The ultimate, ideal solution in the art of pricing is asking exactly as much as the customer is ready to pay. The tricky part is obtaining that information...
One of better methods of pricing to get closest to the above is to completely separate yourself from the costs and strictly base your price on the value of the final product. If it's supposed to earn your customer $10.000 a day, no matter how simple it is, how cheap the parts, how short time it takes to do, $50.000 isn't too little. But if it's a small part that doesn't produce any real profit, the customer is short on money, not really willing to pay what your time and resources would cost you, calculate your costs, add some small profit and use this as your price - anything below would be a loss.
Unless of course getting ANY work is hard to you. Satisfaction value (bought this, will buy next) is one thing. The cost of doing nothing is another. If you pay your employee $40/day, it's better to give them 5 days of $30/day profit work (this way you lose $10/day) than to turn the offer down, saying it's below your costs, and lose $40/day.