape or form but I am still kicking myself over a minor defect which in another situation could have happened in a visible or crucially important part of the instrument. Perhaps another 10 instruments and I might reconsider my position in terms of calling myself a hobbyist or an amateur.

To answer the OP: The first commissions will cover materials and tooling replacement/purchase, sandpaper, glue, etc. Most likely you will donate all your time, so the instrument will be at-cost. Several commissions down the line and you might start charging your time per hour. It'll vary from person to person anyway. Sorry this isn't much help. I wouldn't build for anyone else right now. That said, I designed a set of methods and jigs which were designed to produce a repeatable instrument a while back, and outsourcing paint, fingerboard inlaying, etc. I was going to produce 8-string instruments to buy into the (what was then) opening market. Those could have been profitable on the basis of the relatively short amount of time it would have taken to produce 20 instruments in a production line as opposed to 20 single instruments one after another. I predicted £850-950 each for basic instruments would reinject sufficient money to improve and expand the project.

[B. Aaron]

Whereas if you talk to some of the great Classical guitar builders out there (i.e., José Romanillos), they'd suggest that "somewhere around a hundred guitars you start to get a feel for the soundbox," which never made sense to me when I was just reading all the "how to assemble a classical guitar" style books, so I ordered a few expensive texts to see what the fuss was all about... I'm starting to realize how magically intricate they are now that I own both of Ervin Somogyi's "The Response Guitar" books, as well as "Left Brain Lutherie" by David C Hurd.

which is all well and good, but you know they will still sell those first 100 guitars. but what they should have after the 100 is consistency and hopefully be starting to develop their own voice

with electrics... i do agree that 10 is a good general number to be starting to look at profit, but just like with acoustics you cant claim to be an 'expert' after 10

Of course they'll sell them! Probably not for pro acoustic prices, but it's hard to find storage for 100 guitars.

I think that more importantly, once you've built that many guitars you will have a pretty good idea how to make a guitar sound a certain way. There won't be so much "I wonder what would happen if I did this?" guesswork going on at that point, so much as well reasoned, intentional decisions made to voice the guitar to meet your customer's demands... a sense of "I know how to make the sound box do that" more than "I hope this one works out!"

[WezV]

i think we are saying the same thing there

[rhoads56]

OP: Sensitive? If people are selling their guitars, professionally, they'd probably have their prices listed up on the web I think the sensitive thing would be how much a GOTM style guitar costs to MAKE and how many hours go into it. I surprised myself recently on the total tally of hours to get 8 guitars built and ready for paint.

Mine start at $2390 (Aussie, so its currently around $2100 USD) which will get you a bare bones, no frills, solid body electric guitar. Think stratish, teleish, kinda vibe. Nothing special, no carved tops, no fancy woods, no inlays. Options bump the price up from there, and most people are spending $3600-4400 Aussie. Got a few coming up that are in the $5000+ range, and one in progress which will be around $6300-6500. But, in comparison, a Les Paul Std is $4000ish Aussie over here. But, I dont think anyone buys those... Gear is more expensive generally.

For relevance, I started out in 2003, and went into business "full time" in '04. Took a year or so to start breaking even, and then four more years to start making money. I re-invested everything I earnt to keep building up the business. Now I have a 200m2 (2000 square feet) factory, and two part time employees that help me out with pickup manufacturing, and repair work. Life's good. There is the ability to make a living from this, but it takes more than just an ability to build a guitar. Networking, paperwork, financing, cashflow, etc etc etc