Being built · looking for the first print shops

Know what every print job actually makes.

PressMargin prices a job from your own paper costs, click charges and labour rates, and then shows you what the job made after it ran. When paper goes up, you change the paper cost once and every price that uses it moves with it.

Get early access

$129 per month, for the whole shop. The price is on this page, and you can read the rest of it without booking a demo.

Three things print shops keep saying about the software they already pay for

This is not a list of features that are missing. It is the same three complaints, from shops running the estimating systems that commercial print has been buying for twenty years.

You cannot see what a job made

The system quotes the job and invoices the job, and then has no report that puts cost against sales. Labour and hourly rates often are not in the model at all, so margin per job is a thing you work out afterwards in a spreadsheet, if at all.

Repricing is a week of clicking

Paper moves, and updating prices across the system means opening one stock at a time. Shops describe it as the single worst part of the software they own — so in practice the prices go stale and the margin quietly goes with them.

A changed spec means starting the quote again

The customer changes the stock or the quantity, and the estimate cannot be adjusted — it has to be rebuilt from the beginning. Repeat work, which should be the easiest money in the shop, costs the same estimating time every round.

How it works

1

Put your real numbers in once

Your paper costs, your click charges, your finishing rates and what an hour on each machine costs you. Nothing is estimated from an industry average — the model uses your shop's numbers.

2

Quote from the same numbers

A quote is built from that cost model, so the price you send a customer already knows what the job costs you and what margin it is carrying before you send it.

3

Change one cost, and every price follows

When a stock goes up 8%, you change it in one place. Every quote and price list built on that stock updates, and you can see which of your standing prices just stopped being profitable.

The price, in full

$129 per month, for the whole shop
  • Everyone in the shop can use it — estimators are not charged per seat.
  • No setup fee, no training fee, no implementation project.
  • Month to month. Cancel it yourself, without emailing anyone.
  • The number above is the price. It is not a starting point for a quote.

Estimating and management systems for commercial print generally run from about $60 a month for the smallest to several hundred, and the ones aimed at a shop this size mostly do not publish a number at all.

What this is not

  • It is not a full management system. No scheduling, no shipping, no proofing, no CRM. If you need one system to run the whole plant, this is not it.
  • It does not replace your press or prepress software, and it does not touch your files.
  • It is not built yet. This page is how the first shops are being found, and nothing here describes customers we already have.

Get early access

Leave your email and three answers. You will hear directly from the person building it, and telling us it is wrong for your shop is a useful answer.

Questions

Can I buy it today?

No, not yet. It is being built, and this page is how the first shops are being found. If you sign up you will hear from the person building it before it opens.

Why publish the price when most systems in this trade do not?

Because you are trying to work out whether it is worth twenty minutes of your day, and you cannot do that without the number. Booking a call to learn a price is the part of buying this software that shops complain about most.

Do I have to replace the system I already run?

No. Most shops that would use this keep their existing system for job tickets and invoicing, and use PressMargin for the costing and the pricing. It is deliberately narrow.

Does it work for digital, offset or both?

Both. The cost model handles a click charge and a press hour side by side, because most shops that would buy this run some of each.

What if my rates are wrong?

Then the margin it shows is wrong, and that is worth knowing. It only uses numbers you enter, so the first useful thing it usually does is show you which of your own rates have not been touched in years.