Digital vs Pad ROI Calculator

See what switching from pad to digital would save your line.

A five-minute, CFO-credible estimate of what you'd save per year by retiring clichés and pads, slashing changeovers, and running parts faster. Move the sliders — the math updates as you go. For offset or screen-print baselines, the savings model is different — talk to an EPS engineer.

⏱ ~3 minutes to fill in

🔧 Built around jobs per shift

📊 Show your work — every number is traceable

Your current pad line

Tell us what your pad-print operation looks like today. Defaults reflect a typical mid-mix pad cell — adjust to your reality.

Shifts per day

Production days per year

Changeovers per shift

How many times per shift you change the design / SKU. Pad-print shops typically run 1–5 changeovers per shift; high-mix medical or cosmetics shops run more.

Changeover time (minutes)

Average time to swap tooling, ink-up, and re-register for a new design. Digital averages ~1 minute (file swap).

Parts per run (between changeovers)

Average number of parts you print between changeovers. Short runs → tooling cost dominates; long runs → cycle-time savings dominate.

Changeovers / year

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Parts / year

—

Pad line utilization

—

Digital line utilization

—

Annual consumables (clichés, pad ink, pads)

Total annual spend on pad-print consumables — clichés, pad ink, pads, plates, tapes, solvents. Pull this from your purchasing records. Most mid-market pad operations sit between $25K and $150K per line per year.

Digital consumables reduction

Typical EPS digital deployments cut consumables cost by 60–85% vs pad. Depends on artwork. Default 70% is conservative.

Pad cycle time per part (sec)

How long one part spends in the pad-print station. Single-color pad cycles are typically 3–6 seconds; multi-color sequential pad can be 10–15 seconds.

Digital cycle time per part (sec)

Cycle time on the digital tier. EPS single-pass ~1–2 sec, multi-pass ~6–12 sec, integrated cell varies.

Operators per pad line

How many operators are running the pad cell — typically 2–3. Digital single-pass is assumed to run with 1 operator.

Loaded labor rate ($/hour)

Fully-loaded operator rate per person — includes benefits, OH, and supervision.

Indicative digital equipment investment

Multi-pass digital ~$200–400K, single-pass production ~$400K–$1.2M, fully-integrated cell up to $2M+. Payback assumes zero residual investment or resale value on existing pad equipment.

Estimated annual savings

Switching from pad to digital

Per year, recurring

— mo

Payback period^†

0 hrs

Operator-hours freed

† Payback excludes any pad-equipment resale or residual-investment offset. Pad line treated as sunk cost.

How the math works

Consumables reductionannual consumables × digital reduction %

Changeover labor savedchangeovers × time × headcount delta × labor rate

Production labor recoveredparts × cycle × headcount delta × labor rate

Scrap reduction3% scrap delta × est. $0.25/part

Total annual savings

With Pad

$0.00

→

With Digital

$0.00

Assumptions baked in: annual changeovers = changeovers/shift × shifts/day × production days/year. Digital changeover = 1 min (file swap, no clichés), digital headcount = 1 operator. Scrap delta = 3% improvement at $0.25/part. Consumables savings = your annual pad-consumables spend × the digital reduction % slider. 70% is a typical EPS deployment.

Labor savings assume operator hours freed by digital are redeployed to other value-generating work — not necessarily layoffs. Payback assumes zero residual investment or resale value on your existing pad equipment. EPS provides a detailed analysis based on your data after a 30-minute discovery call.

Talk to an engineer

This is an estimate based on the inputs above and industry-standard assumptions. EPS provides a detailed analysis based on your data after a discovery call.