Going on 8 months and I landed 1 job from MFG. I made 4 brkts. for $80.00 I put in the material and shipped. The grand total was $130.00. I have not been paid.

There are people on that site that quote parts for less then the material. I bid on one job for 1000 brkts. I gave the guy a price of $1.30 each because I could fit the blanks in a scrap area of something I was cutting. Some place in India landed the job for a total of $17.00! No one can compete with that. Then the guy sends me a comment of PRICING TOO HIGH!

I don't understand how anyone can expect to stay in business in this market. I am doing OK but my pricing is 1/3rd of what it was 2 years ago.

When I emailed MFG.com to ask about their services they called and called and called, begging me to join up. Ever had a girl who would not stop calling you? Kinda becomes not attractive after a while right? They should learn that concept. Bottom line is, they have quite a racket going, but it's just a good concept, not a good practical tool for machine shops.

As for shop rate, I typically charge $75/hr, but usually end up under bidding the time. I do charge for setup and coding, but same story, usually takes me a lot longer than I bill for.

Honestly the best luck I've had is from my products I have produced and sold on ebay or my website myself. Skip the middle man, straight from manufacturing to retail. I end up making closer to $100/hr on those parts.

Any shops have engineering services and CAD drafting available? What are your rates for that?

I do everything at 75 an hour too. Tool and mold design at the same rate as the CNCs. I do a little product design here and there, but that is usually just drawing up the customer's concept scribbles. I get more for aerospace tool and mold design, but that is due to the different quoting processes involved.

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Thank you for the info into them. I am still looking for work but not worth paying for service. I am a one person shop all manual trying to start the old way.Starting out small and trying to beat the street the old fashioned way.

Check out the club house too under hardcore to see more responses on mfg.com In my opinion there doing a diservice to the manufacturing comunity setting up guys like us for failure the buyer is the winner here but what they are not considering is what are the buyers going to do when theres nobody left to bid. I feal the pressure too from my local customers they want it cheaper, its a race to the bottom if I cant win them over with quality and delivery then I say let them all go and get it from china and when there are no jobs left in this country we can all stand in line for our bag of rice and flour. hardcore

Hi,
This is my first post but would like to chime in on this, I own a small prototype shop with all manual machines except for one knee mill that is cnc. My shop rate is $65.00HR and I don't play the price game, my deal is quick turn around on needed parts for the oil field.

Mfg.com has no motivation to perform for you once they have your money.
I explored the idea two years ago, dismissed it, and still am getting spam emails from them begging me to throw money at them.
Stay Clear!

I nearly joined up with this mess about a year ago. Luckily, the owner of another shop in town let me know he was a member.

He also let me know he had not gotten a single job after bidding on a lot of them. He had spent hours looking and bidding. NOTHING. His shop rate is / was $55.00 an hour. He said several folks wrote him wanting him to work for $15- $20 an hour. He declined.

They still e-mail me daily... wanting me to join and telling me all the work they have for me. No thanks. I'll just keep plugging along.

ICan.