While getting printing quotes and ordering printing for a client in the USA this month, I have been thinking about the best way to save money when ordering printing. Even if the money being spent on printing is not coming from my pocket, I hate to see clients paying double or triple as much for a print project simply because they don’t have this one thing. Can you guess what it is?
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
[Photo added to build suspense.]
Saving money when ordering printing is easy if you have time. The top reason that I see printing become expensive for clients is because they haven’t planned enough time for the most affordable printing options. In other words, print projects need to be planned well enough in advance by someone who knows what a reasonable printing timeline is.
Let’s say you’re ordering 5,000 postcards. Printing at the printer down the street might cost twice as much as printing at an online printer. But if you have to pay rush fees and express shipping for your print job at the online printer in order to get the project to you on time, you might as well support the local economy and send your project to the printer down the street, because you’ll end up paying almost the same thing. Planning print jobs with enough time to print them affordably can easily save hundreds of dollars even on a small project like postcards.
The savings become even greater if you are able to plan printing overseas into your timeline for larger projects or larger print runs. For example, that full colour cookbook that might cost $15,000 to print in North America might cost $6,000 to print in India or China…but you need to plan on at least an extra four to six weeks for printing and delivery. And even with printing overseas, shipping can become expensive if you suddenly have to have a quarter of your order sent by air instead of by sea because the timeline is too tight.
If you have time, you have choice. A bit of planning also gives you the time to:
Gather quotes from more printers, finding the best price or quality for the price.
Research other options that might also save money, like different papers or different formats.
Negotiate with the printer that you hope to work with. (This is a benefit of working with a local printer, is that you may be able to negotiate with them and keep your printing local.)
Wait for sea or ground delivery instead of air or overnight.
Work with your designer in a low-stress way and avoid rush fees from the designer as well.
For a big corporation, saving $100 when ordering postcards or $2,000 when ordering books might not seem like much. But these kinds of savings are especially important for lean start-ups or organizations like non-profits for whom every penny counts!
So, what’s the best way to save money when ordering printing? Good planning — that is, knowing how much time you need to keep the print project from becoming a rush order!
Thank you for taking the time to read this post! I am happy to help clients source the best printing prices in their neighborhood, online or overseas. If you want to talk about how to save money on your next print project, please write to me through my contact page.