How Much Does Giclée Printing Cost in the UK?
What a giclée print costs, what moves the figure, and how print and framing prices stack up. Includes our own starting prices, the point at which pricing switches from a flat figure to an area calculation, and what a cheap giclée is usually cutting.
Print pricing is unusually opaque for something so easy to quote. Most studios either publish a rate card that turns out to have exceptions, or publish nothing and ask you to enquire. Neither helps someone working out whether a print run is affordable before they pick up the phone.
This sets out what we charge, where the figures come from, and the point at which a flat price stops being possible. It also covers the part most cost guides leave out, which is that for a piece going on a wall the framing usually costs more than the print.
The short answer
An A3 or A2 giclée print is around £50 including VAT. Both sizes cost the same, which surprises people until you see why: at that scale you are paying for handling, colour management and machine time rather than for paper and ink, and those do not change between A3 and A2.
Above A2 that stops being true and pricing moves to area and paper. We quote those rather than publishing a rate, for reasons set out below. For a framed piece, expect the framing to be the larger half of the bill.
What you are paying for
A giclée is not a print button. The cost of a single print breaks into four things, and only one of them scales with size.
File assessment and preparation. Checking the file will hold at the size you want, and correcting it if it will not.
Colour management. Soft proofing against a calibrated monitor using the ICC profile built for that specific paper on that specific printer.
Materials. Paper or canvas, and pigment ink. This is the part that scales with area, and above A2 it starts to dominate.
Machine and handling time. Loading the right roll, running the print, drying, trimming and getting it to the next stage undamaged.
On an A3 the first, second and fourth account for nearly all of it. That is why A3 and A2 cost the same and why a print half the size is not half the price.
Our starting prices
| Element | From | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Giclée print, A3 or A2 | around £50 | Same figure for both sizes, because handling and colour management dominate at that scale |
| Giclée print, above A2 | Quoted by area and paper | Up to 1.5 metres wide in a single piece, by the length of the roll |
| Standard framing | around £200 | Moulding, mount and standard glazing |
| Canvas or tray framing | around £250 | For a print stretched onto canvas, varnished and gallery wrapped |
| Museum-grade framing | around £300 for a simple A4 | Acid-free throughout, 99% UV glazing, reversible mounting |
| Box framing | around £350 | Where depth is wanted behind the print |
| Oversized framing | around £500 | Pieces beyond roughly 1.2 metres |
| Minimum order, individuals | £300 | Trade, gallery and edition work is quoted per run with no floor |
Giclée printing and framing starting prices, inclusive of VAT
Those lines add together rather than replacing each other. An A2 print framed to a standard specification is the print plus the framing, so around £250 all in. The same print framed to museum-grade specification is nearer £350. Every figure is a starting point that a specification moves.
Why we do not publish a full rate card
Because above A2 a published number would be wrong often enough to be useless. A square metre of 350gsm cotton rag and a square metre of matt stock are not the same material cost, a print that needs stretching and varnishing is a different job from one that comes off the roll flat, and an edition of thirty carries one setup across thirty prints while a one-off carries it alone.
A rate card that ignored all of that would need so many footnotes that it would stop being a price. We would rather publish the two figures we can stand behind without qualification and quote the rest properly, with a fixed price before anything is printed.
What moves the price
| Driver | Effect | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Size, above A2 | Largest | Past that point you are buying area of paper and volume of ink, and both scale directly |
| Framing specification | Usually larger than the print | Glazing tier and mount quality are the two biggest levers on a framed piece |
| Canvas rather than paper | Moderate to large | Varnishing, a bespoke wooden support, stretching and gallery wrapping are all hand work |
| Paper choice | Moderate | Heavy cotton rag costs materially more per square metre than a matt stock |
| File preparation | Varies, occasionally significant | Photographing an original properly, retouching, or rescuing a marginal file |
| Edition size | Reduces unit cost | One setup and one approved proof carried across the whole run |
| Proofing and test strips | Small, and worth paying | A strip costs a fraction of discovering the wrong paper after printing thirty |
| Certification | Small and fixed | ArtSure edition authentication and signed certificates of authenticity |
Cost drivers on a giclée print, by how much difference each one makes
What does not add cost
Worth saying, because some of these get sold as upgrades elsewhere.
Pigment ink rather than dye. It is what we print with. It is not a tier.
An ICC profile for your chosen paper. Every paper we print on has one, built in house. Charging for colour management would be charging for doing the job.
Being told a file will not hold at the size you asked for. We would rather have that conversation before printing than after.
Acid-free, lignin-free paper. Every fine art stock we print on is both. It is a property of the papers, not an option on top of them.
The two routes, and the minimum order
This is the part worth reading before you enquire, because it is where expectations most often go wrong.
Trade, gallery and edition work is quoted per run and has no minimum. If you are an artist printing an edition or a gallery running numbered work, the run is priced as a run and the per-print figure falls with volume.
For individuals commissioning a one-off, our minimum order value is £300. A £50 print on its own therefore sits below the floor, which in practice means a print is commissioned alongside its framing rather than as a standalone item. We would rather say that here than have you work out a £50 job and then be told the minimum on the phone.
What a cheap giclée is usually cutting
Prints are advertised at a fraction of these figures, and the difference is real rather than a margin. In roughly the order it shows up:
A generic colour profile rather than one built for that paper. This is where most colour disappointment starts, and it costs nothing to skip.
No proof before the run. Fine on a single print, expensive on an edition.
A coated wood-pulp stock described as fine art paper. Lignin in the sheet yellows it from the inside over years.
Dye ink rather than pigment, which is the difference between a print that holds for decades and one that visibly shifts.
Nobody looking at the file before it prints, so a soft enlargement gets printed soft.
None of that makes a cheap print the wrong choice for everything. For a poster for a spare room it is exactly the right choice. It is the wrong choice for an edition you intend to sell, and our guide to how long giclée prints last sets out what that costs you over time.
Budgeting an edition run
For artists pricing an edition, the useful figure is not the cost of one print but the cost of the run divided by the number you expect to sell. Setup, proofing and profile work happen once. Materials and machine time repeat. So an edition of thirty carries a materially lower unit cost than an edition of five, and the gap is widest at small sizes where setup dominates.
Three things worth deciding before you ask for a quote: the edition size, whether prints are being made as a batch now or on demand later, and whether you want certification. Printing as a batch against one approved proof is what keeps the thirtieth print matching the first, and it is cheaper than reprinting piecemeal.
How we quote
Send us the file, or a photograph of the original if it has not been captured yet, and tell us the finished size, whether it is going on paper or canvas, and how many you need. We will tell you what the file will hold at that size, which two or three papers are worth proofing, and what the run costs as a fixed price before anything is printed.
If it is being framed as well, tell us where it is going to hang and how much light that wall gets, because that decides the glazing tier and the glazing is the larger part of a framing decision. Our giclée printing service covers papers and sizes, our guide to giclée papers covers the stocks, and our guide to museum-grade framing cost covers the upper framing tier if the piece warrants it.
Frequently Asked Questions
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An A3 or A2 giclée print is around £50 including VAT. Both sizes cost the same because at that scale you are paying for handling, colour management and machine time rather than for paper and ink. Above A2, pricing moves to area and paper and is quoted per job. For a framed piece, the framing is usually the larger half of the bill, starting at around £200 for a standard specification.
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Because at those sizes the cost is dominated by things that do not change with area: assessing and preparing the file, soft proofing against the paper's ICC profile, loading the right roll, running the print and handling it afterwards. Paper and ink are a small share of an A3. Above A2 materials start to dominate, and that is the point at which pricing switches to an area calculation.
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Add the print to the framing. An A2 giclée at around £50 with standard framing from around £200 comes to around £250 all in. The same print framed to museum-grade specification, with acid-free materials throughout and 99% UV glazing, is nearer £350. A canvas print stretched and tray framed starts from around £300. Every figure is a starting point that the specification moves.
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For individuals, our minimum order value is £300. A single £50 print therefore sits below the floor, so a one-off print is normally commissioned alongside its framing rather than on its own. Trade, gallery and edition work is quoted per run and has no minimum, and the per-print figure falls with volume.
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Size above A2 is the largest driver, because past that point you are buying area of paper and volume of ink. After that: the framing specification, which on a framed piece usually costs more than the print; canvas rather than paper, because stretching and varnishing are hand work; the paper itself, since heavy cotton rag costs materially more per square metre than matt stock; and file preparation where an original needs photographing or a file needs rescuing.
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Setup, proofing and profile work happen once for the whole run, while materials and machine time repeat per print. So an edition of thirty spreads the fixed costs across thirty prints and an edition of five spreads them across five. The gap is widest at small sizes, where setup is most of the cost. Printing as a batch against one approved proof is also what keeps the last print in an edition matching the first.
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Usually because something has been left out: a generic colour profile instead of one built for that paper, no proof before the run, a coated wood-pulp stock described as fine art paper, dye ink instead of pigment, or nobody checking the file before it prints. For a poster in a spare room none of that matters. For an edition you intend to sell, all of it does.
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Our HP Designjet Z6200 is 62 inches wide, so a single print can run to 1.5 metres across by the length of the roll. Larger images are printed in sections and bonded to panel. Above A2 the price follows area and paper choice rather than a fixed figure, and we give you a fixed quote before anything is printed rather than a rate that needs qualifying.
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