Catalogue Printing

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At QinPrinting, we pride ourselves on the success of our clients’ catalogues. Let us help you supercharge your catalogue marketing campaign!

A comprehensive consumer survey conducted by the United States Postal Service (USPS) showed that your customers still love the pleasurable, intimate experience of browsing products and reading articles and information in a printed catalogue. Most keep them and share them with friends, family, and colleagues. People want catalogues. They feel more confident buying from them, even if they make the transaction online.

At QinPrinting, we believe your customers deserve a catalogue whose quality lives up to all their expectations of your business; a catalogue that will be a powerful ambassador for your brand and products, boosting customer loyalty, spreading the word, and giving a measurable return on investment. With 25 years of success in the industry, an expert team, state-of-the-art technology, and unrivalled customer service, we’re as proud of our first-class reputation as a publisher of catalogues of distinction as you are of your business success.

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Custom Catalogue Printing Costs

At QinPrinting, we work collaboratively with each client to print fabulous catalogues which do justice to the very best your brand can be whatever your industry, sector, or niche. But we appreciate everyone must work within the constraints of a budget. That’s why we analyze our work protocols and supply chains constantly to make sure we continue to deliver exceptional quality catalogues at the most competitive prices you’ll find anywhere in the world.

So how much does it cost to print a catalogue with us? The exact cost will depend on several variables: size, quantity, paper choices and finishes, binding style, page numbers, and more. But you can get an immediate estimate of how much it will cost to print your product catalogue from our helpful at-a-glance pricing charts. Unlike most offset printing services — which have a minimum print order of 500 or even 1,000 catalogues—we offer a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of just 100 copies—known as a “short run”—and still with a competitive price advantage over digital printing. But as you’ll see from the charts, the more catalogues you order at a time, the lower the cost-per-unit.

Saddle Stitch Catalogue Printing Price Chart (8.5” x 11”)

All prices listed in CAD

Quantity	100pcs		500pcs		1000pcs		2000pcs		5000pcs		10000pcs
Page count	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total
24pp + 4pp	$3.62	$362	$1.01	$507	$0.65	$653	$0.48	$962	$0.40	$2,001	$0.36	$3,596
32pp + 4pp	$4.22	$422	$1.19	$597	$0.76	$763	$0.57	$1,149	$0.48	$2,422	$0.45	$4,458
40pp + 4pp	$5.02	$502	$1.43	$715	$0.93	$928	$0.69	$1,382	$0.58	$2,909	$0.53	$5,282

Please note that all prices are EXW our facility and do not include shipping costs.
Cover: 200 gsm / 74 lb coated cover paper with matte lamination
Interior: 128 gsm / 87 lb coated text paper
Cover and inner: full colour printing

Paperback Catalogue Printing Price Chart (8.5” x 11”)

All prices listed in CAD

Quantity	100pcs		500pcs		1000pcs		2000pcs		5000pcs		10000pcs
Page count	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total	Unit	Total
64pp + 4pp	$7.43	$743	$2.12	$1,059	$1.36	$1,356	$1.04	$2,070	$0.88	$4,379	$0.82	$8,204
96pp + 4pp	$10.24	$1,024	$2.95	$1,473	$1.92	$1,918	$1.47	$2,935	$1.25	$6,227	$1.17	$11,673
200pp + 4pp	$19.49	$1,949	$5.75	$2,876	$3.77	$3,771	$2.90	$5,800	$2.45	$12,235	$2.30	$23,014

Please note that all prices are EXW our facility and do not include shipping costs.
Cover: 250 gsm / 92 lb coated cover paper with matte lamination
Interior: 128 gsm / 87 lb coated text paper
Cover and inner: full colour printing
Sewing and perfect binding

For a more precise, project-specific answer, try our convenient online Printing Cost Calculator. Just go to the form, drop in your specifications, and click for an instant quote! If you have questions, get in touch and one of our enthusiastic, knowledgeable, expert team members — not a robot or a bored call center operator! — will be delighted to help. We pride ourselves on personal service and individually tailored solutions for all the businesses we serve.

We’re confident that we can save you over 40% of the cost of using your local print supplier and still deliver the highest quality product. Our combination of super-efficient modern printing processes, the latest technology, and materials choices tailored to your specific needs enable us to deliver the most streamlined and cost-effective catalogue printing services you’ll find anywhere.

Specialist Wholesale and Broker Catalogue Printing Services

If you’re a wholesaler, print broker, or design company, we can provide you with excellent wholesale catalogue printing services. Our competitive wholesale prices, combined with quality, service, and fast turnaround times—as short as 3 to 5 days—make our offer hard to beat. You can also take advantage of free training with us and a range of paper samples to help you improve the services you offer to your clients. Your success is our success, so we work hard to help you.

Common Printed Catalogue Sizes

The size of your catalogue is entirely up to you, but typically depends on your graphical and photographic content, the text layout, orientation, paper choices and any specialized finishes you may want—such as embossing, debossing, die-cutting, or soft touch lamination, for example. A comprehensive product catalogue published annually, printed in a large format on gloss art paper, with a gold embossed cover design, and running to 500 pages, for example, will cost more than a single-line seasonal catalogue designed to promote a time-limited sale.

At QinPrinting, we’re happy to create custom catalogues in any size or format you wish. Just remember that extensive customization incurs higher costs and slower turnaround times because we need to do a lot more pre-press work and setup. But for certain organizations, the added investment could be worthwhile. It’s always your decision, but most of our clients opt for the standard sizes. They have good reasons, too, other than keeping costs down. You need to consider consumer expectations, storage, handling, distribution costs, and several other factors. You can get an idea of the most cost-effective size for your catalogue. The standard size for most product catalogues is 8.5” by 11” (approximately 210 mm by 297 mm in Europe, the UK, and Australia). But we also print a lot of seasonal or sale catalogues, for example, in the smaller 5.5” by 8.5” (148 mm by 210 mm) which is almost “pocket-sized”.

Catalogue Paper Options

While most catalogues are a mix of images and text, the trend in contemporary catalogue design is toward more photography and less text, linking the physical printed catalogue to online information using scannable QR codes which take the reader to a website, technical specification, or sales page on the web. But in almost all cases, you’ll need to choose paper which will give good photo reproduction and readable text, too. We recommend printing on gloss or matte text paper to get the best results. Gloss and matte both have ideal surfaces for vibrant printing that will reproduce your photographs with faithful colour, perfect contrast, and fine detail. Gloss paper is often best for catalogues with full-colour photo spreads and less text, whereas catalogues with more text may benefit from matte paper. Matte paper will still give gorgeous colour or black-and-white photo reproduction while making the text easier to read even in bright light. The paper you choose to print your catalogue changes how it looks, how durable it is, and the printing and shipping costs. Many catalogues use lighter, uncoated paper for black-and-white interiors and thicker-coated paper for colour interiors.

At QinPrinting we recommend 80 gsm / 54 lb, 105 gsm / 70 lb, 128 gsm / 86 lb, 157 gsm / 106 lb coated paper or 80 gsm / 54 lb, 100 gsm / 68 lb uncoated paper for catalogue interiors as they give a lovely crisp, vibrant finish to your product photographs and make the text easy to read. Choosing catalogue interior paper depends on the size and thickness, too. As a general rule, we recommend thinner paper for the interior, especially if you have hundreds or even over a thousand pages.

If your catalogue is 8.5” x 11” we recommend thicker paper for the interior. For example, 128 gsm / 86 lb, 157 gsm / 106 lb coated paper or 100 gsm / 68 lb uncoated paper. If the catalogue has 32 pages or fewer and you want to use perfect binding, we recommend 200 gsm / 135 lb coated paper to reach the required 3 mm spine width.

You can download a catalogue cover template to check the catalogue spine thickness according to different paper types and page amounts here.

Paper for the cover of your catalogue depends on which binding style you choose. We usually make catalogue covers of heavier, gloss cover paper. Sewn perfect bound is a popular option for high-end catalogues as it looks very professional, protects your interior pages well, and you can open and lay the pages flat, which makes browsing easier. But you can choose from many styles including perfect bound, saddle stitch, wire-o, and even hardcover binding.

Whichever binding you choose, you’ll need at least two paper specifications for your catalogue: one for the interior pages and one for the cover.

Paper Options for Catalogs

Sewn perfect binding—a style which can lay flat with the pages open without breaking the spine—is a popular choice for high-quality catalogue printing. This binding style needs the spine to be at least 3 mm thick. Catalogues with fewer pages might be perfect bound using glue alone or wire-o bound. Hardcover binding is another option, especially for an exclusive, high-end look and feel suitable for luxury goods and when the stock specifications don’t change seasonally or annually. We recommend a paper weight of 157gsm / 106 lb gloss text paper for the interior pages in most cases. It’s beautiful to see and touch, faithfully reproduces your product photography, and holds up well to repeated browsing without damage.

Cover Paper

Interior Paper

Hardcover Paper

Bindings for Catalogues

While catalogues may come in a variety of shapes and sizes, the choice of binding is very important for reasons of both appearance and durability. Let’s look at the most common, professional-looking catalogue binding options. You can open several of the following bindings flat.

Perfect bound

We use this binding style for many catalogues. We collate the interior pages into a block, glued together, and then glued into a wrap-around cover made of heavier art paper or lightweight card stock. For catalogues with a page count ranging from 48 to 200 pages, this is a great option.

Sewn perfect bound

We use this binding style for most catalogues we print. We collate the interior pages into sets called “signatures”, which are then sewn together and fixed into a wrap-around cover made of heavier art paper or lightweight card stock. For catalogues with a higher page count, this is one of the best options.

Saddle-stitching

To saddle stitch your catalogue, we fold the printed interior sheets and stack them inside the cover sheet before stapling them together down the curved edge. Saddle stitch is only possible with a page count divisible by four, up to a maximum of 64 pages. But to make sure the catalogue is neat and lays flat, we recommend a limit of 48 pages or fewer for this style of binding.

Wire-O binding

This binding is another possibility for catalogues, especially useful to sales representatives for its portability, practicality and flexibility. We punch or drill holes into the pages down one side and then bind them with a double metallic coil which runs through the holes. We crimp the coil at both ends so the pages don’t come loose. You can turn the pages of a wire-o bound book through 360° and also lay the open catalogue completely flat. We can laminate the pages to make them extra-resistant to UV light, fingerprints, and spillages.

Loop stitch binding

Another great choice for reps is a loop bound catalogue. It’s similar to a saddle stitch solution but includes two or three loops exterior to the spine so it can be hung up or easily inserted into a ring binder.

Sewn hardcover

In this binding, we organize the interior pages into signatures which are then printed, cut, and sewn, before we glue them into a hard casing covered by a printed sheet which forms the cover. This binding is the most durable and luxury-looking, but we make only a few hardcover catalogues for our most exclusive clients.

If you wish, we can drill holes through the bound catalogue—usually two, three, or five—to facilitate hanging it in a binder. Whichever binding style you choose for your catalogue, we like to make it easy for you to design with one of our ready-made design templates if you wish. And ask us for paper samples. We’ll be happy to drop them to you in the mail. The samples are free, so you only need to pay the mailing charges.

Catalogue Design and Artwork Tips

The quality of photographic reproduction is always important in a catalogue as you need to show off your products to the best advantage. Whether your catalogue has only a few photographs to illustrate a core range or has several detailed images for each product, you want your images and text alike to be impactful and easy on the eye. With that in mind, here are a few useful tips to help you when you’re preparing your files for the printer.

Export your files as vectors in PDF format for the best results. Our recommended software options are Adobe InDesign or Adobe Illustrator. These will also allow you to convert your colour space from RGB to CMYK which you will need to do for offset printing.

If you can’t deliver vectors — say, if you’re exporting bitmaps from Photoshop — then make sure the resolution is at least 300 DPI. With vectors, you needn’t worry about resolution, but all other images must have a high definition to tolerate resizing without becoming fuzzy and “pixilated”.

You’ll need to add a “bleed zone” of 3 mm around all your illustrated pages. A bleed is an extended zone at the periphery of your artwork, which falls outside the area that your final page will cover. Once we print your pages, we’ll cut them to the exact size needed for your catalogue format. This “bit extra” gets cut off and makes sure that the image fills the page with none of it being lost. You should mark bleed zones as red lines.

Inside your bleed zone, don’t forget to mark the “trim lines”. These will define the final dimensions of the finished page. Make sure that any necessary elements of your images stop at least 10 mm short of the trim line.

For a wire-o bound catalogue, leave an added margin of at least 15 mm on the edge that we’ll bind the pages to allow for the holes.

If you’re working with a professional designer to create your files, they should understand what’s needed to make everything “print ready”. But if you’re working with design software yourself for the first time, these are the vital tips to remember before you submit your files. Still, our team of experts will always manually check all your files before we go to press. If we find any issues, we’ll let you know and help you resolve them. We won’t print your catalogue until we’re sure we’ll get a perfect result.

To learn more about preparing your photographs, text, and layout for printing, please check out our Pre-press Artwork information page.

Let’s Talk!

If you’re shouldering the responsibility for your company’s catalogue design and printing—and you’d like to deliver a catalogue of unrivalled quality and at a fantastic price—we should talk. Get in touch today—either by telephone, email, Skype, or our simple contact form—to chat through your needs or to ask for a no-obligation quote. We can’t wait to help you make your next catalogue one that works extra hard to build your brand, excite new customers, and deliver an excellent return on your investment.