Print Industry Overview -Offset and Digital Printing

Every printing process has its place. It is a tool, and every tool must be right for the job.

Using a car analogy, here is our Offset Printing:

and here is our digital printing:

Say you have them both.

Which one would you take to a grocery store?

Which one would you take on the interstate?
 

Deciding which printing method to use will depend on a LOT of factors.

Here is a simplified graph showing the “cost per printed page” comparison between offset (in blue), and digital toner (in brown)

As you see, offset cost per page drops as the run length increases, while digital one remain pretty much the same.

Biggest factors here are

- hourly rate on the offset press and “click” charges on our digital presses
- press speeds

A "crossover" quantity point is when we should consider switching.
 

However, there are other factors beyond the "cost per page" we should consider:

- customer’s image quality expectation
- do images vary with every printed sheet - or do they stay the same?
- stock / substrate costs and availability
- available press capacity (how many other jobs are scheduled already?)
- post-press finishing considerations
- delivery deadlines (can the project be split, for example, into multiple runs?)
- company owner’s mood (kidding… not...)

To juggle between all these factors, companies employ estimators, coordinators and planners :)