many places buy steel cut to length +.10/-.00 and often cut it closer like within .03" of length asked for. sure you pay for it to be cut to length but dont have to deal with keeping inventory, have a overhead crane to lift, a heavy duty saw and storage rack and the building space taken up.
.
....when you factor in building space costs, equipment and its maintenance costs, and time and labor costs it might be
.
$50. each cut average total costs if do cutting yourself per year average
$40. each cut if you have somebody else cut for you
if you save $10. each piece cut and cut 1000/yr thats saving $10,000 a year or rather it was costing you $10,000 more a year cutting yourself
.
just saying building space (and local property taxes), inventory space, cutting equipment costs and maintenance, labor costs.
.
its like somebody spending $30,000 for a garage on their house and paying $1200. a year in extra property taxes on it to store $1000. of junk or extra stuff in it. it be cheaper to throw the junk out and buy it again every year quite literally