Use this article when you are about to edit a margin number, a pricing rule, or a custom step formula, and you want to know which of the three pricing layers actually controls the result. After this you will know which layer to open for which kind of change, how the layers combine on a quote, and where to read the audit trail on the price breakdown.
What pricing setup is
Pricing setup is the stack of defaults and exceptions that turns production cost into the price the customer sees on a quote. Estimator keeps three concerns separate: what each step costs, how each cost bucket is marked up by default, and which customers or quantities get exceptions. Each concern has its own surface in Estimate Setup. Editing the wrong one is the most common reason a price change does not take effect — the Why a pricing rule did not apply article walks through the audit trail.
The three layers
The layers run in this order on every quote: step price models → bucket markups → pricing rules.
Layer | Where you configure it | What it controls |
1. Step price models | Estimate Setup → Finishing Machines / Binding Machines → Custom (Price Model) | The cost formula for one custom step. See How step price models work. |
2. Bucket markups (Categories) | Estimate Setup → Products → Categories (and the price adjustment model on each category) | The default markup percentage applied to each of the six cost buckets, and which adjustment model rolls the marked-up buckets into the final price. See How price adjustment models work. |
3. Pricing rules | Estimate Setup → Pricing Rules | Exceptions that adjust markups, set value-added targets, or apply price-table lookups when conditions match — customer, category, quantity band, sheet size, date range. |
The three layers do not overlap. A step price model decides the base cost for one step. The category's bucket markups and adjustment model decide the customer-facing price across all of that category's steps. A pricing rule fires on top of both when its conditions are satisfied.
The six cost buckets
Every step that runs on a quote produces cost in one or more of these buckets:
Substrate — paper and board the job consumes.
Other material — ink, plates, foil, laminates, packaging consumables.
Labor — operator hours on press and finishing steps.
Machine — press and machine time charges.
Outwork — subcontracted work.
Delivery — shipping and packaging that flows into the quote.
Each category carries one markup percentage per bucket. The price adjustment model on the category — Gross Profit %, VA per Press Hour, or VA % — decides how those marked-up buckets roll up into the final price. The price adjustment model is set per category, not at the tenant level, so different product mixes can target different commercial outcomes.
A worked example
Northgate Press quotes a Stitched Book (5,000 copies, A4 portrait, Silk 100gsm SRA1 cover, saddle-stitched). The quote runs on the XL105 offset path. The shop's setup looks like this:
Step price models. Stitcher 1 is a built-in binding machine, so no custom price model is involved. The shop has a custom Shrink Wrap step (Model 1: Setup + Per Unit) that adds €15 setup + €0.10 per copy.
Bucket markups on the Stitched Book category. Substrate 15%, Other Material 30%, Labor 50%, Machine 50%, Outwork 10%, Delivery 0%. Price adjustment model = VA per Press Hour with a €140/h target.
Pricing rules. One rule matches the customer's Volume Customer tag and adjusts the VA per Press Hour target up to €150/h on jobs of 5,000+ copies.
On the quote, Estimator runs the layers in order: the Shrink Wrap step produces its base cost; every step's cost lands in a bucket; the category's markup percentages add to each bucket; the adjustment model rolls the marked-up buckets to a target VA-per-press-hour figure; the pricing rule then nudges the VA-per-press-hour target from €140 to €150 because the customer match fires. The final price reflects all three layers, and the See price breakdown modal shows the audit trail row by row, including a Pricing rules applied footer naming the rule that fired.
What this affects
The price on the quote. Each layer is a multiplier or additive nudge; editing any one changes the final price.
Which rule appears in the Pricing rules applied footer. Only rules that match the quote's conditions are listed, and only the rules that actually changed a value.
Which markup row appears in the price breakdown. Bucket markups are visible per bucket; the adjustment-model headline (VA%, GP%, or VA per Press Hour) shows the active target.
What this does not affect
Press selection, imposition, or production routing. Pricing setup never picks which press runs the job or which finishing steps qualify — those are decided by the route logic and the conditional-step assignments.
Machine speeds, spoilage rates, or substrate prices. Those live in production setup (machines, finishing, substrates). Editing markup percentages does not move them.
One-off quote-level adjustments. A manual adjustment on a specific quote — a target-price override or a markup nudge — sits on top of every layer; it is not part of pricing setup.