Laser marking job shops get their business from clients that either don't have sufficient parts volume to justify owning a system or simply don't want to own the technology...
Laser marking job shops typically operate at shop rates of $60-$100 per hour. The cost of marking a part should have nothing to do with the value of the part (unless the shop needs to cover its risk of mismarking and scrapping an expensive part).
Shop efficiencies have a lot to do with how many parts an hour can be processed by a laser marker. The number of parts processed per hour is determined by how much information has to be marked and how m
The actual marking time is generally fast and in many cases the handling time exceeds the marking time. If a marking job shop has a shop rate of $80 per hour and the mark consists of a logo or part number on a credit card sized piece of anodized aluminum and the parts arrive bulk packed (not individually wrapped) then an operator might be able to process 5 parts a minute or 300 parts and hour through the marker. Using a shop rate of $80 per hour, the cost to mark each part would be $0.27 and probably be marked up to $0.30 to actually achieve an $80 per hour shop rate. There is typically a machine setup charge for each part type and a non recurring graphic charge if a logo or graphic is to be marked or if there is complicated programming. Extensive unpackaging and/or re-packaging is usually an additional charge.
Whether or not it makes sense to use a job shop depends on several things. One might ask themselves the following: