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Print goods are often the foundation for an established business. From business cards to flyers to informational handouts to coupons, businesses of all sizes have printing needs. Even in this digital day and age, printed materials are often how customers learn about your business or how they engage with your business.
If you’ve ever had something professionally printed, however, you’ll notice that the pricing structure seems to change the more you order. Is this just a deal that companies run to make more money? Or is there a reason why the more you order, the cheaper each printed item becomes?
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Printing Structure
There are different structures that can be used within the printing industry, but two are fairly standard: competitor-based pricing and cost-based pricing.
Competitor-Based Pricing
In Competitor-based pricing, organizations focus on setting prices based on the prices of their direct competitors. Businesses use this method of pricing to stay competitive in the industry and retain customers by offering the “best deal around.” While this model allows a printer to stay competitive, many variables can drive the price of the job up and therefore drive away potential customers.
Cost-Based Pricing
In cost-based pricing, organizations focus on a fair view of the costs incurred for a particular print job. Businesses that use this pricing method add a specific profit to the product’s cost to determine the official selling price. While this strategy is more dynamic, it can cause a printer to struggle in a market where there’s a lot of competition.
The printing price structure will vary from business to business. And even though these two are the “standard,” many companies will still differ within these structures.
Setup Time and Expenses
You may be asking yourself, “Why can’t I take the quote I got for 1000 brochures and divide it in half for a quantity of 500?”
This seems like the most logical way to figure out the prices for different size jobs, right? But the reason this math doesn’t work is because of the setup time and expenses involved.
The printer needs to make printing plates from the artwork, set up the printing press, load the inks, paper, and plates. They then run test stock to line all of the colors up in registration. Once everything is set, they run the printer–bringing your materials to life–before cleaning up the printing press afterward.
The entire process takes the time and effort required for every job–no matter how big. And even though the time it takes to run the labels once the press is ready is only a few minutes, setup, tear down and clean up can take three to four hours in total. Printing companies include all their time involved from the moment they start setting up to the moment they’re done cleaning up. It’s all part of the job.
That cost will still be part of the quote, in addition to the cost for the materials. Therefore, even though you’re ordering fewer physical materials, you’re still going through the same process to print if you were ordering three times as many. This makes dividing or multiplying printing quotes inaccurate.
What does a printing cost per quantity look like?
The cost for any print job can vary widely and depends on many factors. From the type of materials you’re printing (business cards, brochures, and signs) to the type of paper you’re using (cardstock, printer paper, and plastic) to the colors involved (more colors equals higher costs) to the number of materials you need (just a few or several thousand) to the complexity of the job all affect the pricing of a print job. Below is an example of what the printing costs could look like for a job:
An example of printing costs for full-color brochures per quantity is:
- 100 tri-fold brochures $126.60 = $1.27 ea.
- 250 tri-fold brochures $211.00 = .84¢ ea.
- 500 tri-fold brochures $301.12 = .60¢ ea.
- 1000 tri-fold brochures $328.80 = .33¢ ea.
- 2500 tri-fold brochures $502.72 = .20¢ ea.
- 5000 tri-fold brochures $630.40 = .13¢ ea.
An example of printing costs for black and white color brochures per quantity is:
- 100 tri-fold brochures $47.48 = .17¢ ea.
- 250 tri-fold brochures $79.13 = .32¢ ea.
- 500 tri-fold brochures $112.92 = .23¢ ea.
- 1000 tri-fold brochures $123.30 = .12¢ ea.
- 2500 tri-fold brochures $188.52 = .08¢ ea.
- 5000 tri-fold brochures $236.40 = .05¢ ea.
An example of printing costs for full color, 2-sided business cards per quantity is:
- 100 business cards $25.20 = .25¢ ea.
- 250 business cards $27.72 = .11¢ ea.
- 500 business cards $34.16 = .07¢ ea.
- 1000 business cards $38.92 = .04¢ ea.
- 2500 business cards $69.72 = .03¢ ea.
- 5000 business cards $119.84 = .03¢ ea.
An example of printing costs for full color, 1 sided business cards per quantity is:
- 100 business cards $22.40 = .22¢ ea.
- 250 business cards $26.60 = .11¢ ea.
- 500 business cards $33.32 = .07¢ ea.
- 1000 business cards $38.36 = .04¢ ea.
- 2500 business cards $64.40 = .03¢ ea.
- 5000 business cards $98.00 = .02¢ ea.
As you can see, the more you buy, the cheaper each item in your print job becomes. There are often price breaks the more you buy–as raw materials can be cheaper to buy in bulk and/or the company wants to retain you as a customer and therefore gives you a discount. These are known as Quantity Discounts and Relationship Discounts. You’ll see them throughout the printing industry, no matter what you’re making.
Besides, if it costs $50 to set up a job, print it, tear it down and clean it up, that will remain roughly the same no matter how many items you print. Once everything is set up, the labor involved with getting the job done will not increase dramatically based on the number of items you order. Therefore, each item becomes cheaper to print.
Remember, your printing costs will all depend on the type of job. For any business owner, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of how printing costs work when they go to order printed materials.