How Much Does it Cost To Hire A Welder?
Seriously, how much?
If you’ve ended up on this page I am willing to bet that you just searched “how much does it cost to have my [item] welded?” You may have been baffled- not at the high dollar estimates you saw, but rather at the lack of clear answers to this question that show up on the internet. Hey, we all start somewhere when learning about trades other than our own, so kudos for diving into gaining knowledge before trusting a mysterious profession to build things for you.
Let’s start with this, just in case you don’t want to read a lot before getting your question answered. Expect to pay a welder $65-$125 per hour, based on the U.S. national average in 2022. An average cost for a repair job is $475 (source 1), and keep in mind that most welding companies have a shop minimum of at least a couple hundred bucks. These are some useful statistics from the Homeadvisor article cited, however, this is where the accuracy of that article ends. We’ve answered your ballpark hourly pricing question, but if you’re still curious let’s dig into it.
why you can never get an accurate answer when googling how much hiring a welder costs.
How large is your project?
Is it a new build or just a simple repair?
Are you dropping it off at our shop or am I traveling to you?
What kind of metal are we talking about working with?
Are you hiring me to take care of paint/powder coating or will you do the finish work?
Is it commercial or residential?
Are there any ornamental aspects, or just bare-bones simple stuff?
These are only a few of the thousands of questions I could ask you to understand what your project is, and any answer to one of those questions could wildly influence your cost. The issue with getting a quickly pinned-down project price comes from the versatile nature of welding. It’s never your fault as a client for trying to get a price, this is just an overwhelming question for welders to answer without peeling back the onion layers to get an accurate estimate. Honestly, getting into the details of your project before the money is discussed saves me from underselling my projects, but more importantly, it saves you from dramatically overpaying for a process you may not be familiar with. Sometimes we get calls to fix a simple railing in an hour, or we get inquiries about massive projects for commercial construction sites, and sometimes people want a bit of artistic flair on their built-from-scratch project that is made out of very expensive materials (copper, stainless steel, titanium, etc.) You wouldn’t believe the range of projects that people call us about.
Herein lies the reasoning behind our free ballpark estimates when you call Yellow Weld about your project. If you schedule a call with David or me to get the ball rolling on your project we hope that you set aside about 20 minutes to talk through details and expectations about the work. Yes, we love meeting all of you and it's always a great time, but more so we will have A LOT of questions to ask about your project. Like I previously said, you aren’t doing anything wrong when we ask question after question. We try not to make you feel as though you’re describing your side of things unclearly or that we can’t wrap our heads around your ideas. It’s completely the opposite- we can build you anything in the world to fix your problems (and we genuinely enjoy doing it). But before we get on the same page about the cost of a project we need to be on the same page about the project itself. We get excited about y’alls fun ideas and want to make dreams come true as often as possible. Once we understand the scope of work we can talk dollars all day long. By the end of that initial conversation, you should have the ballpark pricing for your specific project, and hopefully, we answered all of your questions, too. Remember that there are no stupid questions when trying to get on the same page with an expert in the field you’re curious about.
Let’s Wrap This Up
Let me reiterate that you, dear reader, are doing the best initial research by reading this article to understand the wide breadth of work we can do at many different price points. I have heard so many customers looking for a price from me and they are surprised by the quote I give them (for both being over or under their expectations.) The next statement I get is “yeah, I just never really thought about how much something like this should cost.” We try our best by listing general pricing on the Yellow Weld website. But, if you have taken anything away from this article, you now understand that it is truly impossible to give you an exact number after googling “how much should I expect to pay a welder”. So take the next step in that curiosity and give us a call! We don’t bite and can talk about cool metal project ideas all day long.
Sources Cited:
https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/walls-and-ceilings/weld-metal/
