Alright so I'm curious, how much is a fair amount to charge your friends for your DIY juice? I mean to be fair as long as it's less than premium juice I suppose it's fair. As long as your juice is at least decent it's not wrong to charge your friends something more than cost right? Either percentage more than it costs to make or dollar amount, let me know! (Also don't forget to post the bottle size)
Friends get 30mL for $5-$6 and my gf gets the blowjob discount.
I sell to friends for $10/30mL. $15 for 2 30mL or one 60mL. I also have a bartering system set up with a local B&M, which is great for me.
I was giving it away to friends for about 6 months until I started going way in the red and couldn't really keep up with demand anymore due to them telling their friends, and those friends telling other friends. They give the bottles back to reuse, so there's not an issue with cost there. I still give away the occasional free 30mL of a recipe I'm trying to work out and ask for honest criticism for payment.
They're happy with the price because they can have it customized vs. being stuck with a shit juice they paid $25/30mL for.
In short, I feel like a dealer.
I agree with you about feeling like a dealer. I get a text about juice, put their order together, then they come to pick it up. Sometimes I'll be gone when they can pick it up and I'll leave it in a drop off spot lol
The thrill of being a crack dealer without the legality issues.
I don't sell juice, I give it to them.
I can't imagine charging a friend for anything, least of all "my time"
This is the deal with my in-laws. My MIL switched like two years ago, but she uses so little e-liquid compared to my own usage. My FIL is currently trying to swtich, so I made him probably 200ml different kind of juices so that he'd find his favorite. I'm yet to charge them anything at all, and I probably never will. I'm just glad they can save some money by not buying cigarettes. I just wish I could get my FIL aboard too...
Not even the supplies?
Nope, not even supplies.
Now, I can see if money is a concern (and your friend blows through a massive amount of juice) to ask them to either buy the supplies for you to use for their juice. Or ask them to reimburse you to cover the actual cost. but to charge for your time or wanting to make a profit? Off a friend?
This is where people take advantage. You won't know this friend is gonna suck juice outta you until it's too late. Then you become the dick when you mention it or ask for some form of compensation. I charge prices I'd be happy paying myself. If I had a friend who sold me 30ml of quality juice for $5 when I started vaping then I would ve been eternally grateful. But I didn't. I was paying $20ish for 30 ml and had no clue. Someone charging me $5 would definitely be considered a friend in my book. And there won't be any feelings of anyone getting over. I'm not getting rich off of it and friends aren't getting bent over a barrel for juice.
Edit: a word.
Same here. I give my buddy about 60ml or so every month to try out my blends. I get more satisfaction hearing feedback and it just doesn't feel right to charge a good friend considering it's so cheap to make. But I guess it depends on how close I am with the person.
I sell for 2x cost of supplies. This way, I know they're getting a great deal, in helping out their family budget, and I'm not giving away my time for less than its worth. That's $25 usually for a 250ml.
Only thing about that is, I did the math and one of my juices costs about $1.50 for a 30ml to make and I don't wanna be selling juice for $3 xD
lol, I don't blame you. I know I'd feel guilty selling for too much, but it's definitely a legitimate thing to think about all past and future costs you waste experimenting with recipes. Of course, there's the time. Last thing though, and it can be the most important, is selling too cheap that they bug the fuck out of you. I wouldn't blame people who start out at $5 to increase the price if they get bothered too much. It sucks because if you make delicious shit, and they know your costs (and most likely, they don't factor in wasted costs), they'll end up thinking you are a dick even though you sell at a great price compared to retail premium ejuice prices. I'm sure people have lost friends selling ejuice. I don't think it's common but I'm sure it happens.
R&D is the greatest cost of any manufactured product. Your phone doesn't really contain ~$500 of electronics and if we could get them for true unit cost we'd be wiping our asses with smartphones. That high pricetag pays Samsung or whoever back for the enormous outlay of R&D they invested up front. Consider all your material costs, shipping, batches that sucked and went into the bin, hours spent that you could have been making at least $7.25/hr. and $10/30ml looks pretty fair.
Yeah it costs me like ~70 cents to make a 30ml bottle, you need to start buying 4oz+ bottles of concentrate I think.
I typically sell to my friends for 5-6 per 30ml (6 because one of my friends drips 18mg). That's enough to cover my time/money wasted on shit mixes.
18? Tell me they're coming off smoking a carton a day and are hitting that subohm.
I have a friend that drips 24mg.
He's fucking crazy.
Whooo, dripping 18mg! That'll put some hair on your chest! I had a co-worker who wanted 48mg (he smoked 2 packs a day of unfiltered for like 50 years). Started him off at 24, said it was too light; went to 36, still too light. He used like an old clearomizer though. That was an expensive liquid to make!
Charge friends? I don't charge them. They pay for the product that was used, but I don't charge then for my time.
You sir are a saint, but I know for myself I'd want to make SOMETHING on it lol
I just find charging friends wrong. I guess it depends on how close you are to them. I don't make juice for "friends" but only to my closest, and I would never charge them for my time.
Like my girlfriend would obviously get the "you put my dick in your mouth discount" also known as free juice, and my bestfriend would by far get a much much better price than anyone. I mean to be fair, I ordered premixed base and some of it was ordered specifically for him because it's higher nic
Within my friend group at least, its pretty accepted to sell things for profit, for example I get my mj from a friend and naturally he can't sell it at cost, so when I started selling my DIY juice they were more than happy to pay 10 for a 30 ml, especially considering that the alternative is 25-$30 bottles of premium juice from the B&M.
I have actually never bought pre made juice. Not even from the day one. It seems so expensive. Even 10 for 30ml is way expensive. 30ml is usually what I use in 2-3 days. But yeah, if you choose to buy pre made juice, I guess 10 for 30ml is pretty acceptable.
Yup and my friends would prefer not to put in the effort to learn DIY right now so they are glad to have me do it for them. I've given them comprehensive lessons on how to do it themselves if they so desire, down to where to buy everything they need, but they still come to me. At that point I think it's fair game to sell it to them at a reasonable profit.
Five bucks a 30ml
Depends on what Level of friendship they are. I have 1 person that I give juice to at no cost, but only because they have helped me in the past (He is an electrician). Close friends I will sell 30ml for 5 bucks (You gotta be a close friend though and their arent that many). Other people pay 10 for 30ml or 15 for 60ml.
I gotta factor in my time. I once went down the path of fixing computers and laptops and not getting paid squat for my time. It kind of escalated from the 1 friend who you fixed a laptop for and they tell other friends of theirs how cheap it is. You quickly learn that spending your only day off on a weekend fixing computers for 20-30 bucks is bullshit. I look at ejuice making/selling in the same light. It's my time and you are still getting a deal, but I am not going to work for free.
I'd say anywhere from $3-$5 per 15 ml is fine, I sell $5 for 15ml but hook them up with free juice when I'm trying out new recipes for feedback, or if they've bought a lot from me. I also knock $1 off the bottle if they return their old glass bottles.
Edit: $5 or $10 is just so easy, you don't have to worry about $1 bills, just here's a $5, here's some juice. Not to mention they can get pretty much whatever they want and don't have to worry about shipping or anything.
I charge locals friends $10 a 30ml, and 120ml for $30. So basically slightly over my wholesale price to shops. Even before selling commercially I did $10/30ml, $30/120ml, $100/1L. I had a lot of friends springing for the 1L bottles with zero problems at all. They loved getting great juice for that prices, $100 for 1L vs $100 for 150ml at a shop, can't beat it.
Good profit for you as a juice maker considering such a low cost to make, but still giving a great price for friends compared to retail pricing.
My friends get loads of juice from me for free (when I'm testing new recipes or when they're short) but I also sell it to them. £5 for 30ml or £15 for 100ml. Noone ever complained and they're happy with pricase and ability to customise eliquid the way they want.
I ask for 11,50 €/30 mL. Which might look like a lot, but they all think it's fair. It's cheaper than any juice they can find in a shop around here (they don't buy online). If someone complains I always tell them the same thing: I'm the one putting in all those hours trying to learn this thing, developing recipes etc, and mixing your juice. If you don't like it you can go buy it at a higher price in a bnm or learn to do it yourself.
I'm always giving them a bunch of 10 mL freebies every time they buy something or just when I feel like it though.
It's just math.
Figure your costs. Figure your your time. Decide what you want to make per hour, and how long it takes you to produce, and "pay" yourself accordingly. Figure out how much you want to put back into "your business" - marketing, equipment upgrades, other employees, insurance, lawyers, etc. From there, it's just simple division.
If you want to lose money or lower your salary because it's a friend ... well, reconsider that. Friends should pay full price, they should be the one group that respects what you're doing. Everyone else will try to cut your prices down.
If you're doing a hobby and you want to give it away, then do. Otherwise, just do the math. Anything in between is either cheating you or them.
7 bucks a 30 and I knock off 50 cents when you return a bottle. I thought 5 was a bit cheap and 10 was too much as I'm still improving recipes. I also give out 10ml bottles of 10% koolada, menthol, and cinnamon in pg if they ask. The 10mls are appreciated a lot because those are things people all have varying tolerances of and preferences of.
Can I ask why you give this out? Just curious
If I make a juice for someone that has any of those three things in it, I'll use a very low level of it and then include that on the side. I have a buddy that likes so much menthol in his juice it's all I can taste but he loves it. I don't do it for everyone and I only sell juice to about 3 people.
5 for friends 10 for acquaintances just for simplicity of bills I would just charge cost because I actually enjoy the whole process and don't see it as work but selling for like $.37 a ml (or whatever I havent broken cost into per ml yet) would just be too tedious and I hate $1 bills
Friends get $5 for 30ml or $15 for 100ml.
Friend's coworkers and friends of friends get $10 for 30ml and $30 for 100ml.
I don't sell direct to friends of friends or their coworkers. Friends text me an order, come pick it up and they get 10% cut or 1 free 30ml. Hell, my brother runs 500ml of juice a week for me at his work place. He gets free juice for life plus 10% of all orders. He's also the only one allowed to request custom flavors.
I also rewrap batteries $5 per pair or 1 pair free with the purchase of 100ml.
Basically I refuse to deal in singles. So all prices are in multiples of 10.
I sell mine to friends for $6 per 30 mil. $4 for a 15. They help me recycle bottles. All in all I have approximately $3 in a 30 mil bottle if I have to provide a bottle. I take that money and buy more flavorings to expand my repertiore. Vaping for free is awesome. And they save hella cash.