I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I'm hoping you guys can help me out.

Recently A rather lager company approached me to use a font I made on some of their products. What is the best way to go about this? How do you price something like that to license out. Do you set a one time price? Percentage sold? Price by lot/unit?
The company owns about 7-8 different major clothing brands, so I dont think they are small

any help is appreciated!!

If they want to buy completely the licence of the font, you multiply the quantity of hours you work on with the price of hour you fixe. Dont't forget taxes and other marginal costs.

If it's only the usage of the font, look at the price of some shareware fonts with the same level of difficulty on this site.

Yeah, its just the usage of the font. They wont want the rights to own it.
I'll try to check into the shareware fonts, but im still confused

Thanks for the reply!!

Menhir means to look at other fonts that are similar to yours, and see how they priced the rights to own them.

How do you find that out? Doesnt the author usually have you contact them for the usage price?

Where can I see your font? Your site, that claims to be always online, is down.

LOL. Cloudflare does a bad job of that. My server is down for maintenance atm D:

check profile?

Go to Myfonts. Look at the price of the fonts there that are similar to yours. Get their average. And you got a price for yours. if your font is better than what is there, give yours a premium. If it took you over a year to draw the font and refine it to perfection, give your font a bigger premium.

If they want to install the font in more than one computer, ask them to pay you a site license. Let us say you allow your font to be used on two computers, then if it is is installed in more than 2 computers they have to get a site license. How to get the price...

number of computers x (price of font - discount) = site license

You need to give them a discount as they are paying you for more than one font. The more computers your font is installed the bigger the discount becomes. If you are in good spirits, give them a 100% discount. Anyway it is a free font!

If they do not want to pay, sue them for software piracy.

Yep

http://wolfs-rain.org/
It's fine for me...
Anyway, nice font! Is that the one they want?

OK, site is up again. Tks malvolio for checking.

@ doc, imho it is a very basic brush type font with very little detail, therefore only usable at smaller sizes. Furthermore, it has no accented characters and thus has limited use, only fit for English/Mid-Atlantic/USA.

As your font has been around for more than 6 years and as such is far from an exclusive, I suggest you ask for $500 for the use of our font by this company and in the end settle for 200 as a minimum.

Hope this helps.

@malvolio -- just got the server back online! yes it is

@koeiekat -- Thanks for the info! I cant really agree thats its only usage is for small size. I have a guy that used this font on his yatch in the UK and each letter is about 1.5FT tall and its crisp and clean. I've also had it used smaller on restaurant menus and it also turned out. This was the first font I have created and I most definitely could have made it better had I put more time into it. ie. added accented characters

I'm not really concerned with the money aspect, I just wanted an idea of what I should ask them since they asked me. I get more out of seeing it be used and people liking it than charging people money to use it.

I appreciate the replies guys. It helped a lot!

Thanks again!

@ doc, crisp and clean is not the same as detailed. At 45 cm high one would expect to see at least some brush details. Which aren't there.

I agree koeiekat. BTW, you didn't need to thank me for checking - anyone would have done it.

If you can ask that much money for the use a personal use only free font, I better change the license of my fonts.

IMO that is too much for the use of a font on a single computer.

Did I mumble anything about "single computer"? Try to learn to read.

I know how to read and I believe I am able to comprehend what I read. My parents did not make sure that I go through college for nothing.

Yes, you did not mention "single computer" but neither did you mention any number of computers. I did not see the original poster ever mentioned how many computers the font is going to be installed. All he said is that it is a company with several clothing lines. May I know what is your basis for coming out with $500 and also for the big drop to $200? If the asking price of $500 is based on solid data, why the need to drop to $200? If people here treats making fonts as a business or to make money, then that's a very, very bad way of doing it. Something that is usually done by fly-by-night operations ran by shady people.

If your figure was made without basis, then I believe that that is a very irresponsible statement and you are sending the wrong signals to people who make free "for personal use" fonts here. People here might start asking something that might push them out of the market. Remember that there are many fonts at MyFonts and other commercial font vendors of comparable design that are priced much less than that and probably of the same quality.

As for me, all my crappy fonts are free to use but I show my appreciation to those who were very unfortunate to have clicked on the donate button of my fonts. However, if an opportunity like that comes my way, I am going to quote them a price based on the formula I earlier posted regardless of whether the font is used for the title of the next big Hollywood movie or on toilet paper to wipe.... Got the drift? There's no discrimination on font usage, it is the computer count that matters. I suggest that you read the EULA that comes with commercial fonts that you might have purchased if ever you paid for the commercial fonts that might be found on your computer.

I believe that you are a matured person and I do hope that you will be as responsible as you are matured, in your statements as well as your behavior in this forum.

How do you find that out?

Yeah. I suppose it would be installed on 1 computer that is doing the printing. I've licensed the font differently in the past.
I price based on usage. If its a small hobby or company I don't charge them because they more than likely dont have the money. If they sell anything they are asked to donate what they feel its worth, and people have done that several times. If its a larger company like now or like a few in the past, they don't have any issues paying a few hundred/thousand for a typeface. I spoke with a friend at ADIDAS marketing and they said they've paid 15,000$ for a 1 year license before. I was shocked fonts get that high.

thanks again for the replies guys! I already made a pretty fair deal with the company

Do not assume. Ask them. If it so happens that they have a factory in China or they have subcontractors there, it is very likely that the font is installed in more than one computer. You will be surprised at the number you will get.

Ask them the number of seats. If they do not know what seats mean, then ask them the number of computers the font will be installed, and then make your decision. You should make up your mind as to what the base price of your font is then multiply it by the number of seats or the number of computers where the font is to be installed. The base price for a multi-seat license is usually lower than the base price for a license to a single font. How much lower? Lower by 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%... that's all up to you. Do not be surprised if you come close to at least 10% of what your friend at Adidas told you. It really depends on what your base price for your font is. Do some research on prices of commercial fonts with comparable designs to get your base price.