Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Commercial Printing Company Revenue Benchmark

A commercial printing company prints marketing materials, packaging, labels, forms, direct mail, signage and publications for business clients using offset, digital and related processes, often adding design, finishing and mailing services. Presses, paper, skilled operators and the shift of print volume to digital channels shape a manufacturing business that sells in short runs.

NAICS 323111, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Commercial Printing Company Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every commercial printer with paid employees, excluding screen printers and book printers, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of printers gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$4,642,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

15,229

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $70.7 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $70.7 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 15,229 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $4,642,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Commercial Printing (except Screen and Books), NAICS 323111. The category covers commercial printers using offset, digital and similar processes, including quick print shops. Screen printers and book printers are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 3231: 323113 Commercial Screen Printing; 323117 Books Printing; 323120 Support Activities for Printing. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Varies by cohort

Printing and Related Support Activities, NAICS 3231, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

59.5%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 83.4 percent at 1 year, 73.2 percent at 2 years, 63.4 percent at 3 years, 62.3 percent at 4 years, 59.5 percent at 5 years. 1,015 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 53.9 to 64.5 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 83.4 percent of the starting count2 years: 73.2 percent of the starting count3 years: 63.4 percent of the starting count4 years: 62.3 percent of the starting count5 years: 59.5 percent of the starting count83.473.263.462.359.5Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years1,015 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 60 establishments aged five for every 100 that first reported paid employment in 2018. Census compares counts by age rather than following the same businesses, so read it as a broad continuation indicator for the industry group, not as a tracked survival rate.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 53.9 to 64.5 percent. This benchmark covers Printing and Related Support Activities, NAICS 3231, as a whole, and this category accounts for 15,229 of the 22,844 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

MeasureValue
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈23%

Payroll share of receipts, Commercial Printing (except Screen and Books), United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 23.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a modest share for a manufacturing trade because paper, ink, plates and press financing take a large part of every job alongside the operators who run it.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes paper, consumables, equipment leases and outsourced finishing, which together carry most of the cost of a print job.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

MeasureValue
Paid employees per employer establishment17.9
Employer establishments per firm1.08

Scale and ownership, Commercial Printing (except Screen and Books), United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 17.9 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm. A printer of that size runs presses, prepress and finishing with a sales and customer service team, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade of mostly single-plant companies with some multi-plant groups.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Commercial Printing Company: reading a manufacturing trade whose product keeps moving online.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • Offset, digital or both? Offset presses pay off on long runs, digital presses on short runs and variable data, and a printer's equipment mix decides which jobs it can win and at what cost. The average blends shops built for either.
  • How much of the price is paper? Paper is the main material cost and its price moves with pulp markets and supply disruptions, while quoted prices to clients adjust more slowly. A single year of receipts cannot show that squeeze.
  • Which markets does the printer serve? Demand can differ sharply between packaging and labels, marketing print, forms and publications, so product mix matters when comparing printers. A printer's product mix decides which part of the trade it depends on.
  • Is the press floor busy? Presses and finishing equipment carry lease payments and depreciation whether they run or not, so capacity utilization decides whether a plant pays. That figure is the heart of print economics and is invisible in receipts.
  • Does the printer sell services beyond printing? Design, mailing, fulfillment, promotional products and online storefronts for client ordering add revenue and stickiness, and they change a printer into a marketing services business. What sits inside a printer's receipts varies with those additions.
  • How concentrated are the customers? A printer that depends on a few large accounts for packaging or direct mail faces different risk from one serving hundreds of small businesses. Losing one account can idle a press, and the benchmark cannot show that exposure.

Sources and Methodology

Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.

The Census counts employer establishments, meaning each printing plant with paid staff. A designer printing alone is not counted, and screen printers and book printers are counted in separate categories.