Pricing Newsletters or Booklets Feature Make
Quoting Odd Quantities Easier than Ever!
Here’s a “real world” example of how to get the most out of the newly released NPRC 2018 Digital Color Pricing Study. Some people are often overwhelmed at the information available in our studies, so we thought we would pass on a couple of digital color pricing tips gleaned from our own experiences.
This is a modified version of the old “The cobbler’s son has no shoes” parable. As many of you know I am the Executive Director of NPRC while my wife Mary owns and runs a small printing operation (Paragon Printing & Graphics) that offers most of the traditional offset and digital services found in most printing firms these days.
She Gets Her Studies Free!
I have nothing to do with the printing firm and Mary has little to do with my publishing and consulting services. In fact, we can go one or two days at work without even speaking to each other, with each of us so busy doing our own thing.
While Mary is certainly aware of the types of studies we produce, she rarely finds the time to read or analyze them to any great extent, which is is always a bit disappointing to me, considering the rock-bottom prices at which I make them available to her!
So much to my surprise, she came to me the other day with a copy of the recent digital printing study in hand, and said she was working on a quote for 900 copies of a 24-page newsletter. Finished size of the self-cover newsletter was to be 8.5 x 11″. More specifically, the job was to consist of 6 11 x 17″ page signatures, no bleeds, digitally printed on 100# coated text. Signatures where to be collated, folded, stapled and face-trimmed.
Mary said she found the newsletter pricing section on pages 55-57, but all that she could find were average and median prices for either 16-page or 32-page newsletters, and she needed a price for a 24-page newsletter. I told her that wouldn’t be too hard to come up with a price, at the very least we could interpolate pricing.
Pricing Per Newsletter
Voila! I found an even easier way, something I had forgotten. Not only does our study offer average and median prices for quantities ranging between 100 and 2,500, it also features pricing per individual newsletter as well. In fact, it provides average and median price per newsletter as well as what we term “majority low” and “majority high” pricing as well.
So the first thing we did is look at the average price per newsletter at the 1,000 quantity level for both a 16-page newsletter and then pricing for a 32-page version. Average digital color pricing for the 16-page newsletters was $2.68. Pricing for the 32-page newsletters was $4.87. Averaging the two produced and average price per newsletter of $3.78.
Knowing the quantity was very close to the 1,000 quantity pricing we chose to go with that price and simply multiply our $3.78 x 900 for a total price of $3,397. Mary’s original price was significantly higher, but to be honest, I have no idea what her final price was for the job, but at least I can say she was better informed regarding digital color pricing for this quantity, format and size than she was before, but don’t let on I said that!
Even more useful, the digital color pricing in the newsletter pricing section is the fact that the study actually breaks down pricing to the signature level, so we could look at pricing per side, per signature and discover that pricing ranges between $0.33 and $0.30 each.
Does Study Cover All Products?
No, the study couldn’t possibly cover every type of product offered in the industry, but by using interpolation, averaging and a big dose of common sense, you can find sample pricing for dozens and dozens of products produced on digital color devices. As an example, you can find detailed pricing on some of the following products:
- Flat Sheets, 100# coated text & cover (8.5 x 11 and 11 x 17 sizes)
- 2-part and 3-part carbonless forms, plain and numbered
- Retail click pricing (no stock pricing included)
- Stock Mark-up practices
- 16-page and 32-page newsletters and booklets
- Envelope Pricing, black and 4-c
- Business Card Pricing, offset, digital and brokered
- Popular discounting methods for various customers
- Plus, dozens of variations in terms of quantities and pricing
To read more about this study visit the NPRC Bookstore.
