Use this article when your shop runs a litho press (Heidelberg, Komori, KBA, manroland) and you need to understand how Estimator prices an offset run. After this you will know which fields drive the offset cost line, why plate cost and make-ready waste matter, and where the controls live.
What a sheet-fed offset press is in Estimator
A sheet-fed offset press is a record under Estimate Setup → Print Machines → Sheet-Fed Offset. Estimator uses three classes of fields that are particular to offset to price a quote: plate cost (a fixed material charge per colour per part), make-ready waste sheets (paper consumed before the run goes "good"), and spot-colour wash-up time (added labour when a unit must be cleaned between jobs).
The press also carries the general fields shared with every print machine — sheet-size range, stock caliper limit, machine rate, operator labour rate, run speed — but the offset-specific fields are what change when you switch the Machine Type drop-down to Sheet-Fed Offset.
A worked example
Northgate Press configures the XL105 (an 8-colour B1 offset press, machine rate €190/hour) to print a 4/4 leaflet job on Silk 100gsm. Plate cost is set to €8.50 per plate, make-ready waste to 160 sheets per section, plate-making labour to €110/hour, and the press runs at 13,000 sides per hour.
A quote for 5,000 leaflets imposed on a single B1 section comes back with:
Plates — 8 plates × €8.50 = €68.00 (4 colours front + 4 colours back, one section).
Make-ready waste paper — 160 sheets of Silk 100gsm added to the substrate quantity.
Run time — 5,000 sides ÷ 13,000 sides/hour ≈ 23 minutes, multiplied by the €190/hour machine rate to give roughly €73.
Paper-coat extra price — the silk coating adds €61 to the paper bucket (configured per coating on the press).
The price breakdown shows separate lines for plates, make-ready paper, run time, and the coating adder. Switching the same job to Uncoated 100gsm drops the coating adder from €61 to €30 (the configured Uncoated rate on this press).
These values come from the XL105 record in the Northgate Press seed (cited in the evidence packet). The same math runs on every offset quote.
What this affects
Plates line — appears on every offset quote and scales with colours × parts. A 4/4 job on two sections doubles the plate count.
Make-ready waste — adds sheets to the substrate quantity, so the paper bucket on the price breakdown grows on every offset run. The waste figure is independent of run quantity (it is a fixed setup loss).
Spot-colour make-ready surcharge — fires when the job uses a Pantone or other spot colour beyond CMYK; adds a per-spot-colour fixed amount to the make-ready line.
Paper-coat extra price — adds a per-coating amount to the paper bucket. Coatings are listed on the press record (e.g., Uncoated, Silk, Gloss) with a rate each.
What this does not affect
Click rates — offset presses do not record clicks; the click fields belong to digital presses. Setting click rates on an offset record has no effect on the quote.
Web width / cutoff length — those are web-press fields; sheet-fed offset uses sheet-size range instead.
Ink coverage tiers — coverage tiers are a digital-only mechanism for varying click rate by ink load. Offset uses plate cost and coating adders instead.
Finishing operations — cut, fold, bind, laminate, and other post-press operations are configured under Finishing Machines and Binding Machines, not on the press.