How to Make a Brochure: A Procurement Manager's Step-by-Step Checklist

Before You Open a Design Tool, Read This

If you've ever received a quote for a simple brochure and felt your stomach drop, I get it. A piece of paper that folds twice shouldn't cost as much as a car payment. But over six years of managing print procurement for a mid-sized manufacturing company, I've watched it happen—to us, and to plenty of other buyers who didn't have a plan. Here's how to make a brochure that gets the job done without turning into a budget problem.

This guide is for small business owners, marketing coordinators, and anyone who just got handed a "brochure project" without a clear budget. The checklist below is how I actually spec and buy brochures in my role. Seven steps, each one tested by real purchases—including a few expensive mistakes I'd rather you not repeat.

Here's the honest truth up front: you don't need to be a designer to create a good brochure. You need a process. This is that process.

Step 1: Define the One Job This Brochure Does

Before you write a word or open a template, answer this: what should the reader do after reading the brochure? Call you? Visit a landing page? Scan a QR code? Ask for a quote?

This sounds obvious, but more brochure projects than I can count start with "we need a brochure" and end with a generic, expensive piece that doesn't drive any action. Our first brochure under my tenure was a beautifully printed liability. It said a lot and accomplished nothing.

Checkpoint: write the primary action in one sentence. If you can't, the project isn't ready for design. Everything else—the cover, the content, the images—follows from that decision.

Step 2: Lock Down the Copy Before the Design Phase

Here's a spending leak most buyers miss: revision costs. Designers charge for layout changes, and copy rewrites after the design phase are the most expensive changes you can make. A one-line text edit can mean rebuilding entire panels and reflowing the grid.

The fix is boring and free: write all the copy first, get sign-off from everyone who needs to approve it, then move to layout.

The question everyone asks is "how much does brochure design cost?" The question they should ask is "how many rounds of revision are included in that price?" Get the number in writing before you approve a quote.

Step 3: Set Up the File with Print Standards in Mind

Whether you're working with a professional designer or using a template, your print file needs three things. Ignore any of them and you'll deal with rejections, delays, or disappointing results:

• Bleed. Backgrounds and images must extend 0.125 inches past the final trim line on all sides. A standard US Letter tri-fold has a flat size of 8.5 × 11 inches, so the file should include bleed on all four edges. No bleed, no edge-to-edge printing.
• Resolution. Commercial offset printing works best at 300 DPI at final size. A 3000 × 2000 pixel image tops out at about 10 × 6.67 inches—that's your maximum print size at that resolution. Stretching it more means a soft, pixelated result.
• Color mode. Export in CMYK, not RGB. If your brand uses a specific color, ask the printer about Pantone Matching System (PMS) ink or a CMYK formula. For brand-critical colors, the industry-standard tolerance is Delta E < 2, per Pantone Color Matching System guidelines—roughly the threshold where a color difference becomes hard to spot in standard viewing.

One more file tip: export a PDF/X-ready file with fonts embedded. It's the single most common export format issue I see when suppliers reject files.

Step 4: Choose Paper Stock with Your Head, Not Your Ego

Paper weight names confuse everyone, including seasoned buyers. Here's the cheat sheet I keep next to my desk:

• 80 lb text / 120 gsm — standard brochure weight, works for most projects
• 100 lb text / 150 gsm — stiffer, more premium feel; my default for B2B brochures
• 80 lb cover / 216 gsm — cardstock territory, usually overkill for a tri-fold

For a standard tri-fold brochure, I'd argue 100 lb text is the sweet spot. It feels durable in hand, photographs well, and doesn't push the per-unit cost up the way cover-weight stock does.

This is also where I pay attention to the mill behind the paper. International Paper is one of the big names in the space—their Accent Opaque line is a workhorse for text-weight projects. I'm not married to any single brand, but when a printer quotes a generic "house stock," I ask what it actually is and whether a known commodity grade would cost the same or less. You'd be surprised how often the mystery stock is priced above a brand-name alternative.

Before you finalize your paper decision, spend five minutes checking current catalog deals at the printer or paper merchant you're using. Paper pricing moves with pulp prices and freight costs, and the difference between a standard week and a promotional week can be meaningful. In early 2025, I saw roughly a 12% swing between two vendors for identical stock over a three-month window.

Step 5: Get Quotes the Right Way

Most buyers focus on per-unit pricing and completely miss setup fees, proof charges, and shipping—which can quietly add 30–50% to the final invoice. Here's exactly what I ask for in every quote:

• Per-unit price at your exact quantity—not the price you'd get for printing 5,000 when you only need 1,000
• Setup or plate charges, broken out as a line item
• Proof format and cost: PDF proofs are usually free, hard-copy proofs often carry a fee
• Folding, scoring, and any finishing costs (this is why a tri-fold costs more than a flat flyer)
• Shipping estimate and method
• Rush fee schedule, if there's any chance you'll need expedited turnaround

When I compare quotes, I put them into a simple spreadsheet that calculates total landed cost. Per-unit pricing alone is a trap. As a sanity check from public online listings I reviewed in January 2025, 1,000 flat flyers on 100 lb gloss text ranged from about $80–150 before shipping. A tri-fold brochure on similar stock adds folding and setup, so a commonly quoted range lands higher—my experience across recent quotes puts it around $250–450 for 1,000 before shipping. Treat those numbers as ballpark figures; your market and specs may vary.

To be fair, setup fees aren't always unreasonable—plates and make-ready time are real costs. But you deserve to see all of them before you commit, not after the invoice arrives.

Step 6: Proof Like It's a Legal Document

I get why people skim proofs. The project has dragged on, the designer says "looks great," and you just want the brochures in your hands. That's exactly how mistakes ship.

After the third time a misprinted brochure reached my desk—including once when our own company name was misspelled across the back panel—I implemented a two-proof rule for everything we print:

• First proof: check every word, number, address, URL, and contact detail at 100% zoom. Not fit-to-screen—a typo that's obvious on a 100% view is easy to miss when the page is scaled down to 50%.
• Second proof (for color-critical jobs): order a hard-copy proof. Don't hold me to this, but I've seen them run $35–75 depending on the printer. It's the only reliable way to verify a color match. The spec to hold the printer to: Delta E < 2 versus the approved Pantone reference for brand colors.

Make sure the purchase order states exactly what happens if a reprint is needed because the printer didn't follow the approved proof. In Q2 2024, we had a $2,300 production issue on a run. Because our PO explicitly said the printer is responsible for matching the approved proof, we weren't on the hook for the redo. Had that sentence been missing, that cost would have landed on our budget.

Step 7: Measure What the Brochure Actually Does

The finished brochure isn't the finish line. If you don't track what response it drives, the next run is a guess.

I recommend printing a unique QR code that leads to a dedicated landing page, or using a distinct phone number if calls are your primary conversion. At minimum, train your team to ask "where did you hear about us?" and log it.

Then look at cost per result, not cost per piece. I've seen a $0.85-per-unit brochure pay for itself in one deal, while a $0.40 flyer collection produced zero leads. The piece that costs more per unit is often the cheapest one in the room when it works.

Common Mistakes That Cost You Money

Here's where most brochure projects go sideways:

• Ignoring bleed. If your file has no bleed, you either get a white border on the final print or a rejection from the prepress team—plus a possible re-file fee and a schedule slip.
• Designing in RGB. Screen colors don't translate to print. Export in CMYK, or follow the printer's spec sheet exactly.
• No lead time in writing. "It'll be ready by Friday" becomes "next Tuesday" with alarming frequency. Get the date on the PO and add two to three business days of buffer.
• Forgetting shipping. Freight on 1,000 brochures is small, but on heavy stock or large quantities it adds up, and it belongs in your comparison number.
• Letting "good enough" override the proof. If the color is off on the proof, it will be off in the full run. Stop the project and fix it.

One rule I won't bend: never let a small order be treated like a problem. When I was placing test orders of 200 brochures for our sales team years ago, the suppliers who took the order seriously are the same ones we now send five-figure annual volumes to. A vendor who visibly sighs at a small quantity is telling you how they'll handle you when something goes wrong.

Bottom line: making a brochure doesn't require a marketing degree or a massive production budget. It requires a process. Define the action. Lock the copy. Build the file correctly. Choose a reasonable stock. Ask the right quote questions. Proof carefully. And measure the result.

Take it from someone who's rebuilt this process from scratch: follow those steps, and the "brochure project" becomes a routine purchase—one that shows up on time, on budget, and actually does its job.