There is no industry flexo vs digital break-even number. There is a break-even for your label, and it is decided by four cost inputs that come out of the quotes for that job. One request, priced across a few quantities, gives you all four.
The reason published figures disagree is not that some are wrong. It is that a break-even is the output of a calculation, and every job feeds it different inputs. Change the colour count and it moves. Change whether a die already exists and it moves again. A number calculated for someone else’s four colour job on their printer’s cost base tells you nothing about your two colour job on yours.
What follows is the calculation, what each input is and how to get the inputs out of a quote without asking a printer for anything unusual.
Your quote has two kinds of cost on it
For a first pass at the break-even, treat the quote as two kinds of cost, the ones that do not change with quantity and the ones that do. Other terms on the quote can still move the final comparison, and the last two sections deal with those.
| Line item | What it responds to | Side |
|---|---|---|
| Plate charge | Number of colours, number of versions | Fixed |
| Die or tooling charge | Label size and shape | Fixed |
| Prepress or file prep | Artwork and version count | Fixed, and it may sit inside another setup line |
| Press setup or makeready | Each production run | Fixed per run |
| Material | Every label printed | Per label |
| Ink or click charge | Every label printed | Per label |
| Finishing, lamination, varnish | Every label printed | Per label, and it may carry its own setup |
| Freight | Weight and destination | Neither, exclude it |
In conventional flexo, each colour that prints needs its own plate. Add a colour and you add a plate. Add a second flavour or a second size and you can add a second set of plates, because the artwork is different. This is why colour count and version count hit a flexo quote harder than quantity does. The plate charge sits there whether you print five thousand labels or five hundred thousand.
A die is a separate cutting tool, and it responds to a different thing, which is the size and shape of the label rather than the artwork on it. If the label needs a die of its own, that tooling can appear as its own line or sit inside another setup charge. Ask which.
The flexo vs digital break-even calculation
In the model used here, digital carries a lower fixed cost and a higher cost per label, and flexo carries a higher fixed cost and a lower cost per label. The crossover is the quantity at which the flexo saving per label has repaid the extra you spent before the press started.
Break-even quantity = (flexo fixed cost − digital fixed cost) ÷ (digital cost per label − flexo cost per label)
That is standard cost accounting rather than anything specific to printing. It is worth writing out because it shows you which numbers to chase. You need two fixed costs and two per label costs. Four numbers.
Filling in the four numbers
There are no figures in this article, because the only figures that apply to your label are the ones on a quote for your label. What follows is the worksheet. Four rows, then two subtractions and one division.
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Flexo fixed cost | Plate charge, plus die or tooling, plus press setup, on the flexo quote |
| Digital fixed cost | File prep or setup, on the digital quote |
| Flexo cost per label | Flexo total, minus flexo fixed cost, divided by the quantity |
| Digital cost per label | Digital total, minus digital fixed cost, divided by the quantity |
Subtract the second row from the first. Subtract the third from the fourth. Divide the first answer by the second. That quantity is where the two processes cost the same, and either side of it one of them is cheaper.
The bottom two rows hold while a quote prices at a flat rate per label once the fixed costs are out of it. Not every quote does that, and there is a section further down on what to do when yours does not.
One condition sits under the whole calculation. It assumes the flexo quote carries the higher fixed cost and the lower cost per label. If your two quotes do not line up that way there is no crossover to find, and the quoted totals at the quantity you need are the answer on their own.
Why the colour count moves it
Run the same label in two colours instead of four and two plates come off the flexo quote. The plate charge sits on the fixed side, so what comes off is fixed cost rather than cost per label. A smaller number on top of an unchanged number underneath gives a smaller answer, so the crossing point moves closer and flexo starts paying for itself sooner.
That is the whole reason a published break-even figure cannot help you. Every one of them had to assume a colour count to exist at all, and almost none of them say what it was.
Left of the crossing digital costs less. Right of it flexo does.
Fewer plates lower where the flexo line starts, so the crossing moves left.
Flexo Digital
Illustration of the mechanism, not a production cost model. The axes carry no values, because the values that matter are the ones on your own quote. Only the flexo fixed cost differs between the two panels. The per label costs are held constant, to isolate what plate count does.
How to get the four numbers
You do not have to ask a printer to break out their cost structure, and you should not expect them to. There is a simpler route, and it uses something already built into the way quotes are requested.
Label quote request forms carry quantity fields, and one US printer’s form has four of them. That is your opening to ask for a quantity ladder as a matter of course rather than as a special favour.
Ask for the same four quantities on both processes. Something like 2,500, 10,000, 25,000 and 100,000, adjusted to the scale you actually buy at.
Two things fall out of eight prices. Divide the quoted total by the quantity at each rung, not the per unit figure printed on the quote, and watch that average fall as the fixed cost spreads. Where the flexo average drops below the digital average is your crossover, read off your own quote, for your own job, at your own colour count.
One caveat before you trust the line. This works while a quote behaves as a fixed cost plus a per label cost. If the price steps at a tier, carries a minimum charge or changes material or finishing at higher quantities, the line bends and the estimate breaks. When that happens, stop estimating and compare the quoted totals at each rung directly. The crossover is wherever the two totals change places.
Send one message and ask for both processes priced across the same ladder. The crossover is in the reply.
Three questions that change the arithmetic after the first order
The calculation above prices a first run. A reorder is a different sum, because the fixed cost may already be paid. Whether it is depends on three answers that quote forms do not ask for and printers’ websites do not publish.
Are the plates kept, and for how long
Plates can be reused on a rerun. Whether yours will be is a separate question from whether they physically exist. A plate set has to be confirmed as the right revision, still approved for the current artwork and still in usable condition. Photopolymer plates are sensitive to ultraviolet light, heat and ozone, and a plate can still be physically present without being suitable for another run. Ask what the retention period is and what happens at the end of it.
Who owns them
You paid for the plates. That is not the same as owning them, and it is not the same as being able to take them to another printer. This is the question with the least published information behind it. Printers explain the charge on their websites and stop before the ownership question. Get the answer in writing before the first order rather than during the argument about the second.
What tolerance applies to the delivered quantity
Print runs do not land on the exact number. Material is consumed getting colour to register and holding it there, so a run is started with more than the order and finishes somewhere near it. The delivered count can sit above or below what you ordered, and you can be billed on what arrives rather than what you asked for. Ask what the tolerance is, ask whether billing follows the delivered count and then do your per label arithmetic on the number you will actually receive.
If you need a guaranteed minimum, say so when you request the quote rather than after it. The published printing trade customs put it plainly: where a customer requires a guaranteed quantity, the tolerance has to be stated at the time of quotation. The same document notes these are common business practices rather than rules binding any supplier, which is the reason to ask rather than assume.
That last one quietly moves your unit cost. You calculate against the quantity you ordered and you pay against the quantity that arrives. Those are not the same number, and the gap is whatever tolerance nobody negotiated.
Making the two quotes comparable
A crossover read off two quotes is only as good as the sameness of the two quotes. If the digital quote is on a different face stock or a different adhesive, you are not comparing processes, you are comparing specifications. Fix the specification first, then let the process vary.
The specification that gives both printers enough to quote the same job:
- Finished label width and length
- Face material, paper or film, plus the specific stock if you have one. White BOPP, clear BOPP, vinyl and polyester price differently from paper, so naming the stock stops two printers quoting two different materials
- Adhesive class, including whether it has to work on a cold or wet surface
- What the label goes on, the surface material and whether it is flat or curved
- Conditions during application and conditions afterwards, including temperature range
- Anything the label will be exposed to, such as water, oil, alcohol or chemicals
- How it is applied, whether by hand, peel and present or automatic applicator
- Colour build, process or spot, with the exact number of spot colours
- Finish, laminate or varnish, matte or gloss
- Roll format, core size, outside diameter and unwind direction, or sheet layout. If you apply by machine, state the core size and unwind your applicator takes rather than letting the printer choose one
- The quantity ladder
Send that list to both printers and the two quotes describe the same label. Leave items off and each printer fills the gap with a different assumption, which is the point at which two prices stop being comparable and the crossover you calculate stops meaning anything. More on how gaps in a brief become gaps in a price in what actually drives label printing price.
What the number does not tell you
The crossover is a cost answer to a cost question. There are decisions it cannot make for you.
If the artwork is not settled, a large flexo run commits you to the version you have today. Plates are made against artwork, so a label change after the plates exist is a new plate charge, and the saving you calculated disappears into the correction. Forecast confidence matters as much as arithmetic here. Buying past the crossover is only cheaper if you sell what you bought, and labels sitting in a box for a product that changed are not a saving.
Lead time is the other one. The cheaper process is not cheaper if it arrives after the date you needed it. Price the two options against the date, not only against each other. The broader trade offs are in our digital versus flexo comparison, and quantity thresholds sit in the label minimum order quantity guide.
What to send, in one message
- The full specification above, with nothing left for the printer to assume
- A request for both digital and flexo priced across the same four quantities
- Plate charge stated per colour and per version, as its own line
- Die or tooling charge as its own line, and whether a die that fits already exists
- Whether plates are retained for reorders, for how long and who owns them
- The quantity tolerance, whether billing follows the delivered count and whether a guaranteed minimum is available
- Lead time for each process, from artwork approval
Seven items. The reply contains your break-even, and it contains it for the job in front of you rather than for someone else’s.
Frequently asked questions
At what quantity does flexo become cheaper than digital?
There is no single quantity. The crossover is the difference in fixed cost divided by the difference in cost per label, and both differences change with colour count, version count, whether tooling already exists and the material. A published figure had to assume all of those to exist. Calculate it from your own quote instead.
Why does adding a colour cost more than adding quantity?
In conventional flexo, each colour that prints needs its own plate, and the plate charge does not change with how many labels come off it. Adding a colour adds a plate. Adding ten thousand labels adds material and ink. On a flexo quote the first one moves the fixed cost and the second moves the per label cost, and only one of them is repaid by volume.
How do I find the fixed and per label costs if the printer will not break them out?
Ask for the same four quantities priced on both processes. Divide each total by its quantity and the unit price falls as quantity rises, because the fixed cost is being spread. The slope between two rungs is the per label cost and the rest is fixed. You never have to ask for a cost breakdown.
Does a reorder change the calculation?
It can remove some of the fixed cost entirely, which materially changes the arithmetic. It depends on whether the plates were kept, whether they are still the correct revision and still in usable condition and whether a charge applies to retrieve or remake them. Ask before the first order, because the answer decides whether your second run is a new calculation or a much cheaper one.
Do I get exactly the quantity I ordered?
Print runs carry a tolerance, because material is consumed bringing colour into register before saleable labels come off the press. The delivered count can be above or below the order and billing can follow what is delivered. Ask what the tolerance is and whether you are billed on the delivered count. If you need a guaranteed minimum, the tolerance and the billing basis belong in the quotation or the order terms rather than being settled at delivery. Calculate your unit cost against the quantity you will actually receive.
On the figures in this article
There are no market prices and no invented cost figures anywhere in this article. No flexo vs digital break-even number is published here either, because there is not one to publish. The worksheet runs on the numbers printed on your own two quotes, because those are the only ones that decide the crossover for your job. This article exists because that is the one source nobody can look up for you.
