How Much Does Brochure Printing Cost in Scotland? An Honest Price Guide

Quick answer: At Print Studio Scotland, a short run of 25 A5 brochures starts at £65. 100 copies of a typical 16-page A4 company brochure cost £185, and 500 copies of a 24-page A4 brochure on 170gsm cost £650. Brochures are zero-rated for VAT in the UK, so there's no VAT on the print itself. What you actually pay depends on five things: quantity, page count, binding, paper and turnaround. This guide explains each one, with real prices from our own price list.

Most printers don't like talking about price until they've got you on the phone. We would rather you had the full picture before you ever speak to us: what brochures really cost, what makes the price go up or down, why some online printers can be cheaper, and when they might be the better choice for you.

Real Brochure Prices: What You'll Actually Pay

These are our standard prices for saddle stitched (stapled) brochures, taken directly from our website. Brochures are zero-rated for VAT, so the print price is the price.

For longer documents, wire bound A5 brochures start at £100 and perfect bound A5 brochures start at £220, both for 36 pages. You can price any combination instantly on our brochure pages.

The Five Things That Decide the Price

1. Quantity (by far the biggest factor)

Every print job has a fixed amount of set-up work: checking your files, preparing the press, calibrating colour, setting up the finishing equipment. That work costs the same whether we print 25 copies or 1,000. Spread across more copies, the cost of each one falls dramatically.

That's a 90% drop in unit price between 25 and 1,000 copies. But here's the honest bit: the cheapest brochure per copy is not always the best value. If 400 of your 1,000 brochures end up in a recycling bin when your prices change next spring, you haven't saved anything. Because we print digitally, short runs are genuinely economical, and ordering what you'll actually use and reprinting when you need to is often the smarter choice.

2. Page count

Brochures always work in multiples of four pages, because each sheet folds to make four pages (our page count guide explains why). Every extra four pages adds paper, print time and finishing. As a rough guide, on 100 copies of an A4 stitched brochure, each extra four pages adds around £30:

• 8 pages: £125
• 16 pages: £185
• 24 pages: £245
• 32 pages: £305
• 48 pages: £425

If your brochure lands at 20 pages with one page of content spilling over, it's worth asking whether it could tighten to 16. That's typically a saving of 10–15%.

3. Binding

Once you pass about 48 pages, you'll need a different binding, and that's where prices step up. Here's the same A5, 48-page brochure at 100 copies across all three bindings:

Saddle stitching and wire binding are done in-house here in Paisley. Perfect binding is specialist work that we pass to a trusted finishing partner: sometimes we print in-house and send the sheets out for binding, sometimes the whole job goes to our partner. That's why it takes a little longer and costs more. We'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. Our binding comparison guide will help you choose.

4. Paper

Paper affects the price less than most people expect. Moving from 150gsm to 170gsm, or adding a heavier 250gsm cover, typically adds only around 5%. Our 100% recycled range starts at £90 for A4 compared with £85 for standard silk.

That's why we'll often recommend spending a little more here. A heavier cover changes how a brochure feels the moment someone picks it up, and it costs very little. Our paper stock guide covers every option.

5. Turnaround

Our standard turnarounds are 2–3 working days for stitched brochures, 3–5 for wire bound and 5–7 for perfect bound. If you need it sooner, our express service is charged at 15% on top, when it's possible for us to do it.

Why charge for speed? Because it costs us real money: we have to reshuffle our production schedule, bring staff in on overtime and, on higher volumes, sometimes switch a job from litho to digital to hit the date. We'd rather charge fairly for that than build a hidden premium into every quote. And we'll always tell you honestly if a deadline can't be met, rather than say yes and hope.

What's Included (and What Isn't)

A low headline price means nothing if the extras pile up later. Here's exactly what you get as standard and what costs extra.

Included in every order, free

• Pre-flight artwork check: a person checks every file before it goes to print.
• RGB to CMYK colour conversion, so colours are set up correctly for print.
• Font and image embedding, so nothing goes missing between your screen and our press.
• A digital proof to approve before anything is printed.
• Colour matching to a printed sample, if you ask for it (more on this below).

Costs extra

• Artwork fixes beyond the standard checks: £35 per hour, charged in 15-minute blocks. For example, resizing a file that was supplied at the wrong size typically takes 15 minutes, which is £8.75 + VAT.
• Express turnaround: +15%.
• Delivery: £9.95 + VAT is our standard delivery charge which covers the volumes available on our website. For higher bespoke volumes, this delivery cost will increase and is charged based on genuine delivery costs to us via our chosen Courier partner. ie if your order requires a pallet delivery, this will incur higher delivery charges, but this will be clearly outlined within your bespoke quotation. Free collection from our Paisley studio is also available on any order and we deliver free of charge for local deliveries within Renfrewshire.
• Printed hard-copy proofs: available on some projects. This is especially useful on brochure runs with lots of graphic components, where a physical printed proof gives peace of mind over screen checking. We charge this service based on the materials used and postage cost only.

Artwork time and delivery are standard-rated for VAT at 20%. The printed brochures themselves are zero-rated.

Why Are Online Printers Like Vistaprint and Instantprint Cheaper?

Sometimes they are, and it's a fair question. So here's our honest answer.

Large online printers such as Vistaprint and Instantprint are built for volume. Their prices are low because their whole operation is designed to process enormous numbers of orders with as little human involvement as possible. A common way to do that is gang-run printing: many different customers' jobs are grouped onto the same large press sheet and printed together, then cut apart.

It's an efficient system, and for the right job it works well. But it comes with trade-offs:

• Colour is set for the whole sheet, not your job. When dozens of jobs share one sheet, the press can't be adjusted to get your brand colour exactly right. It's set to a general standard, and everyone's work lands within a tolerance.
• Checks are largely automated. Software can spot a missing bleed. It won't notice that your logo is the wrong shade of blue, or that page 7 has last year's phone number.
• The specification is fixed. You choose from the options on the dropdown, and there's rarely anyone to ask whether a different stock would suit your project better.
• If something goes wrong, you'll usually be dealing with a customer service team rather than the person who printed your job.

A real comparison: us vs Instantprint

Talk is cheap, so here are real numbers. We priced an A5, 12-page saddle stitched brochure with a 250gsm silk cover and 150gsm silk inner pages on Instantprint's website, and put it next to our price for exactly the same specification. Instantprint includes delivery in its prices. Ours is added separately, so we've shown our price both with and without it. Prices checked 28 September 2026.

So what does that tell you? Instantprint is cheaper than us at every quantity once delivery is included, by around £17 at 25 copies up to around £74 at 500 on their standard service. If you can wait a week and price is what matters most, they will save you money, and we won't pretend otherwise.

The gap narrows against their quicker "Faster" service, which is closer to our own turnaround. And if you collect from our Paisley studio or you're local to Renfrewshire, where delivery is free, we're cheaper than their "Faster" service at 25 and 50 copies.

There's also something the table can't show. Instantprint's website gives you a fixed set of paper options. We'll price any combination you like: a silk cover with uncoated inner pages, an uncoated cover with gloss inners, or whatever suits your project. That flexibility is often what makes a brochure feel like it was made for your brand rather than picked from a list.

What the price difference buys you is everything below: a brochure printed as its own job, colour matched to your brand, checked by a person, with someone on the end of the phone who knows your job.

How we print your brochure

We print every brochure as its own job, set up for your artwork and your stock, on our Konica Minolta AccurioPress digital presses here in Paisley.

If colour matters, and for most brands it does, our quotations include a dedicated colour critical section where you tell us whether colour matching is required. If it is, we ask for a previously printed sample and match to it on press. For regular customers, we keep samples on file and match colour as standard, so your brochure this year looks like your brochure last year, and like your business cards, and like your roller banner.

Here's a typical example. Many of our regular clients come to us for business cards, brochures and roller banners ahead of a trade event. Because we already hold printed samples of their corporate colours, we can match to them across all three pieces.

But those three pieces are very different. The business cards are printed on silk card and matt laminated, which adds a slight yellow tone. The brochures aren't laminated at all. And the roller banner is printed using a completely different process, on our Epson and HP wide format machines. Colour can, and will, vary between them. That's simply the nature of different materials and different presses.

What makes the difference is that we print all three in-house. Our print technicians can adjust each job in real time on each press to get as close a match as possible. The result is a set that looks consistent, within reason, rather than three pieces that clearly came from different places, which is what you tend to get when your business cards come from one online supplier and your banners from another.

We'll also be straight with you about the limits. Screens and paper display colour differently, and every RGB and spot colour has to be converted to CMYK for print. That's why we ask for a printed reference rather than promising a perfect match to what you see on your monitor. We explain this in full in our RGB vs CMYK guide.

When We're Not the Right Choice

We'd genuinely rather you got the right brochure than got it from us. So:

• If price is the only thing that matters and you're happy with a standard specification, a large online printer may well be cheaper, and that's a perfectly sensible choice.
• If brand colour doesn't need to be exact and nobody will be comparing it against your other printed material, you may not need the level of care we put in.

But if your brochure is going to be handed over in a meeting, sent to a prospect or sit alongside the rest of your brand, the difference is worth paying for.

Already have a cheaper quote?

Send it to us, and we'll give you an honest answer. We won't get into a haggling war: the prices on our website are set to be fair and consistent from the start, and they're genuinely the best we can offer. What we will always do is look at your budget and tell you what could change to hit it, whether that's a different paper combination, a different page count or a different quantity.

If we can get there, we'll show you how. If we can't, we'll tell you why, rather than blanket discounting to match a price that simply isn't viable for us.

Shopping around locally? Ask these questions

There are several printers in and around Paisley and Glasgow, and many of them do good work. Whoever you're comparing, these are the questions worth asking before you decide. They're the ones that separate a fair price from a false economy.

1. Do you print this in-house, or send it to a trade printer? Many local print shops resell work from large online trade printers. That isn't necessarily a problem, but you should know who's actually printing your job, and whether you're paying a mark-up on a gang-run product.
2. Will a person check my artwork before it prints? Ask what the check covers: bleed, image resolution, RGB to CMYK conversion, embedded fonts.
3. Can you match my brand colours to a printed sample? And will you keep that sample on file for next time?
4. Can I have a printed proof if I need one? And what does it cost?
5. Can I mix papers? For example, a silk cover with uncoated inner pages.
6. Is delivery included, and what's the real turnaround? Is it from approval to production, or to your door?
7. If something's wrong, who do I speak to? The person who printed it, or a ticket system?

We're happy to answer every one of these for our own work, and you'll find most of the answers in this article already. For the bigger picture, our guide to choosing between an online and local printer weighs up both honestly.

Seven Honest Ways to Get More for Your Budget

1. Order what you'll actually use. Short digital runs are economical. Don't buy 1,000 to save 20p each if half will go out of date.
2. Stay under 48 pages if you can. Saddle stitching is the most economical binding and the quickest.
3. Tighten your page count. Dropping from 20 pages to 16 saves more than switching paper ever will.
4. Spend on the cover, not the inners. A 250gsm cover with 150gsm inner pages feels premium for a small increase.
5. Plan ahead. Standard turnaround avoids the 15% express charge.
6. Supply print-ready files. Correct size, with bleed, and no chargeable artwork time. Our brochure artwork guide shows you how.
7. Ask about larger quantities. Above our website maximums, we quote bespoke every day. Depending on volume and specification, we'll either print in-house or use a trusted trade partner, whichever suits the project best, and the unit price usually drops again.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to print 100 brochures?

100 copies of an 8-page A5 brochure cost £95. 100 copies of a 16-page A4 brochure cost £185. For longer brochures, 100 copies of a 48-page A5 cost £245 stitched, £310 wire bound or £390 perfect bound.

Do you charge VAT on brochure printing?

No. Printed brochures are zero-rated for VAT in the UK, so there is no VAT on the print itself. VAT at 20% applies to delivery and any chargeable artwork time.

Is artwork checking included?

Yes. Every order goes through a free pre-flight check, including RGB to CMYK conversion and font and image embedding. Fixes beyond the standard checks, such as resizing incorrectly supplied files, are charged at £35 per hour in 15-minute blocks.

How much does express brochure printing cost?

Express turnaround is charged at 15% on top of the standard price, where it is possible to expedite the job. It covers rescheduling production, staff overtime and, for higher volumes, switching print methods to hit the deadline.

Can you match my brand colours?

Yes. Our quotations include a colour critical option. If colour matching is required, supply a previously printed sample and we'll match to it on our Konica Minolta AccurioPress digital presses. For regular customers, we keep samples on file and match colour as standard.

Why are some online printers cheaper?

Large online printers such as Vistaprint and Instantprint are built for high volume and automation, often grouping many customers' jobs onto one press sheet. That keeps prices low, but colour is set for the whole sheet rather than your job, and checks are largely automated. We print each brochure as its own job with a person checking your files.

Will you match a cheaper quote?

We don't haggle or blanket discount, because our website prices are set to be fair and consistent from the start. But send us any quote and we'll tell you honestly what could change, such as the paper, page count or quantity, to bring your brochure within budget.

What should I ask when comparing local printers?

Ask whether they print in-house or resell work from a trade printer, whether a person checks your artwork, whether they can match your brand colours to a printed sample, whether printed proofs are available, whether you can mix paper stocks, whether delivery is included, and who you speak to if something goes wrong.

Can you print more than 1,000 brochures?

Yes. Larger quantities are quoted as bespoke projects, and we produce them every day, either in-house or with a trusted trade partner depending on volume and specification.

Get a Price for Your Brochure

You can price the most popular specifications instantly on our brochure pages. For anything bespoke, such as larger quantities, different sizes, special papers or finishes, get in touch or call 0141 237 1924. We'll tell you what it costs, what we'd recommend and why.

Curious what happens once you order? Here's the full journey of a print job, from quote to delivery →

Stuart Wilson, founder, Print Studio Scotland – 28 years in print