Scope the SKUs, not the design.
A client who says "we need packaging" has a number of products in their head, and that number is the price. Four flavours is four front panels and four back panels sharing one system. A size variant is another. The limited edition the marketing lead mentioned at the end of the call is another. Every one of them is real work, and every one of them is a line the client will assume was included if the quote said "packaging" and stopped.
The range that was scoped as one
The system is designed once. The second SKU costs less than the first, because the system exists, and it never costs nothing, because the artwork does not. A quote that prices the system and then each additional SKU as its own line does two things: it makes the fifth flavour, arriving in month three, a purchase with a stated price, and it lets the client decide how many products to launch with, in writing, rather than in a series of "and could we also" emails.
Count faces too. Front and back is two artworks. A wrap-around label is one. A box is six panels and a dieline that will change.
The dieline belongs to somebody else
Packaging is designed to a template the printer supplies, through the client, and that template arrives late, changes, or arrives from a printer the client has not yet chosen. Design begun before the dieline is design that gets rebuilt.
Write it as an assumption with a date: dielines for each SKU supplied by the client before artwork begins. Ask on the first call whether a printer has been selected. If the answer is "we are getting quotes," the timeline should not begin until it is "yes, and here is the file."
Regulatory copy, barcodes, and the reprint
This is the expensive paragraph. Ingredient lists, nutrition panels, allergen warnings, weights, country-of-origin lines, and the barcode itself are the client's content. The designer places them. The client, or their regulatory adviser, checks them. The terms should say so in one sentence, and should say that the client signs off the final artwork before it goes to print, because the cost of a wrong panel is a print run, and a print run is the dispute that ends relationships.
Proofs are the same. A printer's proof is checked by the client; a press check, if you are attending one, is a day with a price.
The range, counted before the artwork
You paste the notes from the call. North drafts the proposal as three options that are different amounts of range rather than the same label at three prices ("One product", "The range of four", "The range and the launch collateral"), with the scope inside each counted: the SKUs, the faces per SKU, the print-ready files, the rounds of revision with a round defined as one consolidated set of notes. Under each SKU is a sentence about what that pack has to do on the shelf, in the client's own terms. The terms note names the assumptions the price rests on: dielines supplied before artwork begins, regulatory copy supplied and checked by the client, final artwork signed off before print.
You edit the draft and press send yourself; the client reads it at a private link, picks an option and accepts. The agreement, drafted alongside from the same scope and terms, is shown to them then; they verify their email once and sign. After signing, the accepted option can become stages with dates (system, the first SKU, the range, print-ready files), which the client watches from the room and which become invoice lines as they are ticked off; the final invoice remembers what the system stage already billed. Stages, and card payment on your own Stripe account, are part of the paid plan. Invoices drafted from the project, sent by you, opened where you can see, are not.
The proposal carries your own imagery, which for packaging means the shelf mock-up can be on the first page of the document, where the buyer's eye goes first.
What stays with the printer
North does not talk to the printer, check a proof, attend a press check, or know what a barcode is supposed to say. It does not manage artwork versions or deliver print files. It holds the document that says how many SKUs were bought, whose dieline it was, and who signed off the panel before it went to press.
Common questions
- How do I quote packaging for a product range rather than one product?
- Count the SKUs and count the faces, put a per-SKU price in the document for the flavour that arrives in month three, and add a colour-matching line for any SKU printed at a different plant. Four products with front and back panels is eight artworks sharing one system, and the second SKU costs less than the first but never nothing; a limited edition or a seasonal variant is a SKU too. Quote the system once and each additional SKU as a line with a price, so the fifth flavour that arrives in month three has a number before the email does.
- Who supplies the dieline for packaging design?
- The printer, through the client, and the quote should say so as an assumption with a date. Designing to a dieline that changes later means rebuilding the artwork, and a dieline that arrives after the design has started is the most common reason a packaging job overruns. Ask on the first call whether a printer has been chosen; if the answer is no, the dieline is not coming soon.
- Is the designer responsible for barcodes and regulatory copy on packaging?
- Placement, yes; content, no, unless the quote says otherwise. Nutrition panels, ingredient lists, warnings, weights and the barcode itself are supplied by the client and checked by them or their regulatory adviser. Write that sentence into the terms, with a line that the client signs off the final artwork before it goes to print, because the cost of a wrong panel is a reprint and a reprint is the argument nobody wants.