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Almost nobody in this trade publishes what they charge for the work itself. The price you are quoted arrives as one number, and how much of it is manufacturing and how much is the person arranging it stays out of view.
We would rather write it down. Below is the fee for managing a release, what it covers, what it does not, and why it is a fixed amount rather than a share of what your record costs to make.
Still working out whether the release makes sense at all? The release planner gives you an indicative budget, a production calendar and a break-even figure for your own configuration. No account, no cost, and no contact with a plant. Still deciding the spec itself? Our options page lists everything you can specify and what each choice changes.
Ready for a real production quote? That starts with quote and sourcing.
Quote & sourcing — €100. Credited in full against your management fee if you proceed with Microcut Studio. Currently available to companies, labels and self-employed professionals.
We confirm your production specification in writing, put that exact spec to the market, and come back with one consolidated offer: price per copy and total, lead time from approved files, and a clear list of what the price does not cover — together with our recommendation and the reasoning behind it. The result is yours to keep whether or not you continue. The answer can be negative: if no viable production option exists for your specification, that finding is what you paid for. The fee is invoiced on its own, before the offer exists, and it becomes non-refundable once your specification goes out to the plants. If we stop the work for reasons of our own, you get it back in full, less only the bank charges actually incurred on the transfer.
Your offer states its own expiry date, never longer than the supplier quotations behind it allow. One release per booking.
One record. One vinyl configuration, one packaging configuration, artwork that arrives production-ready, a standard test-pressing cycle and delivery to one address.
The same release-management process with more production stages, approvals or constraints inside one release. A double LP adds a second record, another pair of sides, another set of tooling and another test pressing. Colour effects, non-standard packaging and a fixed date each bring their own variables to manage. Where several of these land on the same release — a splatter double LP, say — it still sits in this tier, towards the top of it, and we put an exact figure on it rather than assume the starting price absorbs them all.
Structurally non-standard projects: box editions, several configurations of one title released together, or production that has to be split across more than one supplier. Quoted individually, because no two of these are shaped alike. A straightforward double LP is not this — that is Complex.
A second title is its own catalogue entry, its own artwork cycle, its own tooling and its own test pressing. Sourcing the plant, agreeing terms and setting the project up happen once, which is why it is not a second full fee. This rate applies when the extra title would sit in the Standard tier on its own — one record, black or a single solid colour, a printed or plain sleeve. Which tier the first release sits in makes no difference to it. If the extra title is itself a double LP, a colour effect or anything else on the Complex list, we quote that title rather than assume this rate stretches to cover it.
150 black and 150 splatter is one release but two production runs, two label runs and two things to check on arrival. A variant counts when the tier is decided: a black pressing with a splatter variant is a Complex release, not a Standard one with something added. The tier is settled first, and this rate then covers each further variant pressed alongside it.
Freight itself is priced by the plant on top; this covers arranging and tracking the extra shipment.
The tier reflects the production complexity of one release, taken from the most complex configuration anywhere in it, variants included. The rates below are added afterwards and never move the tier. A project can hold more than one title: each additional title that would sit in the Standard tier on its own is €290, and a title that lands in a higher tier is quoted alongside it rather than assumed.
The €100 quote and sourcing fee is part of these fees, not an additional charge. If you proceed, it is credited in full against the figure above.
These figures are indicative and subject to quote. They are a starting point for a conversation, not an offer, and a project can fall outside them. All amounts are ex-VAT; intra-EU B2B sales are reverse charge where you supply a VAT number that validates in VIES. Where you cannot, Romanian VAT applies to our fees and we confirm the position for your order before quoting. Anything we do is governed by our Terms.
In our planning model, a vinyl release runs four to seven months from confirmed specification to delivered records. Most of that time is waiting, and the waiting is the part that goes wrong: a plant slips a week without saying so, a test pressing arrives with a problem that needs a decision in two days, a claim window can close within days of delivery. The fee covers that whole stretch, not the hours spent sending enquiries at the start. You are paying for someone to still be holding the project in month four.
If our margin were a share of what your record costs to make, we would earn more every time we put you on a more expensive plant. You would never see it, and it would quietly poison the one thing this service is for. A fixed fee removes the incentive entirely: the number is the same whichever plant we recommend.
Across the run sizes an independent release actually uses, comparing plants, checking files and running the test pressing take roughly the same effort at 100 copies as at 300. In that range, copies move what manufacturing costs far more than they move the work. That does mean the fee is a heavier share of a small run, and we would rather say so than hide it. Runs well beyond that range carry more money and more risk, and we quote those individually. What plants will actually accept at the small end is covered in our guide to EU minimum order quantities.
Engineers who cut and master records have written for years about intermediaries who obscure where the cutting, the plating and the pressing actually happen, and what they take for arranging it. Those are fair complaints. We name the stages, we do not stand between you and the cutting engineer, and our fee sits on the quote as its own line rather than buried in a per-copy figure.
The sourcing stage and the release itself are billed separately, each at the point it falls due, and the plant's own money runs on a schedule of its own. Freight, and anything else the project turns out to need, is invoiced when it arises.
Invoiced on its own, after you have confirmed the specification in writing and before anything goes to a plant. It becomes non-refundable when your spec goes out to the plants; if we stop the work for reasons of our own, you get it back in full, less only the bank charges actually incurred on the transfer.
The management fee, in full, with the €100 shown as a credit against it. The plant's production cost is invoiced alongside it and keeps the plant's own schedule, which can be staged or due in full before the plant starts. Your order confirmation states that schedule before you pay. The fee is earned at confirmation and is non-refundable if you cancel after that, subject to the exceptions in our Terms.
Freight, once the plant has priced it against your delivery address, due before dispatch. What happens to money already with the plant if an order is cancelled is set out in our Terms.
The fee is one line on the quote. Manufacturing is another. Anything extra the project needs is a third. Nothing of ours is folded into a per-copy figure.
One total, with our fee shown separately, plus the lead time, payment terms and quantity tolerance that come with it. We name the country the record will be pressed in, and the format of the recommendation, not the plant's name.
The recommended plant is identified before you confirm the order or commit any money to manufacturing. You are never committed to a supplier you have not been told about.
Where the production route involves a named cutting engineer, you deal with them directly. We do not sit between you and the people making your record, and we do not put our name on a test pressing that came from someone else.
Tell us the format, the run and the date. You get one consolidated quote with the fee on its own line, and an honest answer if pressing is the wrong call for what you are planning. If you are working out the whole process rather than just the budget, start with our step-by-step guide to pressing vinyl in Europe.