Business professionals, nonprofit organizations, students, and anyone with many day-to-day tasks, need to keep track of their responsibilities. That’s why many take advantage of a printed planner to successfully organize appointments, prioritize essential tasks, jot down notes, and more.

Planners aren’t just useful tools for planning out a busy day either. Like promotional calendars, they’re also extremely effective marketing tools.

Whether you give clients and prospects a branded planner they can use daily, or you provide your employees with a custom planner to use when meeting with clients, custom-branded planners provide your business with a lot of brand exposure.

Before you take advantage of a custom printed planner, you’ll need to figure out how much it will cost.

How Much Does It Cost to Print a Planner?

When printing planners, there are a few things to consider when calculating the costs. First, you’ll need to figure out your budget and goals. This will help you choose the best options for you when it comes to page count, the size of your planner, the right binding method, and more so that you can get the price you’re looking for.

Also, it’s important to consider whether you will print your planners yourself or have a professional printer produce high-quality planners for you. Both options will also affect the price to print your planners.

Let’s take a look at what goes into calculating the cost to print planners when printing them yourself or when having a commercial printer print them for you.

High-Quality Planners: Commercial Planner Printing Costs

Quantity – How Many Planners Do You Need?

Generally speaking, the more planners you order, the more the price will go up. For example, 100 custom planners are going to be more expensive than 5 custom planners.

However, when printing your planners with a commercial printer, there are amazing cost savings per planner when you order more compared to printing a large number of planners yourself.

For instance, say you were looking to print 5 72-page 5.5” x 8.5” planners. Depending on your paper selection, binding, turnaround time, and who the company is who is printing your planners, each planner could cost around $20-$40. If you were to print 100, the cost could be around only $5-$15 per planner.

Paper Selection – How Do You Want Your Planners to Feel?

Lighter-in-weight paper, or thinner paper, like 100#, 80#, or 70# text-weight paper will always be your cheapest option. However, you need to consider a few things including durability, and writability.

Because planners are designed to be written in, you want to make sure you choose a thick enough paper so that there is no bleed-through. So, it’s recommended to choose a 100# or 80# text-weight paper rather than a 70# for your planner which will only increase the price by a few dollars.

You also need to choose a paper that will not cause smudging when writing in your planner. To avoid smudging, it’s recommended to choose a velvet text or uncoated text rather than a gloss text.

Another thing to consider is the paper you choose for your planner cover. While a self-cover planner (the cover is the same paper type as the inside pages) will be the cheapest option, it’s important to remember that your planners will be used daily so opting for a thicker cover like a 100# or 80# cover paper, will increase your planner's durability. Opting for a thicker paper for your planner cover is only a small extra cost as well.

When selecting your paper type for your planner, if you’re looking to get the best price possible, make sure to choose one of your printer’s house stocks rather than requesting a specialty paper.

House stocks, like “Conquest Preferred” stock will always be cheaper since your printer orders these paper types in bulk and always has them on hand and they are easier to print projects alongside other customers' projects, saving your printer time and resources.

Turnaround Time – When Do You Need Your Planners?

Turnaround time is the time it takes to print your planners. And like ordering anything online, the sooner you need your planners, the higher the price will be.

For example, if you were looking to print 100 planners, and need them to be completed in 4 days, the cost to print your planners could be around $60 more than if you need your planners printed in 7 days.

To save money on printing your planners, it’s important to plan ahead so you can give your printer more time.

Coating for Your Planners

Adding a coating to your planner will increase the printing price. However, choosing a coating for the cover will better protect your planner booklet from day-to-day use.

If you choose to add a coating to the inside pages of your planner, it’s ideal to avoid a gloss coating as this will increase the chances of smudging when writing in it.

For the cover of your planner, if there is no need for your planner recipients to write on it, you can choose from a gloss or matte coating. However, it’s important to note that yes, no coating will be cheaper, but also, a UV gloss or matte coating will be cheaper than an aqueous coating since UV coatings take less time and resources to apply.

Size – How Large or Small Will Your Planners Be?

The larger your planner is, the more paper it requires, which translates to higher costs.

For example, if you were printing 100 60-page 5.5” x 8.5” planners, the price would be around $300-$400 cheaper than if you were to print 100 60-page 8.5” x 11” planners.

Because the size of your planners heavily influences the printing costs, it’s important to carefully consider your goals and budget for your planner. If a smaller planner isn’t suitable for the design of your planner, but a larger planner doesn’t work within your budget, then you may need to decrease page count, change your paper type, or choose a longer turnaround time, to better accommodate your budget.

Page Count for Your Planners

Just like the size of your planners, the more pages your planner requires, the more paper it will need which will influence the cost to print planners.

For example, if you were looking to print 250 28-page 6” x 9” planners to ensure there was a front and back for each month, but then decided to add 8 more pages to include extra pages for notes, goal setting, etc., the price would increase around $100-$200.

Binding Options and Their Influence on The Cost to Print Planners

There are several planner binding options to choose from and each method will impact the final planner printing costs differently.

The cheapest planner binding method is saddle stitching. Saddle stitched planners are created when pages are laid on top of each other and then folded in nested order. Staples are then stitched on the “spine” of the folded planner.

Other binding options for your planners may require a custom quote and will be more expensive, however, depending on your goals for your planners, it may be worth the extra cost.

Perfect binding is the more expensive planner binding option as it requires extra work and resources to bind your planner pages together. The upside to perfect binding, however, is that it creates a very professional, easy-to-stack planner and it creates a flat or squared off spine where you can print the year or other elements on.

Spiral binding is a very common binding method for planners, and it uses a plastic coil that weaves into holes along the edge of the pages of your planner to connect each page together. Spiral binding is also more expensive than saddle stitching.

Wire-o binding is also a common and more expensive planner binding method. This option uses a wire comb that gets clamped together through holes along the spine of your stacked planner pages.

You can also opt to add hole drilling to your planner pages. This will create 3 holes along the edge of each page so your planner pages can be inserted into a binder. While the hole drilling process is very cheap, (adding only around $10-$30 to the total cost) it does require that you purchase binders.

Overall, saddle-stitched planners will be your cheapest planner printing option, however, make sure to also choose the right option for your goals.

Advantages and Disadvantages of High-Quality Planners

Advantages:

• Vibrant, precise, and consistent colors throughout your custom planner booklet 
• Multiple size options
• It saves you a lot of time as your printer handles everything
• Much cheaper for large quantities
• Quality paper options that will not result in bleed through or smudging when writing in the planner
• You’re only paying for the resources used to print your planners
• Protective coating options in matte or gloss
• Inventory options for storing the planners you don’t need right away
• Professionals who have been specifically trained in the process to produce planners are handling and assembling your planner booklets
• You receive a proof to see how your planners will look before they are printed to ensure your design and colors are perfect
• You have access to a team of experts who can help you choose the right options for you
• Your printer will typically offer a free booklet planner design template

Disadvantages:

• Small quantities can be costly
• You will need to have your planners picked up if your commercial printer is local or have them shipped to you

Planner Printing Price Calculator

DIY Planners: The Cost to Print Your Planners Yourself

The Cost of Ink

When it comes to DIY planners, ink has a huge effect on the end cost.

The standard at home or office ink cartridge (used with ink-jet printers) will print around 200 to 300 pages while the average toner cartridge (used with laser printers) will print around 2,000 to 12,000 pages depending on the capacity of your cartridge.

This is important because complete ink cartridges (contains cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) are around $50-$300 and toner cartridges are around $100-$900 depending on your printer and the capacity of the cartridge you purchase. So, if you’re printing multiple planners, that will require multiple cartridges, and the cost can become extremely steep for a DIY planner.

Printer Paper

The cost for printer paper is determined by the size, weight, coating, color, and more. Depending on the paper you choose, just 1 reem (500 sheets of paper) could cost anywhere from $5-$40 and beyond.

So, you need to account for how many pages you will need and if you want certain pages, like the cover of your planner to be thicker than the inside pages to determine how much paper would cost when making a DIY planner.

Also, if you want to better protect your planner, you’ll want to consider laminating your front and back cover which will require you to either purchase a laminator which you need to account for the cost of the machine and the laminating sheets. Or you could also go to a office store and have them laminate your pages for you which depending on the size of your planner may cost $1-$5 per page.

Assembling Your Planners

Depending on how many DIY planners you’re printing, you need to account for the time it will take to assemble your planners as well as the cost of the materials.

The most common DIY planner binding options are using a binder or using a spiral or comb spine. When using a binder, you’ll need to purchase the binder and use a 3-hole punch on each of your planner pages. For a spiral or comb spine, you’ll need a special hole puncher as well as the spiral binding coils or combs. This can all become very pricey and time-consuming.

Advantages and Disadvantages of DIY Planners

Advantages:

• Ideal for printing 1 personal use planner and when brand exposure isn’t a concern
• Ideal for a handcrafted product you’re selling
• Great option for a handmade gift

Disadvantages:

• Time consuming
• The quality of a DIY planner will not be as good as having a professional print them for you
• Need to purchase a printer if you don’t already have one
• Ink and toner cartridges are extremely expensive
• The price for all planner materials and machinery is pricey
• Precise color matching is difficult especially as ink cartridges empty
• You need to assemble each planner yourself and if you’re not familiar with the process, it could decrease the quality of your planner
• Can only print certain sized planners based on how large your printer is
• If your planner pages are smaller than the standard printer paper, you’ll need to trim each page which will result in wasted paper that may not be recycled
• You need to store your materials resulting in wasted space

Conclusion:

Whether you’re the marketer for a bank and are looking to give clients a branded financial planner, you’re a travel agent wanting to provide clients with a custom travel planner, or a fitness trainer looking to give your customers a branded health and fitness planner, custom printed planner booklets are an amazing marketing tool for all industries.

At the end of the day, a DIY planner is only the best option if you’re printing a single planner for personal use, if you’re making a homemade gift, or are selling them as handcrafted planners.

Otherwise, using a commercial printer to print your custom planners will result in you saving time and money and you’ll be guaranteed a professional and high-quality planner. The cost to print planners could cost anywhere from $10-$1,000 and beyond when printing with a commercial printer and depending on all the factors listed above including quantity, paper, size, page count, and more.

If you’re interested in printing high-quality planner booklets, head over to our booklet page where we have numerous sizes, paper options, coatings and more for you to create the perfect planner. Our instant quoting tool will also help you gain a better idea of how much it will cost you to print planners when taking advantage of a commercial printer.

Planner Printing Price Calculator