Offset & Stationery Printing
Offset Printing
Not a product, a process — the technology behind our large-quantity print runs, where cost per piece drops sharply the more you order.
Offset is the traditional printing process where the image is transferred, or "offset", from a plate onto a rubber blanket and then onto paper, rather than printed directly the way digital printing does. It needs plates made before a single sheet is printed, which is why there's a setup cost regardless of quantity — but once that's done, the cost per piece drops sharply as the run gets larger, the opposite of digital printing, where cost per piece stays roughly flat.
This makes offset the right call for large-quantity jobs — bulk pamphlets, letterheads, envelopes, packaging, anything ordered in the thousands — and the wrong call for a run of fifty, where the plate setup cost alone would make it more expensive than just printing digitally. Colour consistency is also genuinely better with offset for large runs, since Pantone spot colours can be mixed and matched precisely in a way digital printing approximates rather than replicates exactly.
We'll tell you honestly which process your job needs based on quantity — a lot of people ask for "offset printing" by name because it sounds more professional, when what actually fits their order size is digital, and there's no reason to pay the setup cost for a small run.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the specific job and paper, but generally the crossover point is somewhere in the low thousands — below that, digital printing is usually cheaper once you account for the plate setup cost. We'll tell you where that line sits for your order.