How do I calculate potential selling price for custom build projects

[efonsecab]

I have had Lego as hobby all of my life, but it is only until recently that I am in the process of investing with it.

I'm really new to it, and if possible I'd like to know recommended techniques to calculate the potential sell prices for custom build projects, like layouts, real life objects representations, and else.

Thanks.

[Darth Lego]

Brickmania.com mainly sells custom LEGO military vehicles from WW1 to Modern day. (Mainly WW2 and Vietnam vehicles though.) I would suggest looking through their website and look at the prices and how many pieces you get for that price.

It also depends how much ROI, (Return on Investment), you want to get. Do you want to spend $50 on a layout and sell it for $75 or do you want to get $125 for it? Maybe there is no market for your layout and you can barely break even on it. There are so many factors that go into selling custom LEGO items like the popularity of the item you are selling and the costs to make that item.

[Ed Mack]

Custom built items can vary greatly in price.  Basically it depends upon the amount of bricks and the quality of the build.  Some custom built sets can be exceptional and sell for thousands of dollars, while others are lucky to be sold at all. 

[ExoBro94]

While investing in MOCs is very, very tricky, it can be done. Granted, most MOCs that become sellable are of a quality unseen by typical LEGO sets. Below are some tips to help you calculate a fair price for what your MOCs can go for. Remember, when it comes to this type of investing, marketing is everything. 

 

1. Calculate the cost of the bricks you used, and add 5% of each's cost on top of that original price.

2. Calculate the hours spent building the MOC and add $10 per hour. 

3. If you will be including a step by step instruction booklet for the build, this will increase the price.

4. When building sellable MOCs only use new bricks. 

5. If your MOC falls under a licensed theme that LEGO is currently producing take 10% of your calculated total and add it to the final price.

 

Also, these tips are not set in stone, they are only recommendations. You may find that you could get more for a MOC or you may find that you get less. I don't create MOCs for investing myself. I find it too time consuming and not rewarding enough. Good luck to you though!

[TheOrcKing]

While investing in MOCs is very, very tricky, it can be done. Granted, most MOCs that become sellable are of a quality unseen by typical LEGO sets. Below are some tips to help you calculate a fair price for what your MOCs can go for. Remember, when it comes to this type of investing, marketing is everything. 

 

1. Calculate the cost of the bricks you used, and add 5% of each's cost on top of that original price.

2. Calculate the hours spent building the MOC and add $10 per hour. 

3. If you will be including a step by step instruction booklet for the build, this will increase the price.

4. When building sellable MOCs only use new bricks. 

5. If your MOC falls under a licensed theme that LEGO is currently producing take 10% of your calculated total and add it to the final price.

 

Also, these tips are not set in stone, they are only recommendations. You may find that you could get more for a MOC or you may find that you get less. I don't create MOCs for investing myself. I find it too time consuming and not rewarding enough. Good luck to you though!

That's a very thought out set of guidelines, ExoBro. I'm not sure about adding that much for hours spent but it is an additional fee to consider.

Something to add, if you don't feel like hassling with shipping a physical MOC, you can always try and just sell a digital set of instructions and leave the building for the buyer to worry about. Just make sure not to use a lot of extremely rare parts throughout the build.

[Grolim]

I gave a +1 to ExoBro as that is a good list of factors to consider.

 

Something else that came into my head is the rarity of the MoC.  Is it a one-off or is the creator selling multiple copies of it or its instructions.  If so then that would lower the price.