Shop Owner Guide

Job Costing & Pricing Matrix Walkthrough

Configure Kontraktr™'s job costing engine in about 15 minutes. Set your real ink, labor, and overhead rates — then let the system calculate accurate estimates on every order automatically.

15 min setupAdmin access required

Why bother setting this up?

Most screen printing shops under-price jobs because they guess at costs. Kontraktr™'s costing engine runs the math on every order — blanks, screens, ink, labor, overhead — so you know your real margin before you hit send on a quote.

40%

Target gross margin

Industry benchmark for healthy screen print shops

2×

Faster estimating

One click instead of spreadsheet gymnastics

Zero

Surprise losses

Actual vs estimate comparison on every job

Before You Start

Two things to have ready.

Your real cost numbers

Know roughly what you pay for blank garments, how much ink you use per job, your shop's hourly labor rate, and your overhead percentage.

Admin login

Cost configuration is restricted to Admin-role users. If you can see the full Settings menu, you're good to go.

Don't have exact numbers yet? The defaults are calibrated for a typical small screen print shop. Set them up now and fine-tune over the next few weeks as you track real job costs.

Step 1

Configure Your Cost Categories

Settings → Costing — adjust the 10 built-in rate cards to match your shop.

Kontraktr™ ships with ten system cost categories. They cover every major cost in a screen print or embroidery shop. You cannot delete them, but you should adjust every rate to match what you actually pay.

Settings → Costing — system categories

Blanks / Garmentsper unit$3.50 / ea

Multiplied by quantity. Set this to your average blank cost across your most common garments.

Screensper screen$25.00 / screen

One screen per ink color per print location. $20–$35 covers most shops (materials + reclaim time).

Inksper color$8.00 / color

Flat rate per ink color, per job. Accounts for plastisol, additives, and cleanup.

Laborper hour$22.00 / hr

Auto-calculated: 5 min setup per screen + 15 sec per shirt. Enter your fully-loaded labor rate (wages + benefits).

Art / Designflat$0 (set yours)

A flat fee added when rate > 0. If you charge for art separation or digitizing, put that rate here.

Shippingflat$0 (set yours)

Flat shipping cost estimate. Overrideable per job once you have a real carrier quote.

Overhead% of direct costs15%

Applied after all line-item costs. Covers rent, utilities, equipment depreciation. 10–20% is typical.

Drag rows to reorder. Embroidery shops will also see Digitizing, Embroidery Thread, and Embroidery Labor categories.

How to save changes

1. Open Settings → Costing
2. Click the rate field for any category and type your number
3. Click Save Rate Cards at the bottom — all changes save at once

Add custom categoriesfor anything not covered — like "Color change fee," "Sleeve add-on," or "Rush charge." These appear as selectable options when you manually log actual costs on a job.

Step 2

Set Your Target Margin & Global Rules

Settings → Pricing — three numbers that affect every job estimate.

These global settings tell Kontraktr™ what a "good" job looks like so the margin report can flag winners and losers.

Target Margin

40%

The margin percentage the Costs tab uses as your benchmark. Jobs below this show in red.

Rush Multiplier

1.5×

Applied to the labor line item when a job is flagged as rush. 1.5× = 50% labor surcharge.

Minimum Order

Minimum invoice amount. Estimates below this floor show a warning in the Costs tab.

40% gross margin is the industry benchmark. That means if a job invoices for $1,000, your total cost should be under $600. Start there and adjust based on what your numbers actually show over the first month.

Step 3

Configure Your Pricing Matrix

Settings → Pricing → Pricing Matrices — quantity breaks × color counts.

The pricing matrix is your sell-side price table— the price you charge customers based on how many pieces they order and how many ink colors are in the design. It's separate from your cost rates.

What is "price per impression"?

One impression = one print location on one garment. A front + back print on 100 shirts is 200 impressions. Pricing this way makes multi-location jobs easy to quote accurately.

100 shirts, 1-color front

100 impressions × $1.85 = $185

100 shirts, 4-color front + back

200 impressions × $2.40 = $480

Sample matrix — price per impression

Qty	1 clr	2 clr	3 clr	4 clr	5 clr	6 clr
12+	$3.50	$4.00	$4.50	$5.00	$5.50	$6.00
37+	$2.75	$3.25	$3.75	$4.25	$4.75	$5.25
73+	$2.20	$2.70	$3.20	$3.70	$4.20	$4.70
145+	$1.85	$2.20	$2.55	$2.90	$3.25	$3.60
289+	$1.50	$1.80	$2.10	$2.40	$2.70	$3.00
501+	$1.20	$1.45	$1.70	$1.95	$2.20	$2.45

4-color column highlighted — the most common order type at most shops.

Editing your matrix

1.Go to Settings → Pricing → Pricing Matrices
2.Click into any price cell and type your new rate
3.Add or remove quantity tiers using the + Add Tier button
4.Click Save Matrix — the new rates apply to all future lookups immediately

You can create multiple matrices and assign them per customer. If you have a wholesale distributor who gets different pricing than retail walk-ins, give each one its own matrix in Customers → [Name] → Pricing Matrix.

Step 4

Assign Customer Pricing Tiers

Customers → [Name] → Pricing Tier — automatic discounts for loyal clients.

Pricing tiers apply automatic discounts to cost estimates for customers who order in volume. The discount shows as a negative line item in the Costs tab — so you still see the full cost breakdown and then the discount applied on top.

Retail

0% off

Default

Wholesale

10% off

$10K+ / yr

Preferred

15% off

$25K+ / yr

VIP

20% off

$50K+ / yr

Assigning a tier

1.Open Customers → [Customer Name]
2.Find the Pricing Tier field and choose the appropriate tier
3.Save — the discount applies to all future estimates for that customer automatically

Run the automatic tier scanner: Go to Settings → Pricing → Customer Tiers → Run Tier Scan. Kontraktr™ checks the last 12 months of paid invoices and suggests tier upgrades for qualifying customers. It never automatically downgrades anyone.

Step 5

Generate a Job Cost Estimate

Jobs → [Job] → Costs tab → Recalculate Estimates.

Once a job has at least one print location with ink colors entered, Kontraktr™ can calculate a full cost estimate in one click.

The estimator needs three things on the job:

Quantity— Total pieces in the order

Print locations— Front, back, sleeve, etc. — each one added in the Locations tab

Ink colors per location— Number of colors on each print location

What the estimator calculates automatically:

Blanks cost

quantity × your blank rate

Screen cost

total colors × screen rate

Ink cost

total colors × ink rate

Labor

(5 min/screen + 15 sec/shirt) ÷ 60 × hourly rate

Art/Design

flat rate if set > $0

Overhead

% of all above line items combined

Tier discount

negative line item if customer is Wholesale / Preferred / VIP

The Costs tab is Admin-only. Employees see a "403 Forbidden" message if they try to access it — this is intentional. Margin data should stay visible only to shop owners and managers.

Step 6

Read the Cost Report

Jobs → [Job] → Costs tab — four cards, one table, one chart.

After running the estimator, the Costs tab shows a complete financial picture of the job. Here's how to read each section.

The four summary cards:

Estimated Cost

$621

Sum of all estimate lines

Actual Cost

$588

$33 under estimate

Est. Margin

$879

41.6% of revenue

Actual Margin

$912

43.8% of revenue

The comparison table:

Category	Estimated	Actual	Variance
Blanks / Garments	$350.00	$322.50	▼ $27.50
Screens	$100.00	$100.00	—
Inks	$32.00	$37.80	▲ $5.80
Labor	$84.00	$91.00	▲ $7.00
Overhead (15%)	$84.90	$82.70	▼ $2.20
Total Costs	$650.90	$634.00	▼ $16.90

Green ▼ variances mean you came in under estimate. Red ▲ variances mean you ran over — a signal to adjust your rate cards so future estimates are more accurate.

The bar chart below the table shows estimated vs actual side-by-side per category. A category where the actual bar is consistently taller than the estimated bar means that rate card is set too low — raise it.

Step 7

Log Actual Costs After the Job Runs

Costs tab → "Add Actual Cost" — close the loop on every job.

Estimates are useful for quoting. Actuals are useful for running a profitable business. Once the job is complete, log what you actually spent — the system does the margin math for you.

Add Actual Cost — dialog fields

Pro Tips

From shops that use this daily.

Use blanks override for supplier spot pricing

When you buy garments from a supplier and the price varies job-to-job, use the Supplier Stock Panel (on the job) to apply the live supplier unit cost directly to the blanks estimate. It overwrites only the blanks line without touching anything else.

Embroidery jobs need stitch counts

The embroidery estimator calculates labor based on stitch count. Estimate stitches as: design area in sq inches × 2,000 × coverage percentage. A 3-inch chest logo at 70% coverage = roughly 6,300 stitches — that lands in the 5K–10K rate column.

Review variances monthly, not per job

Don't chase every small variance — some jobs run hot, some run cold. Look at the trend across 10–20 jobs. If labor actuals are consistently 15%+ over estimates, raise your labor rate. If blanks actuals are consistently under, lower the rate (you're over-quoting).

Rush jobs auto-apply the 1.5× labor multiplier

When a job is flagged HOT_RUSH in the system, the labor estimate automatically multiplies by your rush multiplier (default 1.5×). Make sure your rush multiplier in Settings → Pricing reflects what you actually charge customers for rush work.

Setup Checklist

Get your costing engine running in 15 minutes

Adjusted all 7 system cost category rates to match your shop — Settings → Costing

Set your target margin (recommend 40%) and rush multiplier — Settings → Pricing

Reviewed your default pricing matrix and updated prices — Settings → Pricing Matrices

Assigned the right pricing tier to each major customer — Customers

Ran a test estimate on a recent job and reviewed the output — Jobs → [Job] → Costs

Logged at least one actual cost entry on a completed job

Checked the variance column and noted which categories ran over

Adjusted any rate cards based on what the variances showed — Settings → Costing

Invoicing & Online Payments

Calendar Capacity Planning

Production Queue

Loading…

Why bother setting this up?

40%

Target gross margin

Industry benchmark for healthy screen print shops

2×

Faster estimating

One click instead of spreadsheet gymnastics

Zero

Surprise losses

Actual vs estimate comparison on every job

Qty

1 clr

2 clr

3 clr

4 clr

5 clr

6 clr

12+

$3.50

$4.00

$4.50

$5.00

$5.50

$6.00

37+

$2.75

$3.25

$3.75

$4.25

$4.75

$5.25

73+

$2.20

$2.70

$3.20

$3.70

$4.20

$4.70

145+

$1.85

$2.20

$2.55

$2.90

$3.25

$3.60

289+

$1.50

$1.80

$2.10

$2.40

$2.70

$3.00

501+

$1.20

$1.45

$1.70

$1.95

$2.20

$2.45

Job Costing & Pricing Matrix Walkthrough

Why bother setting this up?

Before You Start

Configure Your Cost Categories

Set Your Target Margin & Global Rules

Configure Your Pricing Matrix

Assign Customer Pricing Tiers

Generate a Job Cost Estimate

Read the Cost Report

Log Actual Costs After the Job Runs

Pro Tips

Setup Checklist

Related Articles

Job Costing & Pricing Matrix Walkthrough

Why bother setting this up?

Before You Start

Configure Your Cost Categories

Set Your Target Margin & Global Rules

Configure Your Pricing Matrix

Assign Customer Pricing Tiers

Generate a Job Cost Estimate

Read the Cost Report

Log Actual Costs After the Job Runs

Pro Tips

Setup Checklist

Related Articles