Guide
What is web-to-print?
Web-to-print is a way of ordering printed materials through a website instead of by email, phone, or a designer. In business use it almost always means a private storefront: an organization signs in, sees a catalogue of items its own head office has already approved, personalizes only the fields it is allowed to change, and reorders in a few clicks without redesigning anything or re-sending files. The printing itself is unchanged. What changes is who controls the specifications, who is allowed to order what, and whether anyone can tell afterward what was spent.
The two kinds of web-to-print, and why the difference matters
Almost everything sold under this name falls into one of two models, and buyers routinely compare them as though they were the same purchase. They are not.
The first is web-to-print software: you license a platform, usually per month or per storefront, and you configure it yourself. You still need a printer, and connecting the two is your project. This model suits print shops who want to offer storefronts to their own customers, and large organizations with staff to run it.
The second is a printer-operated storefront: a manufacturer builds and runs the store for you and produces the orders that come out of it. There is nothing to license and nothing to integrate, and the specifications shown in the catalogue are the specifications of the equipment that will actually print the job. The trade is that you are choosing a printer, not shopping a platform.
The failure mode of the first model is the gap in the middle. When the platform and the press are different companies, a product can be configured in the store that the press cannot make well, and neither party owns the result. The failure mode of the second is narrower choice: you get the manufacturer's capabilities, not an open market of them.
What a private storefront is actually solving
The problem is rarely printing. Printing works. The problem shows up when ordering is distributed across many people who do not talk to each other.
Without a store, a reorder means somebody searches their email for last year's file, sends it to whoever is nearest, and hopes the logo is the current one. Multiply that across forty locations and three years and the brand drifts, the specifications drift, and print spend disappears into local invoices under whatever category a bookkeeper picked. Nobody is being careless. The process simply has no memory.
A private storefront gives the process a memory. The approved version is the only version on offer, the price is the agreed price, and every order leaves a record attached to a location. This is why a storefront is really a print procurement tool wearing a catalogue: most of the value is governance rather than convenience, which is why the finance team often becomes more interested in it than the marketing team.
When it is worth it, and when it is not
A storefront earns its keep on repetition and distribution. If the same materials come back on a cycle, and more than one person orders them, the case is usually straightforward. Franchise networks, multi-location retail, dealer groups, corporate marketing teams, and regulated operations are the common shapes.
It is not worth it if you order print once and then not again, if every piece is designed from scratch so nothing repeats, or if one person already orders everything and nothing goes wrong. In that last case the problem a storefront solves is a problem you do not have yet, and setting one up is overhead with no return.
Seven questions to ask any vendor
Useful whoever you end up choosing, including if it is not us.
- 1
Who produces the printing, and is it the same company running the store?
This single answer tells you which of the two models you are buying, and who is accountable when a product in the catalogue does not match what comes off the press.
- 2
Who builds the catalogue and cleans up the artwork?
This is the real work of a launch and the usual reason projects stall. If the answer is that you do it, price your own staff time into the comparison.
- 3
Can different groups see different catalogues and different prices?
Corporate, franchise, and regional buyers rarely should see the same thing. If the platform cannot separate them, head office ends up policing orders by hand.
- 4
Which fields can a location edit, and which are locked?
Brand control lives in this answer. If a location can replace the logo or delete a legal line to fit more copy, the templates are not doing their job.
- 5
Can we get our order history and spend out, by location?
Reporting is usually what pays for the program. Confirm it is exportable and that the data is yours before you depend on it.
- 6
Can one order ship to every location, and who keeps the addresses current?
A national launch is either one task or a week of copying addresses out of a spreadsheet, and the difference is whether the address book is maintained in one place.
- 7
Does it run in the languages we are legally required to publish in?
In Quebec this is not a preference. Ask whether the requirement can be enforced inside the template rather than left to the person ordering.
Where Accent Portal sits
Accent Portal is the second model. We build and run the storefront, and we print the orders in our own Montreal plant, which means the specifications in the catalogue are the specifications of the equipment. More than 35 client stores run on it today, in English and French, including networks operating separate Canadian and United States storefronts.
If the first model suits your situation better, the checklist above is still the right way to evaluate it.
Frequently asked questions
- What does web-to-print mean?
- Web-to-print means ordering printed materials through a website rather than by email, phone, or a designer. For businesses it normally takes the form of a private storefront holding a pre-approved catalogue at agreed pricing, where staff or locations reorder without redesigning anything. It is sometimes written web2print or W2P.
- Is web-to-print the same as web-to-print software?
- No, and the distinction matters when comparing quotes. Web-to-print software is a platform you license and configure, after which you still need a printer. A printer-operated storefront is built and run by a manufacturer who also produces the orders. The first is a subscription plus a project; the second is a supplier relationship.
- What is a B2B web-to-print storefront?
- A B2B storefront is closed rather than public. It sits behind a login, serves one organization, and shows each user only what their role is allowed to order at the pricing already negotiated. A B2C storefront by contrast sells to anyone who arrives, at list price. Most franchise and multi-location programs are B2B.
- How much does a web-to-print storefront cost?
- There is no meaningful list price, because a store for six locations and a store for four hundred share a name and nothing else. Licensed software is normally billed per month and per storefront with setup separate. A printer-operated store is normally scoped against the size of the program. In either case the largest hidden cost is the work of turning legacy files into a clean catalogue, so ask who is doing that before comparing numbers.
- How long does it take to set up?
- The software is rarely the constraint. What sets the timeline is how ready your catalogue and artwork are, and whether someone has decided who is allowed to order what. A narrow first catalogue piloted with a small group launches far faster, and far more successfully, than a complete catalogue opened to an entire network on day one.
- Does a storefront replace our printer?
- It replaces the ordering process, not the printing. In the licensed-software model you keep or find a printer separately. In the printer-operated model the storefront is how you order from that printer, and anything new or custom still goes through the normal quoting route.
Want to see one that is running?
Tell us how many locations you have and what your network orders. We will walk you through a working store, and tell you plainly if a storefront is the wrong answer for you.