Every shop has taken the job that had to be done by Friday, moved three orders to do it, worked late, and charged the normal price. Rush fees exist to stop that being free.
Price the displacement, not the panic
The cost of a rush job is rarely the extra hour on the press. It is:
- Overtime or unplanned staffing.
- The other order that slips, and the goodwill you spend on it.
- Higher reject rate, because hurried setups are worse setups.
- Expedited blank freight, often at several times normal cost.
- Owner attention, which is your scarcest resource.
Add those up on the last rush job you took. That number, not a percentage from a forum, is your fee.
A structure that customers accept
| Requested delivery | Fee | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Inside standard lead time | None | Normal work, normal price |
| 50 to 99% of standard lead time | 20% | Resequencing, no overtime |
| 25 to 49% of standard lead time | 35% | Overtime, displaces other jobs |
| Under 25% of standard lead time | 50%, subject to capacity | Everything above, plus reject risk |
Three things make this work: it is written down before anyone needs it, it is expressed in lead-time bands rather than named days, and the top tier is explicitly conditional on capacity. You are selling a place in the queue, and you are allowed to be sold out.
Say it in the quote, not in the argument
Put your standard lead time on every quote, and the rush tiers next to it. Then the conversation is never "why are you charging me extra", it is "which of these do you want". Customers who need speed are usually the least price-sensitive customers you have; the ones who object were never in a hurry.
The blank freight trap
Expedited blanks can cost more than the decoration. Quote rush freight as a pass-through at cost, itemised, and check stock before you commit to the date. A rush fee does not help if the garment cannot physically arrive.
Protect the jobs you displace
The hidden cost of rush work is the customer who quietly slipped. If you move an order, tell that customer before they notice, and give them a new date you will hold. A shop known for hitting dates can charge for speed. A shop known for moving dates cannot.
What the displacement actually costs
A rush job is a purchase of other people's slots. Costed honestly, the price is not the extra effort on the rush job, it is the damage to the schedule around it.
| Effect | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Extra changeover, both sides of the insert | 40 to 90 min of press time |
| Overtime to recover the displaced work | Premium rate on 2 to 4 hours |
| Rush freight on blanks | £15 to £60 |
| Error rate on the rushed job | Elevated, and it is the job under scrutiny |
| Risk to a displaced job's promised date | A credit, or a lost customer |
Add those and a 25 percent rush fee on a £400 job is often break-even rather than lucrative. That is the honest framing to hold in your head when a customer asks you to be reasonable: the fee is compensation for real cost, not opportunism.
Publish the bands, then never negotiate them
A published table converts an argument into a choice. The customer picks a band, and the price is a consequence of their own decision rather than something you did to them.
- Standard lead time. No fee. State it in working days and hit it.
- Half standard lead time. 20 to 25 percent.
- Next working day. 40 to 50 percent, subject to capacity.
- Same day. By agreement only, and priced per job.
Two rules make it stick. Capacity always overrides the fee, because a promise you cannot keep costs more than the fee earns. And the fee is a percentage of the order, not a flat charge, because displacement scales with the size of the job going in.
Measure whether rush work is worth having
Rush fees are the easiest thing in a print shop to get wrong in both directions: too low and you subsidise chaos, too high and you turn away work you had capacity for.
The evidence is in your own numbers. Tag rush orders, clock the hours, and compare margin after labour against equivalent standard jobs in the job costing report. Shops that run this comparison usually find their fee is roughly right on large rush jobs and far too low on small ones, because the disruption is fixed while the fee is proportional. The fix is a minimum rush charge alongside the percentage.
Protect the displaced customer, deliberately
The cost nobody accounts for is the quiet one: the customer whose job slipped to accommodate somebody else's emergency, who was not told. They do not complain, they just stop coming back.
If a rush insert moves a promised date, contact that customer before the date passes, with a new date and a reason. Handled that way, a slipped date is a minor inconvenience with a professional explanation. Discovered by the customer, it is a broken promise, and it costs more than the rush fee earned. Keeping the promised date visible on the board is what makes this practical rather than aspirational: you can see who you are about to affect before you commit.
Printer's Friend keeps the promised date on the order and shows it on the production board, so resequencing a rush job makes the knock-on visible rather than discovered later. For the seasonal version of this problem, see managing rush season without hiring.