Determine Material Cost from Average Cost per Letter

If your supplier provides an average cost per letter instead of a material cost per centimetre or inch, you can use the Advanced Letter Model to determine an appropriate Letter Material Cost.

This guide will show you how to calculate the average material length used by a font and use this information to determine the material cost per centimetre.

Before You Start

You will need:

• The average cost per letter provided by your supplier.

• The font you want to calculate the material cost for.

• An Advanced Letter Model customiser.

Accessing the Pricing Settings

1. Go to the Sign Customiser Admin:

   • Universal subscribers: Go to Home in your account.

   • Shopify users: Navigate to Shopify admin → Apps and select Sign Customiser.

2. Click on Customisers in the menu.

3. Select your customiser.

4. From the left-hand menu, go to Core Setup → Pricing.

Step 1: Create a Test Pricing

1. In the Pricing section, click Add new pricing.

2. In Advanced Letter Price Settings, enter:

   • Label – e.g. Material Cost Test.

3. In Letter Pricing, select:

   • Letter Material Cost.

4. Add only one Size Boundary.

5. Set the Letter Material Cost to $1 per cm in that size boundary.

6. Save the pricing.

Step 2: Assign the Test Pricing to Your Font

1. Go to Core Setup → Fonts.

2. If the font you want to test is already in your customiser, open it.

3. If you have not added the font yet, add it first.

4. In the font settings, assign the Material Cost Test pricing you created in Step 1.

5. Click Save.

Step 3: Enter the Full Alphabet

1. Open your customiser in Preview mode.

2. Enter all the characters in the alphabet you want to test. For example, for the English lowercase alphabet, enter:

   abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

3. Count the number of characters entered. In the English alphabet, there are 26 characters.

   If you are using another language, enter all the characters in that alphabet and record the total number of characters.

Step 4: Calculate the Average Material Length

1. Record the price displayed by the customiser.

2. Divide the displayed price by the number of characters you entered. Because the test pricing uses $1 per cm, the displayed price represents the total material length required for all the characters. For example:

   If the customiser displays $646.51 for 26 characters:

   $646.51 ÷ 26 = $24.87

   The font therefore uses an average of approximately 24.87 cm of material per letter.

Step 5: Calculate the Material Cost per Centimetre

Now use the average material length calculated in Step 4 together with the average cost per letter provided by your supplier.

Use the following formula:

Average Cost Per Letter ÷ Average Material Length Per Letter = Material Cost Per cm

For example:

If your supplier provides an average cost per letter of $10 and the average material length is 24.87 cm:

$10 ÷ 24.87 cm = $0.40 per cm

Your estimated Letter Material Cost would therefore be approximately $0.40 per cm.

Step 6: Update Your Pricing

1. Return to Core Setup → Pricing.

2. Open the pricing formula you created for the font.

3. Replace the $1 per cm test value with the material cost calculated in Step 5.

4. Save the pricing.

You can now use this Letter Material Cost in your Advanced Letter Model pricing.