Print costed the way a print shop builds a job
A print job is setup, then a long run of small per-piece costs, then finishing. This page builds it in that order: your copies and pages per copy give the printed sides; the sides and your sheet arrangement give the paper to order, spoilage included; ink or toner is charged per printed side at your coverage cost; the press runs for machine hours; and finishing is priced per copy, where binding and folding actually happen. It applies any minimum charge openly, adds contingency once and tax once, and reports the total, the cost per copy and the cost per printed side, with a downloadable job estimate.
The job
The run
Minimum, contingency, tax and range
Disclaimer: This calculator gives estimates for general information only. It is not financial, medical or other professional advice. Print is priced on the actual files: final costs follow a proof and the printer’s reading of your artwork, paper and finishing specification.
What this calculator does
It costs a print job from its production quantities rather than from a guessed per-piece price. Copies times pages gives printed sides, the unit ink is sold against; sides divided by the sheet arrangement, grossed for spoilage and make-ready, gives the sheets to order, the unit paper is bought in; machine time is charged in the hours the run genuinely occupies; and finishing, which happens to finished pieces one at a time, is priced per copy. Setup stands apart at the front, flat, because it is the cost that does not care how long the run is, and it is the reason unit prices fall as quantities rise, a relationship the results make visible in the per-copy figure. The estimator discipline closes the job: every money line rounded to cents, any minimum charge applied openly, contingency once, tax once, your range, and both unit views (per copy and per printed side) for comparing quotes structured differently.
How to use it
- Quantity is the loudest lever in print. Setup and machine preparation are paid once; at 500 copies the worked example’s $120 setup is 24 cents a copy, and at 50 copies it would be $2.40. When a unit price looks high, run a larger quantity here before negotiating: in print, the honest discount is usually volume, and the page shows exactly where it comes from.
- Coverage is the quiet lever. Ink per printed side at full photographic coverage can be several times the cost of a text side, and two quotes priced off different coverage assumptions are not two prices for one job. Enter the per-side figure your own yields give at this job’s coverage, and treat a suspiciously cheap quote as a coverage assumption to be asked about.
- Spoilage is a production fact, not a printer’s habit. Make-ready sheets, registration waste and finishing losses happen on every run, and somebody pays for the paper they consume. Pricing the allowance openly, as a percentage on the sheet count, is cheaper than discovering it as a paper overage on the invoice.
- Finishing is priced per copy because it happens per copy. Folding, gathering, binding and trimming-to-size scale with finished pieces, not with press sheets, which is why a multi-page booklet’s finishing line can exceed its ink line. Jobs quoted with finishing “included” deserve a run of this page with the finishing broken out, to see what included means in dollars.
- Duplex halves the paper, not the job. Printing both sides divides the sheet count while the printed sides, the ink and most of the machine time stay. The arrangement selector exists so the paper maths can be run both ways and the real saving read off, instead of assumed to be half of everything.
How it is calculated
- Printed sides = copies x pages per copy. Sheets to order = printed sides / sides per sheet, x (1 + spoilage %). Paper = sheets to order x cost per sheet. Ink = printed sides x cost per side.
- Machine = hours x rate per hour. Finishing = copies x finishing per copy. Setup, cutting, delivery and other charges enter flat.
- Subtotal = the sum of the line amounts, each rounded to cents (quantities themselves are not rounded before pricing). Minimum charge: if a minimum is entered and exceeds the subtotal, the minimum becomes the base and the results state that the minimum charge applied. Contingency applies once to the base; tax once to base plus contingency. Total = base + contingency + tax. Per copy = total / copies. Per printed side = total / printed sides. Range = total less and plus your percentage.
Worked examples
A 500 copy, 16 page booklet. Illustrative figures: 500 copies at 16 pages is 8,000 printed sides. Duplex, that is 4,000 sheets, 4,200 with a 5% spoilage allowance; paper at $0.06 a sheet is $252.00. Ink at $0.035 a side is $280.00. Setup $120; machine time 3.5 hours at $65 is $227.50; finishing at $0.85 a copy is $425.00; cutting $40; delivery $35. Subtotal $1,379.50; contingency at 5% adds $68.98 for a total of $1,448.48: $2.90 per copy, $0.18 per printed side.
Where the money sits in a run. Finishing ($425.00) is the largest single line in that job, ahead of paper and ink, because sixteen pages must be folded, gathered and bound 500 times while the press printed them 8,000 sides at a time. It is the standard surprise of booklet work, and the reason per-page quotes that ignore finishing understate multi-page jobs worst of all.
A short run meets the floor. A setup-only job whose lines total $120.00, against a $150 minimum charge: the estimate builds on the minimum and totals $150.00, stating that the minimum charge applied. On short runs the setup is the job, and the minimum is the setup with a name.
Reading your results
Read the per-copy figure against quantity before reading it against other printers: it is a curve, not a price, and it falls as the run lengthens because setup and make-ready dilute. Then read the finishing and paper shares. A quote dramatically below this build-up is usually thinner somewhere specific (coverage assumed light, spoilage at zero, finishing at a wave of the hand), and the lines give you the questions in order. Finally, compare like specifications: paper stock, coverage and finishing define the job, and a cheaper quote on a different specification is a different product wearing your job’s name.
Limitations
- Imposition is simplified to sides per sheet. Real press work gangs pages onto large sheets with layouts that change sheet counts and machine time together. The arrangement selector takes the sheet basis you are quoted on; a printer’s imposition plan, not this page, governs a real run.
- The per-side ink cost is an average wearing a uniform. Coverage varies page by page, and one average figure carries the whole job. Mixed jobs (heavy covers, light interiors) price better as two runs of this page, covers and interiors separately, added together.
- Paper prices move and grades differ beyond price. The per-sheet figure must be your stock at today’s price; brightness, weight and finish change both the price and the result, none of which an estimate can choose for you.
- Proofs and file problems are real costs. Artwork that is not print-ready generates prepress time that no quantity field predicts. The setup line should carry a realistic allowance for the files as they are, not as they were promised.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the per-copy price fall so fast as quantity rises?
Because setup, prepress and make-ready are paid once and divided by the run: $120 of setup is $2.40 a copy at 50 copies and 24 cents at 500. The lines that scale with quantity (paper, ink, finishing) set the floor the unit price falls toward but never through. This is also why printers quote price breaks at quantities: the curve is real, and running two quantities through this page shows its shape for your actual job.
What is spoilage, and how much should I allow?
The sheets consumed getting the job right and keeping it right: make-ready and registration at the start, press checks during the run, and losses in finishing. The allowance belongs to the process, not to anyone’s carelessness, and it is charged in the paper line here because paper is what it consumes. The right percentage is your printer’s figure for this kind of work; the honest approach is to enter it rather than to assume zero and meet it later as an overage.
Does duplex printing halve the cost?
It halves the sheets, and only the sheets: on the worked example, single-sided would order 8,400 sheets against duplex’s 4,200, doubling the paper line from $252.00 to $504.00 while ink (still 8,000 printed sides), machine time and finishing stand unchanged. The total moves by the paper difference, not by half, and the arrangement selector lets you read the exact figure for your job.
Why is finishing charged per copy, not per sheet?
Because finishing operations act on finished pieces: a booklet is folded, gathered and bound as one object whether it took two press sheets or eight. Charging it per copy also matches how it is quoted and where its labour sits, after the press, at benches and bindery machines that handle one piece at a time. Jobs with several finishing operations carry several per-copy components inside the single figure you enter.
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Method: production-quantity build-up at user-entered rates, sheets grossed for spoilage, ink per printed side, finishing per copy, minimum charge applied to the base, contingency once and tax once, exactly as defined on this page. Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.