From One Print Brief to Five Comparable Quotes Without a Single Phone Call

You've got a job to price up, the client wants a number by end of play, and you're staring down a list of ten printers who all need ringing, emailing, and chasing. There's a better way to run this — and it doesn't involve a headset.

Why phoning round is quietly costing you money

Ringing printers one by one feels productive, but it isn't. Every call is a fresh explanation of the same spec, a fresh voicemail, a fresh promise that "someone will come back to you this afternoon." By the time three quotes trickle in, you've already burned half a day and you still don't know if you've asked the right suppliers.

The deeper problem is that phone quotes are hard to compare. One printer quotes on 130gsm silk, another assumes 150gsm, a third throws in delivery and the fourth doesn't. You end up rebuilding a spreadsheet from scraps of notes just to work out who's actually cheapest.

What buyers actually want from the quoting process

Strip it back and most print buyers — whether that's a marketing agency pricing a client campaign or an individual ordering wedding stationery — want the same three things:

• Several quotes that are directly comparable, on the same spec
• A clear sense of which suppliers can actually do the job (not just say they can)
• All of it done in hours, not days

A well-written RFQ posted to a marketplace does all three at once.

Writing an RFQ that pulls five real quotes

The difference between an RFQ that gets one lazy response and one that gets five sharp ones is almost entirely down to how you write it. Printers quote fast when they have every number they need and slow when they have to guess.

Here's the skeleton that works:

1. Product — e.g. "A5 folded leaflet, 8pp, saddle-stitched" or "business cards, 85 × 55mm."
2. Quantity — give a firm figure plus one or two run-on options (500 / 1,000 / 2,500). Printers love this because it lets them show where the price breaks are.
3. Stock — GSM, finish (silk, uncoated, gloss), and any specifics (recycled, FSC, coloured board).
4. Print — CMYK both sides, or 1+0, or CMYK plus a Pantone. Say if you need a spot colour matched.
5. Finishing — trimming, folding, creasing, lamination, foiling, die-cutting. Be specific.
6. Artwork status — print-ready PDF with 3mm bleed, or do you need artwork checked first?
7. Delivery — postcode, single drop or multi-drop, deadline.
8. Budget or target price — optional, but it filters out the wildly out-of-scope suppliers fast.

Get those eight things right and any competent trade printer can quote you inside an hour.

The bits people forget (that kill comparability)

Even experienced buyers leave gaps that make quotes hard to line up. Watch for:

• Not stating whether delivery is included
• Vague quantities ("around 1,000") that let printers cherry-pick a favourable break
• No deadline, so quotes come back based on different lead times and different prices
• Forgetting to mention Pantone specials or unusual stocks until after the quote lands

Fix those and your five quotes will land on the same page, literally.

Posting once vs. ringing ten times

This is where a marketplace changes the maths. On ZeozGig you write the RFQ once, post it for a flat $1, and it goes out to printers and finishers who actively work in that category. Digital short-run specialists see the digital jobs. Litho houses see the long-run book work. Wide-format shops see the exhibition graphics. You don't have to know who's who — the platform routes it.

Because suppliers respond in the same thread, the quotes come back in a format you can actually compare side by side. When one looks promising, you open a direct connection with that printer for a fixed $5 — no commission on the job, no percentage skimmed off the top, no monthly subscription lurking in the background. If the RFQ gets zero responses (rare, but it happens with very niche briefs), your posting fee is refunded automatically.

What this looks like in practice

A typical afternoon on the platform:

• 14:02 — You post an RFQ for 2,000 A4 8pp brochures, 170gsm silk, matt lam cover, delivered to Manchester by Friday.
• 14:19 — First quote lands from a litho house.
• 14:47 — Three more quotes are in, one flagging that 150gsm would save you ~12% with almost no visible difference.
• 15:30 — Fifth quote arrives from a local digital printer offering a faster turnaround at a slight premium.
• 15:35 — You open a direct chat with your preferred supplier, confirm artwork specs, and the job's away.

Total time on the phone: zero. Total spend on the marketplace: $6. Total commission on the deal itself: also zero.

When phoning still makes sense

Honest caveat: sometimes you do want to talk. A very complex packaging job with unusual die-cutting, a rush job that needs a human sanity-check, or a long-standing relationship where a five-minute call gets things moving. The point isn't to abolish the phone — it's to stop using it as the default way to gather quotes. Use RFQs to shortlist, then use voice or video (there's a $0.50 / $1 fixed fee for those if you want them through the platform) for the conversations that actually need a human on the line.

Give your afternoon back

If you're still ringing round for quotes on jobs a marketplace could price in an hour, you're paying for it in time even if nobody's sending you an invoice. Post your next RFQ on ZeozGig, let the printers come to you, and keep 100% of your margin when the job lands.

Ready to try it? Post a request with your next print brief, or if you're a printer or finisher, list your capabilities and start quoting on live jobs today.