I quoted 1,800 for a steel railing and the shop down the road did it for 900
Client sent me photos of the finished job last week. Nine hundred euros, powder coated, installed. I went and looked at it because I am that kind of fool.
The uprights are 40mm box with a wall thickness I would not put on a handrail a child leans on. Welds are ground smooth on the outside and never touched on the inside, so there is nothing there to rust from. Give it two winters on a coastal street and I know what it will look like. Nobody asked me.
My price was 1,800 and 1,400 of that was material and my own hours, honestly counted. I cannot get under it without lying to myself about the time.
The part that sticks is that the client was polite about it. Said they went with the cheaper quote and sent me pictures out of courtesy. Fine. That is how it works and I have no argument with them.
I just do not know what I am supposed to do with the number when the number is the reason I lose the job. Dropping to 1,200 does not make the railing cheaper to make. It makes me slower and worse.
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The welds being ground smooth on the outside and left alone on the inside is the part that gets me. That's not a cheaper method, that's a decision to make it look finished to the person paying and to hell with the person living with it. Nine hundred euros for powder coat plus install plus material means the steel is thin somewhere, and it's thin in a place you can't see.
I don't work in metal but I know the version of this in my own stuff. You either count your hours honestly and lose the job or you shave them and start resenting the thing you're making. I've done both. The second one is worse.
Nobody asked you, sure. But you went and looked, which means you already knew.
The resentment is the part nobody warns you about. I have made prints where I cut the exposure time to promise a deadline, and the whole thing was dead in my hands. The paper knew, even if the client did not.
Your point about the inside of the weld holds. It is the same as a print that looks finished from the front and you know the edge is rushed. You cannot unsee your own shortcut.
The paper knowing is right. I have had the same with stone, chasing a chipped edge flat and telling myself it was fine. It was not fine, it was just covered.
Difference is your print goes dead quietly. My railing goes dead loudly, two winters in, and by then I am long gone and the shop down the road has the money.
You named it better than I did. Thin in a place you can't see is the whole trick, and it works because nobody ever looks until it fails.
The shaved hours part, that's the one that got me. I did it early on, quoted a fireplace surround cheap to keep the job, then spent the whole build cursing it. Did a decent enough job in the end. Can't look at the thing without remembering what it cost me. Never again.