Part 1 · Is this real? · Lesson 3 of 12

What it costs you, and what you charge

The materials are cheap, which is the trap. Here is the real cost list, the two numbers that set your price, and the honest test for whether a monthly fee is a fee or a con.

9 cards · 4 min

Start with your own money

Card and printing prices move, and they vary by seller, quantity and country. So this names the line items rather than a figure that would be wrong by the time you read it. Price a small test pack yourself, today, and write your own numbers next to these.

The cost list

A small test pack of blank NFC cards: One-off, per pack
A phone that can read and write tags: $0 if you already own one
A tag-writing app: $0 to write a link
Printing: adhesive labels, or printed cards from a shop: One-off, per batch
Sample cards you hand over and never get back: The cost of two or three cards
Getting to the businesses: $0 on foot, otherwise bus fare or fuel
Taking a card payment, if they will not pay cash: A percentage of each payment
Replacements for the ones that go wrong: Budget for some, from day one

Line items, not quotes. Get your own figures from two sellers before you budget, and check the date this course was last checked.

Buy small first

Do not price off the plastic

Adding a bit to what the card cost you builds a job that pays for card stock. What actually leaves your hands is:

A review link checked against the correct profile.
A tag written and tested on more than one phone.
A QR that scans at the printed size in bad light.
The object placed where the ask happens.
Five minutes teaching the staff the sentence.

The two numbers

Your floor: what the batch cost you, plus the time to build and deliver it. Not your ideal hourly rate, just an honest hour. Below the floor you are volunteering.

Their ceiling: what one new customer is worth to that business. Ask them. A shop where one customer is worth a haircut prices differently from one where a customer is worth a transmission rebuild, and the card is the same card.

A rule with no invented figure

One card should sell for more than a whole pack of blanks costs you. If it does not, change the number or change the customer.

Price where an owner can say yes on the spot, without a meeting and without asking a partner. A walk-in sale that turns into a decision process is usually a walk-in sale that dies.

One-off, or a monthly?

A one-off is the honest default. You made a thing, delivered it, they paid, it is theirs. Nothing to cancel.

A monthly is only a fee if something arrives every month. Apply that test with no mercy. A recurring charge for plastic that already sits on a counter is exactly what gets somebody called a scammer in a town where everybody knows everybody.

What would have to arrive

Replacement and extra cards as staff change and cards get lost, which they do.
A check that the review link still resolves. Profiles get merged, renamed and moved, and a dead card is worse than no card.
A short written note of how the profile's review count has moved, counted by hand, with no promises attached.
A ten-minute retrain for new staff, because the staff sentence is the part that decays.
A second and third placement as you learn where the asks actually happen.

Getting paid

A monthly makes the first sale harder, adds a cancellation conversation, and can cost you the one-off already in your hand. Sell the one-off first; offer the monthly at the follow-up visit.

For the first few, take payment on delivery, not on order. Have your payment method open before you walk in, and plan for cash, including change.

Do this next

Open two sellers of blank NFC cards, put the same small quantity in each basket, and write down the per-card cost with shipping and tax included. Next to it, write the one-off price you would charge. If the second number is not several times the first, change it now.

Next lesson: Go or no See the whole path