What Is The Right Quantity Of Commercial Printing?

When deciding the proper amount of material to print for your specific project, poor decisions about quantity increase costs. If you do not order enough, you may have to pay for a reprint sooner than necessary. Most people normally would say “who cares, if I need the material then I will just reprint it when I come to that point,” but because of the additional setup charges you will incur when going to a second printing, unit costs are higher than printing all you need in one order. The big key to remember is that unit cost decreases as your order quantity goes up. This is because the initial setup costs decrease per unit as you order more. For example, 2,000 brochures might cost $1.50 each if run all at once. Printing 1,000 now and 1,000 later might increase the unit costs of the entire 2,000 to $2.40. Most of the time when ordering a quantities like 1,000, the next 1,000 will only cost you a small fraction more. It all depends on the complexity of the piece, but this usually hold true for letterhead, business cards, and simpler brochures or flat sheet printing. You really need to pay attention to the estimates on different quantities before you decide upon the right amount to print.

On the other hand, if you over order and have too many printed, you pay for printing and paper that you may never use and more importantly cannot return later for your money back. Commercial printing is custom and you will not get your money back from the printer should you choose to try and return what is not used. You may be able to get some money back by recycling what is not used, but even if you do, it will not amount to much.

So correctly estimating your needs is important. So today’s costs are just as important as future costs. The cost of printing usually goes up form year to year, mainly driven by the cost paper. If you are doing a mailing, then it is easy to estimate how many you will need. Just look at your mailing list. When it comes to things like brochures, just be smart when estimating, especially if you are in a business where your market changes frequently. Information that you are promoting today, may not be applicable tomorrow. These are things that can be discussed when designing the piece to make sure what you are doing will suit your business and be most cost conscious for your business.

That’s all for now…

Brian