Clear The Confusion: A Crowdfunding Printer Cost Comparison
- Luis Godoy II
- 3 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Welcome to the Yeti Cave comic creators. I'm Luis and today I’m here to share my findings from my own search for a printer for my comic, This Eternal Coil. I shared my spreadsheet with other creators on the Comic Book Yeti Discord server who found it really useful so I thought I'd share it with the world. I whittled it down to about 10 different options from the hundreds, if not thousands, of printing companies out there including some local to you and some overseas but here are the ones I found that I considered:
I went and used their online quoting systems (included in above links) or requested quotes by email from the above printers and priced at three different unit totals, 100, 300 and 500 which I would imagine are the unit counts the majority of self-publishing or indie creators might order.Â
I also used a standard search of 20 pages plus cover (or 24 pages total), Color, Standard US Size (6.625in x 10.25 in), 100lb cover and 80lb interiors for a bit thicker type of paper. Here are the results of my search:
As of 03/19/25 (including Shipping) | 100 Copies | Total | 300 Copies | Total | 500 Copies | Total | Notes |
Print Ninja | $2.93 | $293.46 | $2.66 | $798.54 | $2.53 | $1,266.15 | w/shipping & tax |
Mixam | $3.77 | $376.88 | $2.87 | $861.18 | $2.63 | $1,313.18 | w/shipping & tax |
Comic Wellspring (Ad Back Cover) | $3.66 | $366.42 | $3.20 | $961.13 | $3.03 | $1,513.60 | w/shipping & tax |
Comic Wellspring (Ad Inside Back Cover) | $3.66 | $366.42 | $3.20 | $961.13 | $3.03 | $1,513.60 | w/shipping & tax |
Comic Wellspring (Ad interior Page) | $3.66 | $366.42 | $3.20 | $961.13 | $3.03 | $1,513.60 | w/shipping & tax |
Comic Wellspring (no AD) | $3.89 | $389.42 | $3.40 | $1,021.13 | $3.22 | $1,608.60 | w/shipping & tax |
Comic Impression | $3.09 | $308.85 | $2.46 | $739.14 | $2.37 | $1,187.40 | w/shipping & tax |
Ka-Blam (no ad) | $4.58 | $458.00 | $4.58 | $1,374.00 | $3.87 | $1,935.00 | w/o shipping or tax |
Ka-Blam (with ad) | $3.89 | $389.00 | $3.89 | $1,167.00 | $3.31 | $1,655.00 | w/o shipping or tax |
RA Comic Direct | $4.47 | $446.77 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | w/o shipping |
$3.55 | $354.51 | $2.49 | $748.34 | $1.98 | $989.06 | w/shipping & tax | |
$3.49 | $349.30 | $2.71* | $677.03* | $2.15 | $1,075.06 | middle is 250 not 300 | |
$4.68 | $467.70 | $3.07 | $921.48 | $2.97 | $1,487.48 | interiors 100lb silk | |
Color Vision Printing | $2.97 | $297.00 | $2.37 | $710.00 | $2.14 | $1,070.00 | w/o shipping or tax |
ONS Printing | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | only orders over 1k |
*priced at 250 copies instead of 300 as their quote didn’t offer custom unit choices.
The spreadsheet is color coded by row, so the darker the red the more expensive that printer is in relation to the others on the list. For example, PrintNinja is the cheapest at 100 copies, Comic Impressions is the cheapest at 300 copies and Printivity.com is the cheapest at 500 copies.Â
Now to add disclaimers, none of these take into account quality control, print or color quality but they do include discounts that these printers have for adding advertising into the book. I also included ONS Printing but they only start at a thousand copies minimum.
On average the discount per copy was $0.89 when going from 100 copies to 500 copies across all these printers but the once that had the biggest decreases at higher copies were Mixam, Printivity, PrintingCenterUSA and Gold image printing each at least $1.14 and up to $1.70 decreased per copy. That is an average of 24.2% for the $0.89 but excluding those bigger discounts, the percentage decrease is only 18.3%.Â
I’m attempting to be as unbiased as possible when writing this but just based on numbers I’m likely to go with Print Ninja, Comic Impressions or Comic Wellspring, I’m a bit wary of the huge decrease from the 500 unit price point from PrintivityUSA and GoldImagePrinting as the price drops about 40% which seems too good to be true.
If you have other printers you’d like me to take a look at let me know and maybe I’ll do a second article.
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