Tools
Reprint cost calculator
Reruns cost more than the paper. Enter four numbers from your own shop and see an estimate of what expectation-driven reprints cost you each month and each year — materials and lost hours together.
Why the number is usually bigger than expected
Most reprints are expectation errors, not press errors
When a shop tallies reruns, the material cost is the part that gets counted, because it lands on a docket. The rest hides: the prepress operator who reworks the file, the scheduler who pulls a paying job to make room, the account manager who spends an afternoon rebuilding a relationship, and the press time that was sold once and delivered twice.
A large share of those reruns start at the same place — the approval. The customer looked at a flat PDF, pictured the finished product in their head, and the two did not match. The artwork was correct. The expectation was not.
This is the gap ProofScene is built for. Instead of asking a customer to imagine the folded carton, the foiled card or the label on the curve of a bottle, a 3D print proof shows it to them: the real form, the real material, the real finishes, rotating under realistic lighting in a browser. A customer who has turned the product over before you print is far less likely to be surprised when it arrives — and the sign-off you capture records what they actually saw.
It is worth being straight about the limits, too: a 3D proof represents appearance, placement, materials and finishing. It is not a calibrated contract-color proof unless your workflow includes formal color management. Reruns caused by color tolerance are a different conversation from reruns caused by surprise.
Reprint costs, answered
How does this calculator work?
It multiplies your reprints per month by your direct cost per reprint to get a material figure, then multiplies reprints by hours lost by your loaded hourly rate to get a time figure. The two are added for a monthly total, and the monthly total is multiplied by twelve for an annual view. Nothing more clever than that — the value is in seeing both halves at once.
Why does it ask for hours as well as cost?
Because the invoice cost of a rerun is usually the smaller half. Prepress rework, rescheduling a press, chasing an approval a second time and handling an unhappy customer all consume paid hours that never appear on a materials docket.
What counts as a reprint?
For this tool, any job you run again at your own cost because the delivered result did not match what the customer expected or approved. Reruns caused by a customer-ordered change after sign-off are a different problem — those are usually billable.
Is the result a prediction of what I will save?
No. It is an estimate of what your current reruns cost, using figures you supply. It does not predict a saving, because how much of that figure is avoidable depends on why your reprints happen, what you change, and how your customers review proofs.
Do you store the numbers I enter?
No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent to ProofScene and nothing is saved.
What actually reduces expectation-driven reprints?
Anything that closes the gap between what the customer imagined and what the press produces: a proof that shows the finished form rather than a flat page, an explicit specification of finishes and materials, and a documented sign-off that records exactly what was agreed. Our guide on how artwork approval prevents reprints goes through this in detail.
Next: run the proof approval checklist before your next press run, or read how artwork approval prevents reprints.
Early access
Fewer surprises start at the proof
ProofScene is opening early access to print shops and product suppliers. Join the list and be first to turn your proof sheets into interactive 3D approvals.
No credit card · Built by print people · Launching soon