What a printing quote needs
Four things settle most quotes: how big, how many, when you need it, and how the finished job will be fixed or used.
- 01
How big it has to be
For a banner or a board, measure the space it will go on. For a card, a brochure or a label, it is the final printed size that matters, because every other design decision follows from it. An approximate size is enough to begin with.
- 02
How many you need
On visiting cards and stationery the quantity moves the price more than the design does, so a rough number is more useful early than an exact one is late. On a magazine or a brochure the page count does the same work, and it always comes to a multiple of four.
- 03
When you need it
Give the date when you first ask rather than when you approve the design. A normal flex banner or visiting card order is usually ready in about four hours. Anything larger is given a deadline of its own, and you hear it before you commit to anything.
- 04
How it will be fixed or used
This is the part people leave out, and it changes the job rather than the price alone. A banner that will be tied to a frame is finished differently from one fixed flat to a wall. A label needs the dieline, or the box itself. A piece of motion needs to know which screen it will play on.
- 05
What comes back
A written quote, with the revision count written into it before any work starts. For new clients and for large orders it will show a 50% advance. Nothing is drawn, and nothing is printed, until you have agreed to what is on it.
Where this applies
The work this is about
Start a job
Ready when you are
Send what you have and the studio will tell you what is still missing before quoting.