For UK printers that quote before they print
AI for print estimating: the step before your MIS
Before your MIS can price a job, someone has to read the enquiry and key the spec in. We build that step, so each enquiry reaches your estimator already laid out in your MIS’s own terms with its gaps listed as questions, and your MIS prices it as it does today.
Or send us one enquiry as it arrived, and see the spec we’d read from it.
What printers’ websites say
Most printers don’t tell customers how fast they will quote.
5 of 32
printers in our study say on their website how fast they will quote. Four promise 24 hours; one promises four.
24 of 32
take quote requests through a form on their website.
4 of 32
show a price online straight away.
66%
say nothing about how a customer should place an order.
From our October 2026 study of what 209 UK supplier websites, 32 of them printers, tell customers. Read the research note.
The problem
“Same as last time, but 24 pages and on the silk.”
That is a whole estimate in one line, if you know the customer. The estimator finds last time’s job, works out which silk they mean, checks whether the new extent changes the binding, and keys it all into the MIS. Then a PDF arrives with a different page count and the estimate starts again.
Your MIS handles what comes after: presses, stock, finishing, price. The reading and keying in front of it is where enquiries queue, and the queue is longest in the week your most experienced estimator is away.
Comes in
Hi, can we get a price for 2,000 of the A4 brochure, same as the spring one but 24pp not 16, and on the silk this time? Also 5,000. Need them for the show on the 14th. Thanks, Jo
Checked
- Repeat of the spring brochure, job 41877; changes listed
- A4 portrait, 24pp self cover, quantities 2,000 and 5,000
- “The silk” read as 150gsm silk, from her last three jobs
- Attached PDF has 20 pages; email says 24
- The 14th needs proofs approved by the 7th
Waits for your estimator
Estimate request · ready for your MIS
Spec set out field by field in your MIS’s order, both quantities. One question for Jo: 20 pages or 24?
Illustration with invented data.
How it works
Step by step, from enquiry to MIS.
- Enquiries from the estimating inbox and the website form go into one queue, with their PDFs and artwork.
- Each one is read for the spec: size, extent, stock, colours, finishing, binding, quantities and delivery date.
- Repeat work is matched to the earlier job, so “same as last time” becomes a real spec.
- The spec is written in your MIS’s own terms: your stock names, your finishing operations, your product templates.
- Gaps and conflicts become questions for the customer, worded ready to send.
- Your estimator checks the spec, answers what only they can, and your MIS prices it as it does today.
- We record the time from enquiry to estimate sent and report it every month.
Your MIS
It feeds the MIS you already run, and your prices stay in it.
Tharstern, Optimus, printIQ, Accura or another: your MIS keeps the pricing, the job bag and everything after the estimate. We build the intake and spec-reading step that comes before it.
- Getting the spec in
- Some MIS products publish an API; Tharstern and printIQ both do. Where yours accepts estimate requests from outside, the approved spec goes in that way. Where it doesn’t, your estimator keys it from a sheet laid out field by field in your MIS’s order.
- Estimating inbox
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, through access you grant and can withdraw.
- Website form
- Its submissions join the same queue as email.
- Job history
- Read from your MIS or its exports, to match repeat work and to know what “the usual stock” means for each customer.
- Web-to-print
- Standard products already priced online are left alone. This is for enquiries that need an estimator.
What it costs you today
Count the minutes before the MIS.
Put your own figures into the quote desk calculator: enquiries a day, minutes to read and key each one, and the cost of an estimator’s hour. It shows hours a week and pounds a year, and what your win rate turns a month of quotes into.
For example, 20 enquiries a day at 15 minutes each to read, chase and key is 25 hours a week, or £35,000 a year at £28 an hour, before the MIS has priced anything.
Illustration with invented data.
What you get, in order
From a first call to estimates measured every month.
-
30 minutes
Call with you
How enquiries reach you, which MIS you run, and where estimates wait.
-
1 hour
Session with your estimators
We watch real enquiries go into your MIS. The same day you get a one-page verdict: the workflow, the KPI it moves, today’s baseline and a fixed price. Or a written no.
-
A fixed number of weeks
Build
Connected to your inbox and your MIS, or to a keying sheet if your MIS takes nothing from outside. Your estimator checks every spec.
-
Every month
Run and report
We run it and report enquiry-to-estimate time against the baseline. Stop at any report.
Nothing is subcontracted. If we don’t find anything worth doing, we’ll tell you and leave. Printing cartons too? See carton and corrugated quotes. For every make-to-order trade, see quote automation.
Questions
Questions printers ask about AI estimating.
- Does this replace our MIS?
- No. Your MIS keeps the pricing, the job bag and everything after the estimate. We build the step before it, so your estimator starts from a laid-out spec.
- Which MIS does it work with?
- We would connect to whichever one you run, through what it accepts from outside: an API, an import file, or a keying sheet in your MIS’s field order. We check which in the session with your team, before you get a price.
- Who sets the price?
- Your MIS, as now. For repeat work the draft also shows last time’s price for comparison, and your estimator approves every estimate before it goes out.
- We already have web-to-print. Is this for us?
- Only for the enquiries your web-to-print can’t price: custom sizes, mixed stocks, multi-part jobs, anything an estimator reads first. Standard products stay where they are.
- What does it cost?
- The build has a fixed price, written on the one-page verdict and valid for 30 days, then a monthly fee for running it. You can stop at any monthly report.
Contact
Thirty minutes about your estimating.
Tell us which MIS you run and how enquiries reach you. Or send us one quote request as it arrived and we’ll send back the spec we’d read from it.
The Open Build. We’ll build one UK supplier a quote desk system, free and in public, measured on its own numbers. Everyone who applies gets a one-page read of their own workflow. Applications close at 5pm UK time on Friday 6 November. See the Open Build.