Costs are rising faster than prices
Commercial printers spent 2025 squeezed from both sides. In PRINTING United Alliance’s State of the Industry survey of 83 commercial printers, operating costs rose 3.9% in the first nine months of the year while prices rose 2.1%, real sales fell 1.8%, and clients kept cutting run sizes.
When runs get shorter and costs climb, the margin on every job depends on how accurately it was estimated, how much makeready it took, and whether it shipped on time. Most print MIS and ERP systems record all of that, but report it after the fact.
Where margin leaks in a print plant
What Torno does
Torno adds an AI layer on top of the print MIS, ERP and production data you already have. It does not stop at reporting what happened. It predicts what will happen on upcoming jobs and recommends what to do, with the reason shown, so estimators, schedulers and press managers can act the same day.
| Question | Report | Torno |
|---|---|---|
| Estimating | Last month’s jobs over estimate | New quotes likely to overrun, and the standards to update |
| Makeready | Average makeready by press | Tomorrow’s sequence that cuts changeovers, and jobs likely to run long |
| Delivery | Jobs that shipped late | Jobs at risk this week, with the step that is slipping |
| Customers | Revenue by customer | Profit after cost to serve, and accounts drifting below target |
No rip-and-replace
You keep your MIS, ERP and workflow. We start read-only, on one problem with money attached. Where a system genuinely holds you back, our modernize and integrate team rebuilds it module by module, the way we modernized a print-on-demand manufacturer’s ERP with zero production pauses (case study).
How to start
- A 30-minute call: one problem, and what it costs you.
- A read-only look at the data your systems already hold.
- A clear next step: what we found, and what a result would be worth.
Not sure which problem to start with? Bring us one problem. We’ll show you on your own data.
Bring us one problem →Free resources: print job profit and pricing calculator · print shop profit margins in 2026 · The 2026 AI Playbook for Print on Demand
Frequently asked questions
Do you replace our print MIS or ERP?
No. Torno adds an AI layer that reads the data your MIS, ERP or production systems already hold, read-only to start. Where a system is holding you back, we can modernize it module by module, without stopping production.
Which systems do you work with?
We work from the data, not a single vendor: commercial print MIS and estimating systems, label and packaging systems, ERPs and custom databases. In the first call we look at what you run and what it records.
Do you work with label and packaging printers?
Yes. The same problems (estimate drift, changeovers and waste, press uptime, late jobs) apply in meters of substrate and die changes as they do in sheets.
What does a first project look like?
One problem with money attached, such as makeready waste or estimates that overrun. We look at your data read-only, show you what we find, and agree what a result would be worth before building anything.
Is our data safe?
Access starts read-only and stays within the scope you approve. Your data stays yours.