Custom Order & Manual Quote Policy

At Old West Iron, we take pride in crafting authentic, American-made ironwork with the skill, care, and attention our customers expect from a heritage blacksmith shop. Because our products are detailed and highly customizable, we designed our website so customers can place orders directly and securely online at any time.

Most customers use the website checkout without issue. However, some orders require additional, hands-on assistance. Preparing these orders manually takes significant time from our small, specialized team. To ensure fairness and to protect the time we dedicate to forging, fabrication, packing, and timely communication, we have established the following policy.

On This Page

  • Everything you need to know about our quote processing fee
  • Everything you need to know about our Custom Design & Revision Fee
  • Additional Fees

Custom Quote Processing Fee

For customers who request that we hand-write or build their order for them—whether over the phone or through email—a $35 Custom Quote Processing Fee will apply.

This fee covers the time required to:

  • Review product specifications, options, and finishes

  • Confirm measurements and quantities

  • Manually create an itemized quote

  • Build the order inside our system

  • Communicate back-and-forth to finalize the order

Depending on the complexity of the order, this process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to over 2 hours. The fee simply offsets the labor required to prepare these manual quotes.

This fee does not apply when you place your order directly on our website.

Why We Charge This Fee

Old West Iron is a small, family-run, veteran-built forge—not a call center. Every minute our team spends writing quotes, collecting product information, or manually entering orders is time taken away from:

  • Forging and production

  • Packing and shipping

  • Quality control

  • Customer service for existing orders

We’ve chosen a fee that is modest, reasonable, and well below standard industry rates for consultation or order-building services. This ensures we can continue offering fair prices on our hardware while still respecting the time demands placed on our team.

When the Fee Applies

The $35 fee applies when a customer requests:

  • A written or itemized quote

  • A staff-built shopping cart or order entry

  • Assistance calculating quantities, measurements, or product combinations

  • Manual preparation of an order that could be placed online

  • Phone-assisted ordering when the customer prefers not to use the website

Placing Your Order Online

To avoid the processing fee, customers are always welcome to place their orders directly at:

OldWestIron.com

Using the website ensures the fastest and most accurate processing, gives you access to all available sizes and finishes, and allows us to begin building your order without delay.

An Important Note:

We’re proud to offer handcrafted, made-to-order ironwork—but custom work takes time, materials, and focused craftsmanship. Below you’ll find a breakdown of the most common fees associated with manual quotes, design services, and special requests.

Customization Cost (Built Into Most Orders)

Many of our products include options like custom textures, finishes, mounting hole placements, fastener upgrades, and other variations. While we offer these options as “standard” at checkout, they do come with additional labor and material costs. These customization costs are already built into the price of your selected options, rather than appearing as separate fees, but they may be listed separately on your invoice.

This allows us to keep the base product affordable while giving you the flexibility to tailor it to your project. You are not charged extra just for choosing an oil-rubbed bronze finish or asking for a specific hole layout—but those choices do increase the cost over the plain, unaltered base item.

Design Fees

When additional CAD work is required beyond standard options or when a customer changes direction mid-order, we apply flat-rate fees to compensate for the extra time and handling.

Custom Design Fee + One Revision

This fee covers the time involved in drafting a unique design or layout for your custom product—such as a pizza oven door, sign, or decorative panel. It includes one round of revisions after the initial design is presented. Additional rounds of changes will require further fees.

You will likely find this option on your invoice if you are starting from scratch or asking for a fully custom layout, silhouette, size, or ironwork detail not shown in our standard products.

Custom Sign Design Fee + One Revision

If you're ordering a custom address sign, ranch sign, or silhouette sign, this design fee applies. It includes the initial concept drawing and one revision round. We often work with your ideas, sketches, or references to create a sign that’s functional and visually striking.

Please note: If your design requires complex scenes or layered cutouts, the base fee may be adjusted accordingly.

Other Common Fees

Change Order Fee

This fee applies when changes are requested after an order is already in production—including changes to dimensions, layout, finish, mounting preferences, or ship-to address. Once your order is in our workflow, any adjustments require time and can disrupt production flow, which is why this fee exists.

We this fee only when an order adjustment is requested more than 24 hours after the initial payment is made.

Thank You for Supporting American Craftsmanship

We sincerely appreciate your understanding as we balance personalized service with the needs of a working forge. This policy allows us to serve customers fairly, maintain efficient production, and continue offering authentic ironwork made by skilled blacksmiths in Idaho.

If you have questions about this policy or need guidance before placing your order online, our team is happy to help.