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Finding the vinyl pressing plant that fits your run, comparing the quotes, checking your files, holding the timeline to your date — we run all of it, so your release ships without eating your month. Short run vinyl from 50 copies, delivered across the EU.
Ready to press, or still working it out?
Not sure about run size, cost or timeline? Work out the numbers first. Free, no sign-up.
For a release that's already specced: format, run size, date. We confirm the spec, then go to the plants. Sourcing is €100, credited in full against your management fee.
Pressing a record means writing to record pressing plants one after another, waiting weeks for quotes that don't compare, and decoding specs you have never needed before — bleed, spine width, minutes per side. Get one wrong and you find out late: 300 sleeves reprinted at your cost, or a cut that plays quiet on every copy.
And it is not really a manufacturing problem. It is a project — twelve decisions, several suppliers, one deadline — landing on the person who was supposed to be making the music.
Your release deserves better than that.
Microcut Studio is a managed vinyl pressing service in Europe. Think of it as a production desk for your release — the part of a bigger label most small labels don't have in-house. You bring a finished master and print-ready artwork. We handle everything in between: choosing the plant, one consolidated quote so you can see the real vinyl pressing cost in a single number, the technical checks on your files, the test-pressing sign-off, and delivery from the plant to your address. One contact and one consolidated production path, instead of four suppliers to chase yourself.
Custom vinyl pressing in 12", 10" and 7" for your EP, album or single — black or colour vinyl, in the weight, sleeve and finish your release needs. You decide what the record should be; we tell you what each choice costs and what it does to the timeline. Sourced from plants across the EU, checked and delivered.
What we charge for running all of this is a fixed amount per release, published in full on our pricing page.
I come from the electronic music side, and these days I work on the production end of it. I started Microcut after watching people in the scene lose money on bad pressings — and lose months to chasing quotes, templates and plants instead of writing. So I built the thing I wish existed: someone who runs the release so the artist can stay an artist.— Evgeniy, founder
Techno, house, ambient, IDM — we speak your music, not just "audio."
Two checks, not one. Your master goes against the plant's spec: file format, bit depth, running time per side against your speed and format. Your artwork goes against the plant's template: CMYK, resolution, bleed, spine width. You get back a list of what to fix, not a rejection three weeks later.
Nothing goes to the full run until you have heard it. Where a test-pressing set for us is agreed in your quote, we listen alongside you and tell you what we hear. We also tell you, before you sign, what approval commits you to: once you approve, a problem that was already audible on the test pressing may no longer be accepted by the plant as grounds for a claim. We go through the chosen plant's approval terms with you first.
The timeline is agreed in writing. If the plant slips, you hear it from us the same week — not on your release date.
You pay us; plants pay us nothing for the work we send them. A fixed fee, published up front, never a percentage of the plant's price. More in “Are you a broker?”.
Plant, print, test pressing and delivery: you deal with us, not a chain of suppliers in three countries. And the chain isn’t hidden — see “Which pressing plants do you use?”.
We track pricing, terms and quote structures across EU pressing plants as they change, and publish what we find — the reasoning behind a quote, not just the number at the bottom of it.
Free toolFormat, run size, release date, price — get an indicative budget, a break-even estimate and a production calendar in one pass. No sign-up to use it.
Try the release planner →From your first message to records in your hands — nine steps. You approve the money and the sound before either is committed, and what you supply and what we handle is spelled out at every stage. The week ranges are typical, not promises: plant lead times run 12 to 20 weeks, and for a standard 12″ black release 19 to 28 end to end once a buffer for delays is allowed; a special colour or a 7″ shifts that by a week or two either way. The release planner works the calendar out for your own configuration, and your quote states the lead time the chosen plant commits to.
Format, run size, weight, colour, sleeve, minutes per side. This is the brief every plant prices against, so getting it right here is what makes the quotes comparable later. No files needed yet.
You confirm the specification in writing, and we send an agreement and a €100 invoice, credited in full against our management fee if you go ahead. Nothing goes to a plant before both are settled.
We take your spec to pressing plants across the EU and come back with one consolidated price — pressing, sleeves and test pressings, plus delivery once we know where the records are going — and a date the price is held to.
We invoice the order: our management fee in full, with the €100 credited against it, plus whatever the plant requires at order confirmation on its own schedule. Nothing is ordered until the fee and that first production payment are settled, and the fee is non-refundable from that point, subject to the exceptions in our Terms.
You supply both. We don't master or design — if the master isn't vinyl-ready we bring in a mastering engineer and keep it inside the project.
Colour mode, resolution, bleed, spine width, minutes per side — we come back with exactly what to fix, normally within two to three working days of receiving them. If something needs changing, each further round runs to the same turnaround on our side. If you'd rather not do the changes yourself, template prep and CMYK conversion are a fixed-fee add-on, quoted before any of it starts. We also check that the sleeve and your listing carry the release identifier and your contact details, which is far cheaper to catch now than after 300 sleeves are printed.
Cutting, plating and the test pressing itself take most of this time. A test pressing goes to you. Where the plant will also send a set to us, agreed for your order and stated in the quote, we listen alongside you and tell you what we hear. Either way, you sign off in writing before a single copy of the full run is made. What to listen for, and what counts as a fair reason to send one back, is in our test pressing guide.
The plant presses your run once we hold your written approval of the test pressing and every amount due before the full run has cleared. Neither one on its own starts it. Some colour and special-effect configurations add production time at some plants; where yours does, the quote says so.
Records ship from the plant straight to your address, anywhere in the EU. Check the delivery the day it lands and tell us about anything wrong: the plant's own claim windows are short, some as little as 24 hours, and your order confirmation states each one.
Every release is signed in the dead wax — the quiet run-out groove at the centre where cutting engineers have hidden messages for decades. Where the plant supports it, you can add a short line of your own to the run-out — and, if you want it there, our studio mark alongside. It is cut into the master, so it runs on every copy of your release. We confirm it in your quote before you commit.
Independent labels, artist-run labels and self-releasing artists in the EU, working through a company or as a registered self-employed business, pressing short runs from 50 copies. Mostly techno, house, ambient and IDM. Small teams and one-person businesses with no production department in-house.
We work business to business, so we can't take orders from private individuals yet. The planner and the guides are open to everyone.
A managed vinyl pressing service for independent labels and artists in the EU. We don't own a pressing plant and we don't sell a format. We work on your side of the table: comparing plants against your spec, quoting everything in one number, checking your files against the plant's template, running the test-pressing sign-off and delivering across the EU. Our fee is a fixed amount per release, published on our pricing page, and plants pay us nothing for the work we send them. The rights, the records and the revenue stay yours.
We run your release end to end — think of it as your production desk for the release. Sourcing and comparing plants, one consolidated quote instead of a pile of quotes that don't match, technical checks on your master and artwork against the plant's templates and tolerances, with a written list of what needs fixing, the test-pressing sign-off, chasing the plant, and delivery from the plant to your address. Most of that work goes on catching the things that cost real money later: a side too long to cut loud, artwork that misses the plant's spine width, a colour that quietly adds weeks to the lead time. At the spec stage each of those is an email. After the run it is a reprint, a re-cut or a release date that moves, and you pay for it. One contact and one consolidated production path, instead of your evenings spent writing to plants, comparing quotes and chasing answers. Fixing what the check finds stays with you: artwork prep and a mastering engineer are separate services, quoted and agreed before either starts. Our fee for that is a flat amount per release and doesn't change with the plant we pick or what production costs; the full schedule is on our pricing page. See how the whole process runs, start to finish, in our step-by-step guide to pressing vinyl in Europe.
Because two different things are being priced. A catalogue price is one plant, one configuration, one lead time, and if your record fits inside it, that is a fine deal and we will say so. What you pay us for is the case where it doesn't fit: a 45 RPM cut that has to stay loud on a club system, a colour that quietly adds two weeks, a 7" the plant behind the price list doesn't actually run, or a release date that has to hold. Our fixed fee is spread across the run, so it adds more per copy at 100 records than at 300. See our pricing page for the full fee schedule. How a catalogue package compares with a sourced run is in our comparison guide.
You do. Pressed vinyl, cut records, 12", 10" or 7", black or colour, 140g or 180g — every choice moves the price, the lead time and how the record behaves on a club system. We lay out the trade-offs, name the plant that does it best, and quote it. We don't sell you a format we happen to own. Full trade-offs in our format guide, and the full list of what you can specify is on our options page.
Our sweet spot is short runs from 50 to 300 copies. Runs above that range are quoted individually. From 100 upwards the cost to press vinyl records per copy makes the most sense, because cutting and plating are paid once whatever the run size. Need fewer than 50, or a single dubplate? Pressing is the wrong tool for that, and it is not a project we run: we introduce you to a cutting studio we trust and you arrange the work with them directly. Unsure where your run size lands? The pricing breakdown in our guide shows exactly how cost per copy shifts at each tier.
No. Vinyl needs a master prepared for the format — controlled bass, watched sibilance, sensible level and length per side. You supply that master; once the order is confirmed, we check it against the plant's spec before anything is submitted to the plant. If it isn't vinyl-ready, we don't fix the audio ourselves — we bring in a mastering engineer and keep it inside the project, so you're not chasing another supplier. The mastering is theirs; the coordination is ours. What a plant checks a master against, and what usually comes back for a second pass, is in our guide to vinyl-ready masters.
We choose per project from vinyl pressing plants across Europe — Germany, the Netherlands, Czechia, Hungary, Poland and beyond. The right plant depends on your run size, format, colour and finish — a plant that is ideal for 300 black 12" records is often the wrong choice for 50, and not every plant does 7" or 10" at all. That match comes from what we track across plants and keep current: quoted prices and what they include, contractual lead times against the estimates given by email, minimum runs by format, quantity tolerances, deposit terms and claim windows. Not just the price list. Your quote names the country the record will be pressed in; the plant itself is named before you confirm the order or pay anything towards production, so you are never committed to a supplier you have not been told about. See how we compare plants across the EU in our guide.
No. Microcut Studio charges a published management fee for running the release, not a margin on the plant's production price: our fee is a flat amount per release and doesn't move with the plant we pick or with what production costs. Your quote shows the production cost and our fee on separate lines, and the plant is named to you before you confirm the order or pay anything towards production.
One party pays us, and that is you. No commission from plants for the work we send them, no percentage of the manufacturing price, and no rights in your music: no royalties, no share of the release, no claim on your masters. That is what makes the recommendation worth something. When a cheaper or better-fitting plant exists for your run, saying so costs us nothing.
Our role is to find and assess suitable suppliers, coordinate production and manage the release on your behalf. The pressing plant remains the manufacturer and prices its own work.
Sure, you could. Plenty of plants list an email address, a contact form or an online order configurator, and you can put a shortlist together in an afternoon. The expensive part is what comes after: writing one brief that every plant can quote against, decoding quotes that aren't built the same way, chasing replies for weeks, and finding out late that the plant you picked doesn't run 7" at all or can't hold your date. Get any of that wrong and you pay for it in reprinted sleeves, a quiet cut or a release date that moves. That's the part we run. Some releases genuinely need more than one supplier — a 12" pressed at one plant and a 7" or a splatter variant made at another, each producing its own part — and coordinating that is exactly what we exist for. Why two quotes are almost never comparable, in our guide.
Lead times move with plant capacity, the format and the finish — across EU plants they typically run from 12 to 20 weeks. We confirm your exact timeline in writing in your quote, before you confirm the order — and if the plant slips, you hear it from us the same week.
In two stages, invoiced separately. The first is the €100 quote and sourcing fee, invoiced once you have confirmed your specification in writing and before anything goes to a plant. The second comes when you accept the offer and confirm the order: our management fee in full, with that €100 credited against it, plus the plant's production cost. The plant's part keeps its own schedule, which can be staged or due in full before the plant starts anything, and your order confirmation states it before you pay. Freight is invoiced separately once the plant has priced it against your delivery address.
What protects you is the order things happen in. We approach plants only after you confirm the specification. We place the order only after you accept the offer, named plant and payment terms. Full production starts only after you approve the test pressing in writing. The management fee is payable in full at order confirmation and is non-refundable if you cancel after that, subject to the exceptions in our Terms, which also set out what happens to money already with the plant. How plants themselves structure deposits is in our guide.
Delivered across the EU, with no customs or import duty. Delivery to the UK, Norway, Switzerland or Iceland is possible too — customs and import VAT then apply on your side, and we quote it case by case. If you are a VAT-registered business in another EU country, intra-EU B2B reverse charge normally applies and we invoice without VAT. Without a VAT number the treatment depends on your country and on how the release is supplied, and we confirm it in your quote before invoicing. Separately from VAT, EU product safety rules ask for a contactable EU business named on the sleeve and on your sales listing. In our model that is you, as the label putting the record on the market: we are not the manufacturer, the importer or the responsible person for your release, and our guide to GPSR for vinyl sets out what actually needs printing.
Tell us about it. We'll review the project and confirm whether it's ready to go to the plants.
Microcut Studio manages short-run vinyl pressing for independent labels and artists, from sourcing the plant to delivery across the EU.
Want to understand the process first? Read our guides to vinyl pressing in the EU — minimum order quantities, real costs, deposits, test pressings and how to read a pressing quote.