Ask us how much a hardback costs and we will give you a number, not a shrug. We have case-bound thousands of books in Colchester over the last decade — novels, photobooks, children's picture books, degree-show catalogues, fashion lookbooks — and hardback book printing has grown from a tenth of our bound work in 2019 to almost a third today. So the prices below are not estimates from a calculator. They are what people paid.
For a typical A5 hardback — 100 full-colour inside pages on 130gsm silk, a printed paper case over 2,000-micron greyboard with a matt laminate, plain endpapers — here is what a run cost across our 2024–26 orders:
| Copies | Per copy | For the run |
|---|---|---|
| 1 proof copy | £124* | £124* |
| 26–50 | £10.32* | £258–£516* |
| 51–100 | £6.36* | £640* for 100 |
| 101–250 | £5.36* | £1,340* for 250 |
* Median of what customers paid for this specification across our 2024–26 orders — a guide, not a quote. Prices checked September 2026.
Move up to A4 — twice the paper, a bigger case — and 128 pages full colour came in at £8.50 a copy* at 101–250 copies and £4.79 a copy* at 251–500.
Tell us the size, pages and quantity and a real person replies with a real price.
Hardback pricing has a shape that surprises people, so it is worth seeing. In 2023 we plotted the price of an A4 hardback at 1, 2 and 5 copies across page counts from 32 to 200:
| Inside pages | 1 copy | 2 copies | 5 copies |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32pp | ≈ £170 | ≈ £173 | ≈ £189 |
| 64pp | ≈ £202 | ≈ £204 | ≈ £226 |
| 100pp | ≈ £250 | ≈ £251 | ≈ £284 |
| 200pp | ≈ £378 | ≈ £379 | ≈ £438 |
2023 prices, A4, full colour — the shape still holds; ask us for today's figure.
Read across a row and the story is obvious: the second copy is almost free, and copies two to five cost a few pounds each. That is because a hardback is made, not just printed. The cases are cut, wrapped, pressed and dried as a separate job from the text block, and that make-ready is the same whether we do it once or fifty times. It is why a single proof copy of an A5 hardback is £124* while the hundredth copy is £6.36*.
A hardback is made, not just printed. The second copy is almost free.— Mike, Ex Why Zed
If you are thinking about three copies for the family, price five. And if you are thinking about fifty for a launch, price a hundred — per copy, the drop from 26–50 to 51–100 copies is nearly 40%.
A4 uses twice the paper of A5 and needs a bigger, heavier case. A5, 210 × 210mm square and 210 × 148mm landscape are the sweet spots for cost; A4 earns its keep for photography and art where the images need the room.
More pages means more paper and a wider spine. Our minimum spine is 9mm, which covers 28–40 inside pages, and it grows by roughly 1mm for every 8 pages after that. Page counts run in multiples of four; if you are one section over the next spine step, cutting four pages can save more than you would think.
130gsm silk is our default for anything with images — vivid, opaque, doesn't cockle. A text-only novel or memoir reads better and costs less on 100gsm uncoated. Heavier art stocks (150–170gsm) push both the price and the spine. We send paper samples free, so choose with your fingers rather than a spec sheet.
The standard case — your artwork printed on 170gsm silk, laminated and wrapped over greyboard — is the most cost-effective route and the one most of our customers choose. Cloth, linen and buckram cases with foil-blocked titles are beautiful and priced accordingly; our guide to linen hardcover book printing walks through the options.
Plain 170gsm uncoated endpapers are included. Printed endpapers — a map, a pattern, a photograph — are a small premium and one of the best-value flourishes a hardback can have.
Matt or gloss laminate is included. Spot UV, foil, embossing and dust jackets are extras; a ribbon marker is a small one. The rule we give everyone: one flourish, done well.
Full colour throughout is the norm for photobooks and picture books. A novel printed black-and-white inside with a colour cover is the cheapest hardback we make, and often the right one.
Take that A5 book above — 100 inside pages, full colour — and print 100 copies:
| Binding | 100 copies | Per copy |
|---|---|---|
| Paperback (perfect bound) | £422 | £4.22 |
| Hardback (case bound) | £640* | £6.40* |
The hardback premium at 100 copies is a little over £2 a copy. Whether it is worth paying depends on what the book is for. For a keepsake, a photobook, a children's picture book that will be read two hundred times, a degree-show catalogue that has to survive a gallery table, or a first edition that will be sold at a higher price, it almost always is — hardbacks are now nearly a third of all the bound work we print, up from a tenth in 2019. For a novel you want to sell cheaply and often, paperback usually wins. Our article on hardbound vs paperback goes deeper; if you want both, we can print a short hardback edition alongside a paperback run from the same files.
Nothing explains a price like a real job. Each one links to its case study, so you can see the spec and the finished book, not just a number.
Amazon KDP and the like will make you one hardback at a time with no upfront cost, in a handful of sizes on a handful of papers, with no printed endpapers, no cloth, no foil and no human looking at your file. It is a reasonable way to test whether anyone wants your book.
From a single copy to a few hundred, printed on an HP Indigo, case-bound in-house, every option above on the table, and a person on the phone. This is where most self-publishers, photographers, schools and galleries land.
Our hardback book printing →Starts to pay at around 500 copies and up, when the plate costs are spread thin enough. If you are there, tell us — we will quote both routes and show you the crossover.
Longer than a paperback, because the cases are made and pressed separately and need time to dry flat. We aim to deliver up to 500 copies in 6–7 working days. For longer print runs (1,000+) with premium cover features like photos debossed in, embossing or debossing, our turnaround can be 5–6 weeks during peak time. Peak time is late September to December, when everyone is aiming to have their book before Christmas.
Send your files and we run our free file check.
You approve a proof before anything is printed.
Text block printed, cases made, pressed and dried.
UK delivery included, to your door.
Tell us the size, pages and quantity — usually the same day. Or explore our hardback book printing service to see the specifications, finishes and books we have made. Prefer to talk it through? Paper advice is a third of the calls we take, and we are happy to give it.
A single A5 hardback with 100 full-colour pages is about £124*; a single A4 hardback ran from about £170 (32 pages) to £378 (200 pages) on our 2023 curve. Most of that is the case-making, which is why the second copy costs only a few pounds more.
No. We print one-off hardbacks every week — final major projects, dissertations, family memoirs, proof copies — and the same care goes into one as into a thousand.
Books are zero-rated, so there is no VAT to add. UK delivery, a file check and your proof are included in every price we quote.
An A5 or square book, black-and-white inside on uncoated paper, printed paper case with matt laminate, plain endpapers, in a run of 100 or more. That recipe gets a hardback under £5 a copy* without it looking like a compromise.
Your printed cover, laminated, wrapped over 2,000-micron greyboard — the rigid, dense board that gives a hardback its weight. Cloth, linen and buckram are available with foil-blocked titles.
Yes to all three. Printed endpapers are the best-value addition; dust jackets and ribbons are priced per job.
At 100 copies the difference is a little over £2 a copy*. For keepsakes, photobooks, children's books, catalogues and first editions it usually is; for a mass-market novel, print the paperback first.
We aim to deliver up to 500 copies in 6–7 working days. For longer print runs (1,000+) with premium cover features like photos debossed in, embossing or debossing, our turnaround can be 5–6 weeks during peak time — late September to December, when everyone is aiming to have their book before Christmas. Hardbacks do take longer than paperbacks, because the cases are made and dried separately.
Only if you plan to sell through shops or online retailers. UK ISBNs come from Nielsen; put the number and barcode on the back cover and the copyright page. For a private edition you can skip it.
Yes — same files, two bindings, often in one order. Many of our authors run a short hardback edition for launch and a paperback for volume.
Tell us the size, pages and quantity; a real person replies with a real price, usually the same day.
Rather we printed it properly?
You've got the know-how — now let us do it for you. From first zines to 500-copy hardbacks, we've printed it all since 2006: beautifully bound, every file checked by a real person, and delivered on your deadline.
Get your print quote →★★★★★ 5/5 on Reviews.io • Free paper samples • Order a test copy first
