The print business··7 min read
How to build a pricing formula for business cards
A complete example, from the press sheet to the price your customer sees — and why it's worth writing down as a formula instead of keeping it in one person's head.
In many print shops, the price of a job lives in one person's head. That works until that person goes on holiday, or until you want to sell online. A written formula solves both: anyone on the team can give a price, and a calculator can show it to the customer.
Step 1: how many fit on a sheet
We start with the press sheet. Take an SRA3 sheet (320×450 mm) with a printable area of about 310×440 mm. A 90×50 mm business card with 2 mm of bleed on each side takes up 94×54 mm. Three fit across and eight down — so 24 cards per sheet.
Step 2: how many sheets for the run
For 1,000 cards you need 1,000 ÷ 24 ≈ 42 sheets. Add waste for make-ready and cutting — say 5% — and you get 44 sheets.
Step 3: cost by component
| Component | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 350 gsm paper | 44 sheets × 3.00 MDL | 132 MDL |
| Double-sided printing | 44 sheets × 2 sides × 2.50 MDL | 220 MDL |
| Cutting | flat fee | 30 MDL |
| File preparation | flat fee | 50 MDL |
| Total cost | 432 MDL |
An example with illustrative values. Replace them with your real costs.
Step 4: from cost to price
Your markup goes on top of cost. With a 60% markup, the price comes to about 690 MDL. The exact percentage matters less than keeping it the same every time: customers compare prices, and a price that changes from day to day for the same job erodes trust.
Step 5: the options the customer chooses
- Quantity: changes the number of sheets, so paper and printing
- Paper: changes the sheet price
- Sides: 1 or 2 changes the number of clicks
- Finishing: lamination, rounded corners, foil — add-ons per sheet or per piece
- Rush: a multiplier applied at the end
Quantity tiers
Flat fees (cutting, file prep) weigh heavily on small runs and barely at all on large ones. That's why the price per piece naturally drops as the quantity grows. You no longer need a separate discount table — the formula produces it on its own.
Once it's written down, the formula becomes the calculator in your online store: the customer changes the quantity or the paper, and the price recalculates by exactly the same rules your team uses.
Written by The TGPRINT team