Estimating for Printing Industry and Small Business Spreadsheet Estimator

Keep it Simple. You can estimate for any line of work with simple, free, efficient spreadsheets. This is how I use them to calculate pricing for all kinds of printing. I have several spreadsheets available on my Patreon page. Each tab in the spreadsheet will calculate paper, clicks, BHR, finishing, profit, binding and more. Have fun building your own spreadsheets on either Open Office or Google Sheets. I'm excited.

[stephenbrown]

I love your ideals. Ive always felt you make your own destiny you can choise where you want to go and end up.

[denniswatson]

Dennis here from Jamaica, thanks for your videos great content, and I do printing myself but mostly funeral programs and your videos inspired me to move forward to do a wide variety of printing but for now I will master what I'm doing now and will continue watching your videos to learn a lot that when the time comes I will have a vast amount of knowledge. YOU ARE MY MOTIVATOR so please keep up the good work. God bless

[RoadCaptainUSA]

Thank you for bringing Print Estimating to the world or at least a peak. I have been a full time print estimator for the past 24 years. Since the pandemic I have been able to work from home. I am as many print estimator s are, an RIT graduate. It comes down to time, materials and outsourcing. An accurate production estimate is an exact plan to follow which can drive scheduling and purchasing systems. But estimating to come up with a competitive and profitable price can be slightly different. Many variables. Every estimate is like a puzzle which makes the job interesting. Must know everything in regards to equipment, substrates, inks, etc… have to look at the finishing and engineer backwards to get great results. Print estimating has been a blessing to me. I get to do what I’m good at and now I get to work from home. Too bad the field does not seem to be attracting young people. On the other hand it may be a matter of time where AI can do it better and faster. Thanks again for bringing attention to my vocation.

[miketheprintman]

Great video, Dan. I’ve been working on simplifying pricing doing the same thing with price sheets. Makes things so much easier. Appreciate the great content.

[ryananthony]

I like your motivation perspective, good work That's the way I was raised; "u learn to like it" or "make yourself like it".... It truly is all in your head, and that's probably why I always ended up in manager positions and why I've had my own business for 10 years... And I truly do love what I do!

[BenediktFoit]

Thanks for taking the time to show us your work and sharing your process and thinking. Helpful and inspiring.

[elncalls]

Been using PrintSmith for over 25 years. Seriously has been become an art form to estimate jobs. I have spreadsheets that cover hard cost/profit numbers as well and just can’t stop using them in conjunction. What I like about having a dedicated MIS is that I can adjust everything across the board cost associated based upon the ever changing supply cost. Consistency is key when it comes to estimating.

[khalidmurii]

Long experience makes a really good estimator

Love to watch your videos
Always learning something new

A big thumb up 👍👍👍👍👍 for you Dan
Wish you the best

[cloakcity]

Great video Dan, I may check out the price sheets on Patreon.
I appreciate the funky beats too!

[MrEklips]

Great video as always Dan!

Im still waiting for some explain about expert adjustment for C1070/C3070. Greetings from Poland :)

[philanderson]

I refer to your spreadsheets on patreon. I also use a estimating program called Franklin Estimator. It allows me to input all my paper sizes and weights. The cost I pay and the markup I want to add. I can use this for digital and my offset printing.

[Max-lxgv]

Dan, thank you for giving a peak behind the scenes and how things are done. I came across your video searching for print estimating and while watching noticed you used a mix of manual notes and calculations on a spreadsheet.

Unless it's too late. As one who sets companies up with a small print estimating system titled ePRO MIS. I'd like to offer you the software to review and if useful - translate your spreadsheet data into the system to save you time thinking and preparing quotes in the future?

Max
The Printers Apprentice

[JeroenSteen]

How do you calculate price of a click when out of contract on a laserprinter? How do you charge/handle different toner coverages per printed page? I'm trying to understand the consumable yields that for example Xerox gives per toner, drums and fuser et cetera. They base it on 5 percentage of toner coverage, but it can go up higher. The total toner coverage of all colors is maximum 300% I understand.

[bradtipton]

Hello, Jeffery, My name is Brad, I am a (now retired) third generation printer, and the first in the family to work in the office production planning, estimating, customer service and billing. My background includes a BS degree in Printing Management from Rochester Institute of Technology, I worked for small to very large printers in everything from "job shop" to high end soft and hard cover book printing and binding, totaling 6 companies over a span of over 40 years.
Competition for sales in our New York City market area generated a very high volume of estimates, especially difficult to meet for book printing estimators. Three of the book printers I worked for offered to subscribe to what I call "CANNED PROGRAMS" that did not lend themselves to many of the variations required for projects and were very unwieldy. The last printer I worked for gave me the "go ahead" to design my own program. I realized that normal computer programmers would not work out because of their thought processes. Therefor I chose the "Lotus 123" spreadsheet to design and write my own program. It took me months of working on it part time, when time was available. I finally came up with a working single component program. Then I added layers and tied them together for calculating costs for each component of a book (text, cover, inserts, etc.) and integrate them. The program was designed to be run by an experienced estimator. Changes made by customers (paper weight or type, number of colors, quantity, etc.) were easily input and the price re-calculated. I oriented production planners to make some of the most basic changes. They could then confidently recalculate job prices right away for the customer. Furthermore, my system would print out "job tickets or job jackets" that traveled with the job with instructions, specifications, ink colors, paper types and sizes, paper allowed per form and expected good sheets to be produced. Every operation to product a job was covered. These job jackets are in exactly the same order and format as the manually written jackets that the production operators were used to. The job jackets were printed out on the large envelope by an ink jet printer.
My program was very successful, and I received a lot of compliments from those who had to deal with customer service and production planning, not to mention the VP of Manufacturing. (He arranged for the company to give me a large bonus for my success.) Perhaps the most meaningful compliment came from a new customer service person on his second day at work. Without any training he recognized all the logic in the program and was able to work with it. He and I had worked together years earlier, so he understood how I thought my way through estimates.
Alas, the VP of Manufacturing retired and was replaced. The new VP wanted to have people of his own choosing working for him in positions like estimating, so he "let me go". The replacement he hired he recruited from a company that only printed process color, rarely magazines and never books. The "new guy" hated my program and replaced it with his favorite "canned program". I had stayed in touch with some of my former co-workers who informed me that the latest change was not working too efficiently. They had to go back to handwriting job jackets and could not re-estimate minor changes without sending the project back to estimating. I can imagine the issues from time delays due to this and what it did to "customer satisfaction".
When I left, I took a copy of the program with me on a disc. After 20 years I do not know if I could find it to give to you.

[deraglane]

I am from Ethiopian. I work in the printing industries for many years.
I am very much interested in learning from you and agreed terms and conditions including the monthly payment. But please advise me how to pay the monthly bills.
Look forward your reply
Dera Gelan,
Marking Manager,
Continental Printers plc

[miroslavdunik]

Another excellent video, Dan. I can see the prices of sheets in US are so low.

[michaelduke]

I'm a little late to the party here but, you would be so happy working as an estimator in a large commercial printer. It's kinda like a bean counter on steroids with large printers.

[RahulAntala]

Hi Dan,

I would like to connect and share how you can automate estimation price + automating print order management you save effort and time.

[mazayaadve]

Finally I noticed a Ricoh MF printer in your office and I'd like to ask you about Ricoh ( Pro ) as a production machines comparing to Konica Minolta

[bumzilla]

Love being a printer but the day can go from great to bad many times an hour haha...it’s us vs the machines some days