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How much does color blueprint printing cost?
Color is billed per page, at two rates. Color on line work — color-coded MEP, markups, a logo — is $4.75 on a 24×36 sheet. Color heavy coverage — ink on 12%+ of the sheet, or any rendering or photo about 3 × 3 in or larger, such as colored elevations and filled site plans — is $8.95. The scan after upload sorts every page into black-and-white, B&W heavy coverage, color line work or color heavy coverage, so a 30-sheet set with two renderings pays the color heavy rate on two pages.
Worked total
30-sheet ARCH D set: 24 B&W, 4 color line work, 2 renderings. Computed from the same price list checkout uses.
| 24 sheets × $2.00 B&W | $48.00 |
| 4 sheets × $4.75 color, line work | $19.00 |
| 2 sheets × $8.95 color heavy coverage | $17.90 |
| Volume discount (10% at 30 sheets) | −$8.49 |
| UPS Ground | $15.00 |
| Total, delivered | $91.41 |
Why two rates: the plotter meters ink, not "color". A colored duct run puts a few cents of ink on a sheet; a rendering puts two to three dollars of ink on the same sheet. One flat color rate either overcharges the MEP sheet or loses money on the rendering, and the industry usually does the first.
Most online printers bill a whole set at the color rate the moment you choose color. Here, "color only where it appears" checks every page in your browser after upload; the ones with no color bill as black-and-white, the ones with line color bill at the line rate, and only renderings (even a small one on a cover sheet) and filled plans bill heavy. Black-and-white pages have one heavy rate of their own, $3.95 on ARCH D instead of $2.00, for grey-scale ink on 15%+ of the sheet — a rendering, photo or shaded presentation board. Line-work plan, section, detail and notes sheets stay at $2.00 — a sheet printed over an aerial photo or with large solid fills can count — and there is no small-picture rule in black-and-white: a small photo on a cover sheet does not trigger it.
Heavy-coverage pages print on 20# bond like everything else; heavier or coated stock for presentation boards is a quote.
Related questions
What counts as color heavy coverage?
Ink on 12% or more of the sheet as solid fills — colored elevations, filled site plans, aerial photos, dark-background boards — or a rendering or photo of about 3 × 3 inches or more anywhere on the sheet, so a cover sheet with one small rendering bills heavy. Dense line work never does, however many lines it has, and neither does a logo in the title block.
Do black-and-white renderings cost more?
Yes. A full page of grey lays down several times the ink of a line drawing, so a black-and-white page bills $3.95 on a 24×36 instead of $2.00 when it has grey-scale ink on 15%+ of the sheet — a rendering, photo or shaded presentation board. That is still less than color line work at $4.75. Line-work plans, sections, details, notes sheets and hatched elevations stay at $2.00; a sheet printed over an aerial photo or with large solid fills can bill the heavy rate, and a borderline page is looked at again, in more detail, before it counts.
Can I see which pages were counted before I pay?
Yes — next to the price the order form lists the page numbers (the count, on long lists) found as color, as color heavy coverage and as B&W heavy coverage, and the checker on /check-your-pdf/ samples a dozen pages before you even upload.
How does it compare to competitors?
Plans4Less publishes $3.75 for ARCH D color on the whole set; FedEx Office and Staples quote large-format color per store, typically $10–$20 a sheet. On a mixed set our per-page billing usually wins; on a set that is all renderings, theirs may.
Upload plans & see price → Check a PDF first
See also
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