Introducing Set Up Fees
Hello out there!
I figured now would be a good time to talk about our new setup fee, coming into effect Oct 1, 2021.
First, some background and history:
All files need at least some tweaking, even files coming from our favorite label designers.
Things that need attention include:
adding cut-lines
adjusting colors (i.e. color matching)
ensuring the file is ready for our printer’s RIP. (raster image processor) (Begin here for your RIP rabbit hole)
Some files need more prep than others, depending on the colors being used and how the file was built. All of this takes time, effort, and expertise, that we haven’t been charging for up until now. Having some sort of setup fee is a printing industry standard. If a printer doesn’t have an explicit setup fee, they will almost certainly have minimum runs -- which means the setup costs are just built-in. The minimum cost for print run length covers the time needed to set up the files.
I will start adding the full set up fee when I send my preliminary estimates.
We are implementing our setup fee with a bit of a sliding scale:
For “common” artwork (e.g. Horseshoe, JACK, etc.) without a lot of customization or modification, the setup fee may be waived by me, at the time of estimate.
For simple re-prints, even of custom work (e.g. adding another barrel’s worth of labels from artwork we’ve printed for you previously) the setup fee will usually be waived by me at estimate.
For orders with a high number of denominations or styles and/or lower quantities of labels for each style, the setup fee will be on the estimate and Chris will likely quote said fee, in full.
Custom designs from your favorite designers land somewhere in between those two extremes. The charge will depend on colors and complexity of any given design. The initial estimate at time of order might have the full setup fee, but the final quote after working on the files may have a reduced amount, based on the amount of work we had to put into the file to make it print-ready.
The discount or waiving of this fee is up to Chris when he sends you your official quote. He knows how much work needs to be done to make the file ready to print, so he makes the decision for the sliding scale. If your order isn’t a black-or-white situation, there isn’t a way for us to pinpoint the actual cost until we work on the file. In the future, we hope to hone this once we see job-patterns emerge, but for now most jobs will have the full set up fee in the estimate.
An important note:
DO NOT bug your designer to try and build their files to reduce this fee.
DO NOT try to tell them how to do their work!