Dollars to minutes ratio

Does anyone have a general rule they use for how many minutes you need to spend on a face that costs some specific amount?

Here is a link to my excel spreadsheet for calculating your cost per face.

http://www.shannonfennell.com/files/CostPerFace.xls

As I do not do PPF that is as far as I calculate.

And here is a blog post that goes with the spreadsheet - it explains how I do things.

https://shannonfennell.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/business-tips-for-face-painters-body-artists-and-make-up-artists-7-setting-your-rates/

Thank you, Shannon ... it is so easy to forget about all your actual costs, like gas, etc. I notice you don't show any vendor fees. Does that mean you don't do events where you have to pay to participate? Also, your cost for business cards is very high. Are you familiar with vistaprint.com? I just ordered 500 cards from them for $10. I think they normally start at $17, but sometimes (not sure how often) go on sale for $8. You can use your own design or one of theirs ... very good website. Thanks again!

I only work on a paid hourly basis so no vendor fees.  

And I choose to support local business so get my business cards done at a local printer.  If I want local business to hire me, I figure it is fair that I support them.  And the manager of the print shop hired me for her daughter's birthday so I got my money back!

BTW... the numbers in the spreadsheet are hypothetical, just for illustration purposes!

I do an annual Irish 2 day event in March which requires a hefty vendor fee. If it rains or, in my case, if it's unusually hot & there's  poor attendance, I risk not even breaking even.  
  At a PPF event, unless there's no line, I try to keep most faces to <3 minutes, 2 if possible. At first I was hesitant to list 50% of my faces @ $10, but it's simple math...AND, logic. Watch what the parents spend $ on. Once I made the change, I realized I'd been undervaluing my work. I was amazed that parents would think nothing of handing me a $20 bill for 2 kids & then putting more in my tip jar, adding praise & thanks!
   To answer your question w/an example. At a 3 HR church or school event with expected good attendance...I'd pay $25 for a table or give 15% for no table fee (I've done both). Let's say I can only do 12 faces/HR. That means I need to charge more than $5/face or in, say, 3HRS, I'd make $180 tops minus the fee or %! And that's if you have no quiet time!
IMHO, you need to:
-Think in terms of # Minutes/Face...&...# Faces/HR.
-PRACTICE TO INCREASE/KEEP UP YOUR SPEED. *Time yourself. Best advice from FPF!
-Paint @ least 15/HR. For huge crowds, I can reach 22: A mix of arm/one eye/
half face/full face. Just not "pull out all the stops, blinged out faces".
- Raise your price to $5/$10*...even $15 in some venues.
 *I use a board at PPF events. 12 boys/12 girls
 half $5 & half $10 for each board.
-Use gems/Glitter gel as an "upsell" My $10 & $15 pics
 have already included those. If they chose a $5 example & want
 the upsell, add $ to the price.
Lisa Joy Young is one of many who rarely use a board. She advises having 3 versions of anything you do. This works well when you've been paid your hourly fee for a corporate event. If there are 3 or 4 kids in line, do your detailed version. 5-10 kids, medium version. More than 10? fast & furious!!!
  Yesterday, I had a 5th Birthday party for a well-loved cat who "writes" an article in a community newsletter. Got my hourly fee, didn't do a board, only 5-8 kids in line at a time...32 kids over 2.5 HRS, plus some adults.
  Sometimes I show up at a town event 20-30 minutes early & there's 22 people in line already!!! A face painter I don't know joins me & we're off. IF I have a chance to talk w/the never met before FP'er, we'll decide to use a book or not. My friends & I paint together often. We decide ahead of time how to handle the book or no book issue. Once you've got your faces memorized & technique down, you can paint fast, make a profit & still enjoy being creative.
FYI: Two years ago at that Irish event, most of my prices were $5, w/a few $10. The event was mobbed (great weather helped) but I made a smaller profit for 2 days! Last year it was so hot, attendance hit a record low. I made a really LOVELY profit, due to 50% of my pics were $10 & my $5 were QUICK.. Guess what were more popular?
Denise Cold gave me the advice of $5/$10 to make change easier.
Hope this helped. Good luck

Pricing all depends on your area. Where I live, people rarely pay $10 for face paint. I have my ppf price set at $5 for any design I offer. I never offer anything that takes more than 5 minutes so it equals out to about $1 per minute, sometimes more depending on which design goes viral.

You should shoot for $200-300 per hour on busy days where you have a line for 8hrs and 3-4hrs of slower or down time. 1.5-3min for designs and a minimum $8-10 price point. = Success

So I guess if my daughter and I spent 5 hours in the rain and the booth fee was $50, and we made $67 and spent $23 on lunch for us and the children at a Mexican takeout booth next to our stand, and we ended up in the pouring rain and wind with no one to help us take our tent down and carry everything out to the car, you might not consider that to be an unqualified success—financially speaking, I mean ...

BUT, yu had fun jamming and eating with your daughter & you won't make a deal like that again ;o)

lol, monelle you probably don't want to make a habit of it..

LOL, Once again, I need to remember not to drink my coffee/tea/wine while reading FPF!!!

Thank you all for the kind words ... it really was not a terrible day, the kids had fun, and I learned quite a few lessons, actually!

I never spend more then 5min per face.

Honestly I just kind of eyeball it for prices. I know which ones take longer, and i frequently time myself on designs. Each kid is different and this makes a variation of about 20-30sec depending on who you are painting. Some times difficult models even take a min more of time.

But i do different pricing depending on what kind of PPF event I'm at. High turn out popular events I'll have a min $5, this working by not clogging up my line with toonie and loonie people (Canadian money slang for our $1 and $2 coins). Slower events i have a $2 min for my simplest stuff. My more complex designs can get up to $20 - $25 per face depending again on the event, but lots of options in between, all in increments of $5. Lastly I up sell glitter for $1 extra, and jewels and jewel clusters for $1 - $4 as well.

[Forest Fairy] - Thanks for sharing your way of doing things!