We are a risograph studio in Glasgow. Flat sheet prices by size and quantity, twelve inks on the shelf, and a proof on your desk within three working days.
Two-drum Riso duplicator Soy-based ink A5 to A3 Minimum 50 sheets
Price list
Every number here is what you pay. Master fees, setup and a wrapped parcel to a mainland address are all folded in. Pick the sheet size, pick the run length, read across.
Single pass. One drum, one ink, one side.
| Sheet | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A5 148 × 210 mm · flyers, cards, zine pages | £28 | £38 | £62 | £98 |
| A4 210 × 297 mm · prints, menus, inserts | £36 | £50 | £85 | £140 |
| A3 297 × 420 mm · posters, folded A4 booklets | £58 | £82 | £150 | £255 |
Extra coloursThird and fourth colours add 40% of the two-colour price each. Registration gets looser with every pass, so we will talk you out of four.
Double sidedPrinting the back adds 60% per colour. Backs run after the front has dried overnight, so add a day.
FinishingTrimming to bleed £6 per 100 sheets. Saddle stitching 60p per booklet. Scoring and folding 40p per sheet, minimum £12.
Ink colours
Riso ink is translucent, so two colours printed over each other make a third. Tap any two swatches below and the mixer shows roughly what the overprint will look like on our house paper.
Where the two circles cross is the overprint. It is always darker than either ink, never lighter, and it is the cheapest third colour you will ever buy.
Paper stocks
Risograph needs uncoated, absorbent paper or the ink never dries. These five feed reliably, take two passes without curling, and are all held in stock. Prices are per 100 sheets on top of the print price.
Turnaround
The clock starts when your file passes preflight and you have approved the proof photo. Days are working days, Monday to Friday, and the studio closes for the last week of December.
3working days
Included in the price list. Fronts printed on day one, backs on day two, trimmed and packed on day three.
No surcharge
1working day
Single-sided, one or two colours, house paper only, in by 10am and collected after 4pm the same day.
+ 50% of print price
7working days
Anything stitched or folded. Sheets need a full day to dry before they meet the guillotine and the stapler.
Finishing priced per unit
File preparation
Riso is not a digital press. Each colour is a separate stencil burned from a black and white image, so we need your file split the way the machine thinks. Follow these and preflight passes first time.
Send each ink as its own page or layer in pure greyscale. Black in the file is 100% ink, white is bare paper. Name the layers after the drum: 01-blue.pdf, 02-pink.pdf.
Below 10% the stencil drops out to nothing; above 85% the ink floods and looks the same as solid. A 30% blue over a 30% pink is where the good stuff lives.
Bitmaps at 300 dots per inch at final size. Vector shapes and live text are fine. No screen-colour files, no four-colour process, no spot channels.
Add 3 mm past the trim edge and keep anything important 5 mm inside it. The feed rollers drift a millimetre or two on every sheet.
Colours will not sit exactly on top of each other, and thin outlines that rely on it will look broken. Design so a slip reads as charm, or trap it with a knockout.
The rollers grip the top of the sheet and leave marks in heavy ink there. Keep the short top edge light, or plan for us to trim it.
Two-sided jobs with big solids on both faces will smear because riso ink never fully cures. Keep one side lighter than the other.
A flattened screen image of how you imagine it, with the ink names written on. It is the only way we can check your separations are the right way round.
Honest bit
A risograph is a 1980s stencil duplicator with beautiful ink. It is cheap, fast and vivid, and it is also messy, imprecise and allergic to some kinds of artwork. Read both columns before you send us a job.
Send a job