How to compare printing quotes: five numbers, one book.
Ask five printers for a price and you will receive five documents that only look comparable. Here is the method we would use to read them, written from the side of the table that produces quotes for a living.
Publishers comparing quotes usually rank the totals and pick a winner, and we understand the instinct. We also sit on the receiving end of it — clients forward us other factories' quotes most weeks, asking us to explain a gap — and the honest observation after all these years is that the lowest number is rarely dishonest, and rarely comparable either. Most of the time it is pricing a slightly different book.
A fair comparison starts earlier than the quotes themselves: it starts with the quote request you send. Give every factory the same complete specification and the answers come back aligned; give them fragments and you will be comparing five different books.
Lock the specification before you read a single price
The differences hide in the specification, not the arithmetic. One quote assumes 128gsm art paper, another 105gsm. One prices PUR adhesive, another the cheaper hot-melt EVA. One includes shrink-wrapping and double-wall export cartons, another bulk packing. None of this is visible in a bottom line. So before comparing anything, write a one-page specification — trim size, page count, interior paper with weight and grade, cover material, binding method, lamination, finishing, packing — and ask every factory to requote against it exactly. A quote that comes back cheaper because it quietly substituted a lighter sheet has not saved you money. It has changed your book.
Pay particular attention to the lines where substitution is easiest: paper named only by weight with no brand or grade, adhesive type left unstated, and the word similar appearing anywhere near a material.
Read the lines, not the total
A quote you can trust is itemized: paper, plates and printing, binding, finishing, packing, freight, each on its own line. Itemization is not bureaucracy. It is what lets you see how a change moves the price, and it is what stops a later adjustment in one line from silently repricing the rest. Just as important is what the lines leave out. Are physical proofs included or billed separately. Are pallets part of the packing line. Does the freight figure end at a port or at your warehouse door. The total is a summary; the lines are the contract.
The questions that separate lookalike quotes
When two quotes survive the specification test, a short list of questions usually decides between them.
- Overs and unders. Book printing commonly delivers slightly over or under the ordered quantity. Ask how the variance is capped and how it is invoiced.
- Freight terms. EXW, FOB and DDP describe very different journeys. Normalize every quote to the same term before comparing totals.
- Proofing. How many rounds are included, in what form, and who pays the courier. Our own proofs run on a 3 to 5 day cycle, and we put that in writing.
- Validity. Paper markets move. Ask how long the number holds.
- Payment terms. A deposit with the balance before shipment is the common pattern; a demand for full payment up front deserves a pause.
Build the grid, then read the behavior
Put it all on one page: quotes across the top, specification lines and the questions above down the side. Anything a quote omits becomes a question to ask, never an assumption to make. Then notice something no spreadsheet captures: who pushed back. The factory that queries your page count because it does not divide neatly into sections, or flags that your spine width does not match your paper choice, has actually read your files. The one that returned a round number within the hour has not.
We have been quoting books since 1995, and our settled view is that a good comparison is less about finding the cheapest supplier than about discovering, before production begins, which supplier you are actually dealing with. We would rather come second on price than first on surprises.
