How printing more can be the same price, or even less!

As the subject crops up every week – and sometimes each day – when discussing printing projects, I thought I’d revisit the topic of the “ideal” number of pages for your printed brochure or book, the perfect number of different postcards or leaflets to form a printed set, or perhaps the cost implication for additional sets of business cards.

For your printed brochure or book, the factors to look at are:

• The finished page size
• How exactly an item is finished
• The material(s) used and the quantity required.

Based on a standard A4 size brochure with heavier 4 page outer cover, if we are LITHO printing up to a few thousand copies the perfect number of internal pages will be either 8 or 16, then 24 or 32pp – as we plan jobs with up to 8 x A4 pages to view on a larger sheet, it may, therefore, be almost the same print cost to complete 12pp or 16pp internal pages, which may be useful to know if struggling for room to fit planned content within 12 x internal pages.

It’s the same principle with printing books, albeit involving larger overall pagination … and in reality, the overall cost may be even lower if you add a few pages – due to the finishing set-up costs for different section sizes.

The number of pages won’t always dictate the printing price you pay

For example, based on an A5 size book set up to print as 32pp sections, to complete up to a few thousand copies as 160 internal pages plus cover will actually be a lower overall cost than 154, 156 or 158pp – 160 is perfectly divisible by 32 which is ideal for printing and the other size options will require extra set up for binding.

For non-standard sizes, it will depend on how many pages we can fit onto the paper size. Another popular format is a 210mm square brochure where we run 12 pages to view on a B1 sheet – it’s possible to produce a 12 page “self-cover” option on card with a single set of plates/machine set up, which may explain why it’s so popular – very high quality but also cost-effective (and the same cost as an 8 page option).

Please note for much larger quantities where the material is the single largest cost element of the project, any differences may be marginal or not apply at all. We’re always delighted to advise on the best route to take, ideally before final design/pagination is 100% fixed.

For a set of postcards or flyers, we can run several versions together to share the same setup time/cost. If you have a marketing plan to send details out over a period of time and possible to run 2, 3, 4 or more versions together will be very beneficial; or, if you wish to target several industry sectors with more bespoke content as opposed to 1 x generic printed card/flyer, no problem to do.

For shorter print runs digital is the solution

For shorter DIGITAL print runs savings are often less pronounced, but still apply in many cases. The majority of business cards are printed digitally now, but in particular, for litho printed cards run as spot colour and/or with specialist materials/finishes cost implication for extra name(s) is likely to be marginal up to a certain number.

Planning ahead wherever possible can certainly save you (and us) valuable time and money. Contact our dedicated sales team today by giving us a call or if you already have all your details then you can use our Quick Quote form.  We look forward to hearing from you.