First, A Little History

A lot has changed in the world of letterpress printing. Presses that were once the center of every print shop in America suffered neglect and were often scrapped in the name of progress. New, more efficient technologies replaced them. Then, sometime in the last decade, our tastes changed and these beautiful old machines found a new home. The mechanisms that were once used to deliver a “kiss” print were perfect for sculpting texture into thick paper.

Supply and demand are definitely in play here. Demand rose first, driving the prices up, then supply caught up and prices levelled off. They look like they might even coming down some.

All that said, letterpress is not what most couples would call a “budget option.” Some options are much more affordable than others, though you may sacrifice quality or service to save.

Let’s Be Real: This is Confusing

Researching letterpress pricing can be frustrating. There are very few standards; designers and printers all use different language to say the same thing. Pricing grids contain different variables and apples-to-apples comparisons are nearly impossible.

When you’re looking at letterpress pricing, the first thing to determine is if the pricing includes design or not. Some letterpress printers are just that: letterpress printers. They’re not stationery designers. You would have to provide them with “camera-ready” (properly designed and formatted) art to get the price you see. When A Fine Press first started, we partnered with a printer like this to produce the invitations we designed. We have since opened up our own in-house print shop and joined the other type of letterpress shops: full-service letterpress.

Full-service letterpress shops like ours usually offer custom letterpress design and printing. Some also offer ready-made collections like our Humble Beginnings line. You should to determine if pricing from one of these shops includes custom design or one of their premade designs.

The Prices

Some printers publish their price lists while others choose to quote each job individually. Out of respect to my fellow stationers, I am only publishing publicly-available prices. Quoting a project takes time and I didn’t feel it appropriate to take up their time for such an edeavour.

Printing-Only Letterpress Prices

These prices assume you provide the printer the same quality and format artwork a graphic designer would. The prices are for:

100 invitations

2-color letterpress invitation card

2-color letterpress rsvp cards

1-color letterpress invitation envelopes.

1-color letterpress RSVP envelopes

They each feature the printer’s house paper, which is often Crane’s 110# Lettra (a paper I find to be a little flimsy).

Printer A • $935 Printer B • $778 1-color printing Printer C • $1,179 includes $45 setup fee Printer D • $1,120 Printer E • $945 Printer F • $1,557 includes 2-color envelopes Printer G • $1,175 Printer H • $495 on French paper Printer I • $1,520 Printer J • $845 Printer K • $1,290 Printer L • $1,100

That makes the average price between these eleven printers $1,068 . You can see there’s one obvious outlier here (printer H). Clearly they are the exception and it might be safe to assume there’s a reason why they’re so much less than the rest.

If you’re working with a designer who is having someone else print your invitations, this represents the price the designer might pay. With their design fee and a markup on printing, you’re likely to spend a minimum of $1,500 to have your invitations designed and printed.

Ready-Made Collections

These prices come from stationers who offer pre-designed invitations. They offer choice of color and wording and may even offer choice of fonts. The prices are for

100 invitations

2-color letterpress invitation card

2-color letterpress rsvp cards

1-color letterpress invitation envelopes.

1-color letterpress RSVP envelopes

They each feature the printer’s house paper, which is often Crane’s 110# Lettra.

Stationer A • $1,765 varies by design Stationer B • $1,428 Stationer C • $1,160 Stationer D • $598 flat printed enveloped, 1 color invites Stationer E • $1,831 Stationer F • $1,035

That makes the average for 100 ready-made letterpress invitations $1,302. Several of these are the big names you see on the first page of a Google search for “Letterpress Invitations,” including that one outlier at $598. Frankly, I’m not sure what’s up with them.

Custom Designed Letterpress

Few stationers offer price lists featuring custom-designed invitations. The reason for this is that the amount of variables available for custom design mean it’s almost impossible to provide an actual cost. Some of them offer a starting point for letterpress invitations, ranging from around $800 to more than $3,000.

In conclusion

There’s no definitive answer to the question “How much do letterpress wedding invitations cost.” The range is pretty big (and we didn’t even get into some of the etsy sellers out there) and with that comes varying degrees of quality and selection.

If you’re looking for your own letterpress wedding invitations, check out our made-to-order collection as well as our custom inviting experiences.