Prices on Matting

Kinkajou

I went to our one local photo store and asked about window mats for some prints. The prints are 11x14 and I want the matboard to be 18x24 with the window for the 11x14 mat. Just looking for white archival, nothing special, not really thick, just standard archival matboard.

They quoted me at over $40 per image to custom cut the matboard. If I buy the pre-cut matting (which they cut in house, btw), which is window 11x14 to 16x20 mat, it's about 15 bucks.

Does this sound unreasonable to you? Are there places where I can get this matting for less? I know I don't NEED the 18x24, but I just like it that way.

Thoughts?

kdog

Well, let's do the arithmetic. A 30"x40" standard mat is about $5.00. You can get two of your mats out of that, so that's $2.50 each. Labor is about 5 minutes. So deducting the price of the mat, that's $450.00 an hour that they're charging you for your $40.00 mat. So what's your problem? Plus you have to wait for goodness-knows-how-long for them to cut it, so your job is delayed, and you have to make multiple trips to the store.

Now you know why some of us buy mat cutters.

Cheers,
-joel

Sam

Try Frame Destination.

I have a mat cutter and will cut mats for custom sized prints but prefer to buy my standard mats pre-cut.

Sam

Kinkajou

kdog wrote:

Now you know why some of us buy mat cutters.

Oh yeah, that's definitely a consideration.

Thanks for the advice, and I'll check out Frame Destination.

Picturesofthelowcountry

Kinkajou wrote:

I went to our one local photo store and asked about window mats for some prints. The prints are 11x14 and I want the matboard to be 18x24 with the window for the 11x14 mat. Just looking for white archival, nothing special, not really thick, just standard archival matboard.

They quoted me at over $40 per image to custom cut the matboard. If I buy the pre-cut matting (which they cut in house, btw), which is window 11x14 to 16x20 mat, it's about 15 bucks.

Does this sound unreasonable to you? Are there places where I can get this matting for less? I know I don't NEED the 18x24, but I just like it that way.

Thoughts?

Try www. Redimat.com they are very helpful on the phone and quite reasonable with their pricing although shipping is high its still worth checking out.

Cygnus Studios

+ 1 for Redimat. Their location is very close to me, and they are incredibly helpful.