Ask MagCloud: Printing and Binding

There is no up-front cost to upload and publish your PDF. Printing costs 20 cents per page for Standard and Square sizes and 16 cents per page for Digest sizes, plus $1.00 per copy for perfect binding. There is no additional cost for saddle stitch and half-fold binding. As the publisher, you can add a markup to your MagCloud publication beyond the cost of printing and binding, and MagCloud will pay the full markup back to you for all print sales of your publication.

All orders of 20 or more print copies receive a discount of 25% off the printing costs.

Click here to use our printing and shipping cost calculator to see the expected cost for your own order and your customers' orders.

For Standard, Square and Digest printed publications, we offer both saddle stitch and perfect binding, depending on the number of pages in your PDF. Saddle stitch publications are folded and stapled together. Perfect-bound publications are square at the spine and use glue to hold the pages, like a paperback book. Perfect binding gives your publications a more professional feel, and can accommodate a much higher page count, while saddle-stich works best for shorter MagCloud publications.

All Pamphlet products have a half-fold binding, while Flyer products are a single sheet of paper and therefore have no binding.

After you have uploaded your PDF or selected your Flickr photo set you will be given a choice of binding options based on the number of pages in your PDF. Click here to learn about the minimum and maximum number of pages for each binding option.

Half-fold binding is only available for PDFs that are 4 pages long. Saddle stitch binding is an option for PDFs from 8 to 100 pages in length, with a total page count that is a multiple of 4. Perfect binding is an option for PDFs from 20 to 384 pages, with a total page count that is a multiple of 2.

You can use the same PDF for both saddle stitch and perfect bound MagCloud publications, but there will be some differences in the final product. Due to the glued binding on a perfect bound publication, up to 1/4" of the inside edge of your pages may disappear into the spine. Therefore, we recommend leaving a "safe zone" of at least 3/4" between the inside edge on your PDF and any text or images you want to be fully visible in the final printed publication. It is particularly important to keep this in mind when designing 2-page spreads, where content flows across the spine, since up to 1/2" (1/4" on both sides) may be lost.

For more information about designing your layout for perfect binding, please see our PDF Guides.

On half-fold and saddle stitch bound MagCloud publications, the front and back cover will meet at the center of the spine.

For perfect bound MagCloud publications you can choose to fill the spine with a solid color or upload your own design. To fill the spine with a color simply click the background color box and you will be given a chart from which you can select your spine color. If you prefer to "Design a Spine" you will be able to download a template after your initial PDF upload that you can use to create your custom spine design, then upload your design (as a JPG, PNG, or PDF format) and preview it on the MagCloud site. For perfect bound publications over 80 pages you also have the option to add text to the spine from the MagCloud website. Simply enter the text you want to appear on the spine, and then choose a color for the text.

Half-fold and aaddle stitch binding add no additional cost beyond the cost of printing. Perfect bound MagCloud publications will have an additional $1.00 per copy added to the price before your mark-up.

The binding process is more complex for perfect bound publications and therefore there is an additional cost, but we're sure you'll find it more than worth it.

All our paper is FSC-certified, which means it's from responsibly managed forests and verified recycled sources, and acid-free.  Our publications are also recyclable, making it easy on consumers and the environment.

For MagCloud publications with saddle stitch binding, we use the same paper for both the interior and cover pages. Shorter publications (8-16 pages) are printed on thicker 100# text stock, medium publications (20-60 pages) are printed on 80# text stock, and long publications (64-100 pages) are printed on thinner 60# text stock.

For MagCloud publications with perfect binding, the cover is printed on 80# cover stock and the interior pages are printed on 80# text stock.

All Flyer and Pamphlet publications are printed on 80# cover stock, improving durability and giving them a premium feel.

Unfortunately we get too many requests to be able to offer free samples. We suggest you order one of the MagCloud publications currently on the site, or create your own and order a copy.

All print copies of your publication will have 6mm square 2D barcode printed in the lower right hand corner of the back cover. This barcode represents the order number and helps us track orders of your publication through our print process as efficiently as possible. It cannot be moved or omitted.