what goes into letterpress pricing

A question that frequently comes up is about my price list. Most of my jobs are done essentially for Lizard Press, though I will take commissioned work from time to time and these are the things I need to have to give an effective price for each unique job.

1. Design: [Send pdf if design is done, text and any imagery if design is needed.]
Designers who have not printed letterpress will think that if the design is done, this means it will be a quick and easy job. For printing by a commercial printer, maybe. But for letterpress, most likely not. The best case is to send a pdf of your job and get an estimation of what needs to be adjusted for easy letterpress printing.

2. Quantity: [How many?]
Letterpress is most cost effective with a minimum of 50-100 prints. You may only want 5, but the press set up will be the same as for 500 and the same price.

3. Paper: [Specialty, or house?]
Paper for letterpress needs to be thick to get a nice de-bossed look. Traditional letterpress printer's were schooled to "kiss" the paper, which was a well-trained feat. Contemporary letterpress printers and customers prefer a bite in the page, which distinguishes letterpress from offset. My house paper is Johannot, a fluffy cotton mouldmade paper that is best printed on one side.

4. Size: [Size before folding? Any bleeds (image running off the page)?]
This is the size of the page need to print your image on a letterpress, not the final size. Most presses need about 1/2" extra page area to feed into the press and if the image bleeds off the page, the printable area and paper size will need to be larger.

5. Colors: [Single, 2-color, 3-color? How precise the color match?]
Additional colors will proportionally increase the price, each color on each side needs to be set up and then registered with the previous printed panels (this also adds to paper cost). The inks used in letterpress are essentially offset Pantone® colors, which due to the heavier manual inking process, tend to run a bit dark on the letterpress. A "chocolate brown" will be easier to run than a perfect Pantone® 469. If a precise color is needed, the client will need to be available for the print run.

6. Sides: [Single or double?]
The paper weight will need to be increased if you desire printing on both sides of the page, so the alternate side image does not press through. Double-sided also increases the number of print runs, i.e. 2-color, 2-sided will be 4 print runs, thus it will cost twice as much as 1-color, 2-sided or 2-color, 1-sided.

7. Extras: [Any unusual elements?]
Artwork die-cuts, scoring, folding, hand tearing of paper, envelope printing, any added extras are good to get upfront in the planning so they can be spec'd for the job.

When I have all these questions answered, I can make a good estimate to order the paper, prepare the files for film, burn the polymer plates, order the Pantone® colors, set up the appropriate letterpress, design each panel for printing, register multiple colors, fold as required.

It is a lot of work, but it is well worth it! A custom letterpress printed job will be fantastic with all the planning upfront and can be less exciting if it needs to be fixed along the way.

Here are a couple letterpress print shop pages that can lead you to their pricing...
Paper Source
Bella Figura
Hello Lucky
(keep in mind that these are most likely template jobs, not custom jobs)