PrinquoShort answer: Print shop quoting gets faster when you stop figuring out prices from scratch. Write your prices down once, ask the same intake questions every time, reuse past quotes, and follow up on a schedule. AI quoting is the next step: you describe the job and the software builds the quote from your price sheet.
I'm Sam Hernandez, owner of Studio208 Print Shop in San Francisco. I built Prinquo because quoting was eating hours of my day. Below are the fixes in the order I'd try them. The first five cost nothing and work with a spreadsheet and an email account.
Why does quoting take so long?
Because most of the time isn't math. It's everything around the math:
- Chasing missing details like quantity, colors, garment, and deadline
- Looking up blank prices
- Remembering what you charged the last customer
- Typing the quote up and emailing it
- Remembering to follow up
Fix those and the arithmetic is the easy part.
What are the biggest quoting time-wasters?
| Time-waster | What it looks like | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Prices live in your head | You re-figure setup fees and breaks for every job, and two customers get different prices | A written price sheet |
| Missing details | Three emails back and forth before you can quote | A standard intake checklist |
| Starting from a blank page | You rebuild a quote you've sent before | Duplicate a past quote or use a template |
| Slow response | The customer asks three shops, and the first useful reply gets the attention | Quote the same day when you can |
| No follow-up system | Quotes sit unanswered and you forget them | A simple follow-up schedule |
| Manual math on every job | Quantity breaks, colors, and locations by hand | A pricing matrix or AI quoting |
Fix 1: How do you build a price sheet that makes quoting fast?
This is the one that matters most. Put these in one place, whether that's a spreadsheet, a pricing matrix in your shop software, or a page in a binder:
- Blank costs and your markup on them
- Print price by number of colors, location, and quantity break
- Setup fee per screen (for screen printing)
- Minimum order and small-run fee
- Rush rules
- Extras like specialty inks, art time, and names and numbers
If you haven't set these numbers yet, my guides on how to price screen printing jobs and how much to charge for custom shirts walk through the method with worked examples.
Once the sheet exists, a standard job should take a couple of minutes to quote, not twenty. Time yourself on a few quotes this week so you know your starting point.
Fix 2: What should you ask before you quote?
Ask the same questions every time, in one message, so you don't dribble them out over a week:
- What are you printing on (garment style and color)?
- How many, and in which sizes?
- How many print locations?
- How many colors in each location?
- Do you have art ready, and in what format?
- When do you need them by?
- Anything special, like names and numbers, individual bagging, or specialty inks?
Save it as a canned email or a web form on your site. A customer who answers all seven gets a quote in one reply.
Fix 3: How do templates and past quotes save time?
Most shops quote the same handful of jobs: team tees, event shirts, staff uniforms, reorders.
- Reorders: Copy the original quote or invoice and change the quantity. Most shop software can duplicate an old quote; look for that function in whatever you use.
- Common jobs: Save a template for your top five orders so you only change quantities and colors.
- Email wording: Keep a short, standard cover note so you aren't rewriting the same email.
Fix 4: Does quoting faster actually win more jobs?
Sometimes, but not on its own. Alyssa Summers writes in a PIWorld article that speed is only one factor, and buyers often ask several printers at once and weigh service, turnaround, and communication too. Her list of reasons buyers go quiet includes budget, shifting priorities, slow internal approvals, comparing other shops, and quotes that lack details or a clear case for value.
Here's how I'd use that:
- Reply the same day when you can, even if it's just to confirm you got the request and give a time for the quote.
- Put the details on the quote: quantity, garment, colors, locations, turnaround, and what's included. A clear quote answers questions before they're asked.
- Make it easy to say yes. If customers can approve and pay a deposit online, you don't have to chase them.
Fix 5: How should you follow up on quotes?
A quote nobody follows up on is a lead you paid for and dropped. You don't need a CRM. You need a schedule.
Summers suggests a sequence like this, which is her recommendation and not a rule:
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Confirm they got the quote |
| Days 3 to 5 | Ask if any questions came up |
| Days 7 to 10 | Offer guidance, like a cheaper garment or a quantity that saves money |
| Day 14 and later | Check in at reasonable intervals |
Another PIWorld article by Michael Casey suggests a lighter version for smaller quotes: set a day each week, such as Monday morning, to follow up on quotes that are 14 to 21 days old, and review your open quotes weekly. Neither article cites a win-rate number for this, so don't expect a guaranteed lift. The point is that no quote goes quiet by accident.
To start, keep a list of open quotes with the customer, the amount, the date sent, and the last time you reached out. Review it weekly.
Fix 6: How does AI quoting help?
If your price sheet exists but you still spend your day turning customer emails into quotes, AI quoting removes the translation step.
Prinquo works like this. You describe the job in plain English, like "48 black Gildan 5000 tees, 2-color front, 1-color back, need them Friday," and the AI builds an itemized quote from your own price sheet and pricing rules. Then you can email the quote from Prinquo, and the customer can approve it and pay a deposit or the full amount online. Payments go to your own Stripe account, and Prinquo takes 0% (Stripe's normal fees still apply).
The details:
- Credits. Each AI-built quote uses 1 AI credit. Starter ($49/month, normally $79) includes 100 credits, so about 100 AI quotes a month. Pro ($99/month, normally $149) includes 500. Extra packs are 50 for $10, 150 for $25, and 500 for $69.
- Manual quotes are unlimited, along with jobs and customers.
- Customer list. Keeps each customer's order history and total spent, and lets you set follow-up reminders so repeat customers don't slip away.
- One login per account right now. Team members are coming soon on the Pro plan.
Check every AI quote before it goes out, the same way you'd check a quote from a new employee. The AI can only be as accurate as the price sheet behind it.
When is AI quoting not the answer?
- Your prices aren't written down. AI quoting needs your price sheet to work from. Do Fix 1 first.
- The job is truly custom. One-off projects with unusual materials or methods may need a hand-built quote.
- You quote three jobs a month. A spreadsheet is fine at that volume.
- You need several staff logins today. Prinquo is one login per account for now, so a team shop should look at other tools. I compare several in Best AI Quoting Software for Print Shops and Printavo Alternatives.
What should you do first?
Don't try all six at once. In order:
- Write your price sheet this week.
- Save your intake questions as a canned email.
- Start an open-quotes list and review it every Monday.
- Then decide whether software, AI or otherwise, is worth it.
Want to see AI quoting on your own prices?
Try Prinquo free for 14 days at www.prinquo.com. No credit card required.
FAQ
How do I make print shop quoting faster?
Write down your prices, ask the same intake questions every time, reuse past quotes for reorders and common jobs, and follow up on a schedule. If building quotes is still your bottleneck, AI quoting software can generate them from a plain-English job description.
How long should a screen printing quote take?
It depends on the job. Once your prices are written down, a standard job can often be quoted in minutes. Time yourself on a few typical quotes to see where you are now, then work on the slowest step.
How quickly should I respond to a quote request?
As fast as you reasonably can. Same-day replies help, but speed is one factor among several. Buyers often compare shops on service, turnaround, and communication too, so put clear details on the quote.
How often should I follow up on a quote?
One published sequence suggests day 1, days 3 to 5, days 7 to 10, and then at reasonable intervals after day 14. Another suggests a weekly review with a follow-up on quotes that are 14 to 21 days old. Pick a schedule you will actually keep.
Is AI quoting accurate?
It's only as accurate as the prices and rules it works from. Prinquo builds quotes from your own price sheet, and you should review each one before sending it.
What is the best software for print shop quoting?
It depends on your shop. I compare Prinquo, Printavo, YoPrint, Teesom, ShopVOX, DecoNetwork, and InkSoft in my guide to the best AI quoting software for print shops.