Fair percentage??

[Virgo Nightingale]

I know we can't discuss specific pricing here, but since this doesn't involve specific dollar amounts I hope it's okay. If it's not, you can tie me up and make me walk the plank....

A very good friend of mine would like to start a small t-shirt business. He will supply the general ideas for the shirts, I'll design them and he will get them printed and sell them. I was thinking of asking for a percentage of his net profits (his profit after his costs like the shirts themselves, shipping, any other overhead etc.) instead of a flat rate-per-shirt kind of deal - that way he doesn't get screwed if he only sells a couple shirts, and I don't get screwed if he sells a thousand). I was curious what percentage you think I would be entitled to. I was thinking one third, but I don't think I would go for less than 25%.

Your thoughts?

[budafist]

I think that is more than fair. If he doesn't have you he has nothing...but plain t-shirts. It's really up to you though - do you know how much is 25% of each t-shirt's profits?

What if he's only making about $5 after all his costs per t-shirt? If you are going to do it this way, figure out how much you are likely to get first.

[Ovaltine]

Maybe this will help. I've been designing kits lately, and since they switched me to marketing, I also have to figure out some of the costing on things. Whatever a kit's components cost us, we have to make 40% when we sell to our distributers, and they generally expect to make 50% when they sell to the consumer.

Perhaps this will also help your friend decide how much to sell the tees for.

And 25% to 30% of the profits, from the shirts you work on, sounds good to me.

[Virgo Nightingale]

Thanks for the responses, I'm relieved to know that I wasn't far off. He's actually putting the project on hold right now - he has an art show coming up and wants to concentrate on that first.