## Welcome to the Crouser Guide for Small Press Printing This chapter contains a general overview. Should you have a specific question, you may wish to consult one of the specific chapters in the drop down menu for details. Chapters include: 01 - What Price Level Should I Use? 02 - Price Tabs Explained 03 - Price Tables Detailed 04 - How Prices Developed 05 - Standards Used in Pricing 06 - Budget Hour Rates Used in Pricing 07 - Calculation Assumptions and Fault Lines 08 - Second Color Head Note 09 - Calculating Numbers Not in Guide 10 - Bindery Explained 11 - How to Print Tables 12 - How to Customize Bookmarks (Mark Favorite Pages) 13 - Support, Updates and Bug Reports What is Crouser Guide? The Crouser Guides provide Logical Selling Prices for commercial print providers based on a combination of cost plus and market value approaches. These price guides are ready to implement either as stand-alone pricing programs or as a guide in developing prices in your estimating system. Overview The following is a summary of issues and operations of this program. Should you wish more details about an issue or operation, click on the Drop Down menu in the top horizontal navigation bar and you may jump to the appropriate chapter. Support Should that not answer your question, please feel free to contact support by emailing edward@crouser.com. How Prices are Established Prices in this Guide are established based on market surveys of key price points and cost factors among printers throughout the United States and other public information available such as other surveys. This information is also updated throughout the year (to join our National Panel on Prices, Wages and Costs without cost or obligation, go to www.crouser.com). This information is then compared with the cost of manufacturing utilizing cost models we have developed and apply base markups which yield an adequate return on investment and effort based on typical costs. This forms a floor under which the retail price should not fall. Then we compare the market value with the cost plus approach and allow the suggested price to rise to market assuming market exceeds cost plus. If not, the cost plus value forms a floor for prices. Once armed with this information, we develop a rational price structure with variations for the cost of paper and second side pricing, for instance. For the long answer, see the chapter on How Prices Are Developed under Tab 1, Index Information. ## To use the guide: Step 1: Tabs—Select a category of your choice from among the tabs indicating the imaging types such as 8.5x11 text/offset (coated and uncoated) or 12x18 card/cover (coated or uncoated). Step 2: Choose Paper Cost—select the paper cost (without markups) of the stock you are imaging from the drop down menu. Step 3: Move Mouse Over Table—as you move your mouse over the table, a highlight bar will appear to help your navigation. Additionally when you hover over a price, it will enlarge and turn red.
One Click Capture: when the number turns red, one click of your mouse will capture that price into your computer’s clipboard and you may toggle to another application (such as your estimating software) and then paste that number into the other application. Two Click Scroll: another feature of the program is that with a two clicks of the mouse the price page will begin scrolling upward to allow you to scan the page. Click once more and the scrolling will stop (or it will stop when it reaches the bottom of the page).

All Crouser Guides use three price levels: X for low; Y for middle; and Z for high. You may choose to use the price level that comes closest to your current price or your desired price (for more info on X, Y and Z price levels, see Chapter 5: How Prices were Developed as well as Chapter 1: Which Price Level Should I Use). You may, at all times, change between price levels using the Price Level drop down menu in the upper horizontal navigation bar (see Chapter 1: Which Price Level Should I Use for more details). In addition, there are two methods of pricing the Second Side in this Digital Price Guide: Market or Take-away (see Chapter 7: Market or Take-Away for details on Second Side Pricing). All values are only a click away at all times so you may easily switch between them by changing the drop down menus in the horizontal navigation bar.

## Specific Help Chapters

Please consult the following chapters in the Drop Down Chapter Menus for more details on the following subjects

01 - What Price Level Should I Choose 02 - General Forms, Views and Sides-Overview(also Chapter 06) 03 - Customizing Bookmarks and Favorites 04 - Technical Supports and Updates 05 - How Prices Were Developed 06 - Form Views and Sides—Detailed 07 - Second Side Market or Take-Away 08 - Paper Stocks 09 - Printing (printing specific price pages for your use) 10 - Calculating Your Price (calculating your customer’s retail price)

TIP: Mix and match your prices between price levels by bookmarking individual pages for instant recall and create your own customized price list. See Bookmarks or Favorites later in this document for details.