Is picture framing a profitable business?

The simple answer is ‘yes, picture framing can be a profitable business’ and ‘you can make money framing pictures’. However, like any business picture framing takes hard work, application and a bit of good fortune in order to be successful.

How do I start a picture framing business?

If you’re thinking of setting up a picture framing business, there are a whole load of things you’re going to need to consider. For example: Do you actually know how to picture frame? If not how are you going to learn? What other skills and abilities do you need? Where are you going to work from? What equipment do you need and how will you pay for it? Who will you customers be? What will you charge? Why should people come to you? How are you going to market and promote your picture framing business? Where will you get your materials from? How will you support yourself whilst you get established? What services and support will you need? How much do you want or need to earn? And those are just for starters!

Is picture framing difficult?

Picture framing is easy, right? After all it’s only cutting and joining four bits of wood together, cutting a bit of glass, maybe using one of those mount things and then taping it all into the frame, isn’t it? If you take picture framing at its most basic level, and you don’t particularly want to do it well, it isn’t much more than that. Some people learn the basics, either by doing a few evening classes or even teaching themselves and then set up a business. Often those businesses fail within a few months. Why? Framers with such a limited skill set aren’t offering their customers much more than is offered by a ready-made frame, available from somewhere like B&M for £5.50 (size A4). Yes, you could argue that they are offering bespoke sizes and a wider range of frame colours and profiles. But how much more is a customer willing to pay for that? Twice as much? Five times as much?

Is picture framing profitable?

For arguments sake, let’s say a customer is willing to pay four times as much to have a frame in a bespoke size, profile and colour. That means the framer is selling that frame for £22. Using the cheapest options the cost of materials for that frame are around £6. Which means that the framer is making £16 profit, right? Wrong! You haven’t included the cost of all the equipment that was needed in order to make the frame. Equipment such as a mitre guillotine and an underpinner, which together can add up to nearly £5,000. There is also the cost of buying or renting a workshop. Even if you work from home, you need to consider heating, electricity, water and even those silly little things that add up like Stanley knife blades, loo roll and tea bags. What you also have to consider is how long it takes to make that frame. If everything goes well, once you’ve got a little experience, that frame will take around 30 minutes to make. That’s if you don’t make any mistakes, which every now and then you will. I still do, even after a decade! You’ll also have problems with damaged materials which you only spot when you’re finishing off a frame.

So, bearing all of that in mind, let’s say your profit is £11 for that half hour. That still okay isn’t it? £11 for half an hour is £22 per hour. 8 hours in a day equals £176 profit per day, which is £880 per week and around £40,000 per year. That will do nicely, thank you. Except……… Except you won’t be framing for 8 hours a day, because you are not a machine. You’ll need a lunch break and a cup of tea. You’ll need to go to the toilet and the phone will ring. You’ll need to spend time with customers when they come in. You’ll need to do marketing, quite a lot of marketing. They’ll be admin and paying bills and going to the dentist and days when you’re ill, or your kids are ill, and all that real life stuff. In fact, industry experts estimate that the average self-employed picture framer, working on their own, averages just 16 framing hours per week. That being the case your profit would be £352 per week, before tax. Maybe less.

Of course this is assuming that you have a constant stream of business, which if you’re starting out, you won’t. It’s also assuming that people will pay you four times more than they will for that B&M frame (other cheap, massed produced frames are available). Not looking quite so attractive now is it? The point is, that in order to make a picture framing business profitable enough for you to earn a decent living, you need to be able to either produce a lot more frames in day, aiming for a small profit per sale but lots of sales) or to be able to justify charging more (aiming for less sales but more profit per sale).

The mass production of picture frames is not my area of expertise. However, I will say this. If you are producing basic frames, and competing with the ready-made frame market, you will need customers that want lots of the same frame in the same size. You’ll them be able to buy materials in large quantities, reducing costs, and save time in production by not having to re-set machinery for every frame. However, if you take this scenario to an extreme, you’ll be trying to compete with the people that supply B&M. Think about it, if B&M are charging £5.50 for an A4 frame what are they paying for one?

How can I make my picture framing business more profitable?

Let’s look at the other scenario: charging more. To justify charging more, you need to be able to offer more. But, more what? Well, what is it that a £5.50 ready-made frame and the retailers that sell them don’t offer? How about: bespoke sizing; the option to frame almost anything from an oil painting to an item of clothing or cricket bat; any long term protection against UV light and airborne pollutants; friendly, personal service; frame design, including a range of mount and frame colours, proportions and styles that can be carefully chosen to enhance the item being framed and sit well in the room where the frame will hang; how about the expert knowledge to advise on those options; and what if I were to tell you that the ready-made frame in question will damage the item being framed, sometimes instantly? So, the ‘more’ you can offer is knowledge, ability and service: The knowledge and ability to be able to frame a range of artwork (water colours, oils, pastels, textiles, etc.) on various substrates (paper, canvas, cloth, and so on) and numerous types of objects using design skills that truly enhance the framed item and, if appropriate, conserves it for decades. Combine that with excellent customer service and, as a bespoke framer, you will be on the right path to a profitable business.

Of course, there’s more to running a profitable picture framing business than that. With any business it is important to have an understanding of market demand and the competition within that market place. Think of it like this: The cheaper your product is the more demand you are likely to have. The more specialist your product is, the more you will be able to charge, but the less demand you will have. So, the balance has to be somewhere between the two. Where on that scale your product is should depend on demand (for example, you are more likely to get higher end demand in an affluent area) and what your completion are offering. If the other framers in your area are focused on the lower end of the market, it’s a better idea to try aiming higher, i.e. for another sector of the market, even if the area you are in is not affluent. In other words, find the gap in the market.

It takes time to build up specialist skill and knowledge. Therefore your customer base and what you charge may change as your skill set develops. Over time you’ll also find out what demand there is for different products and services simply by offering and marketing them. You’d be surprised how many lower end framers will tell you there is no market for higher end products when they have never actually tried offering them!