Franklin Estimating has been serving the print industry since 1917. A gentleman by the name of R.T. Porte started The Franklin Club in Salt Lake City. Porte began by gathering print pricing information in the State of Utah and sold memberships to local printers and print vendors. The members of this organization were given copies of the Franklin Printing Price List. Members were also able to attend several organized meetings each year where they could discuss pricing, production methods and customer issues with other members.
By December 1919 Porte realized the commercial value of the information and incorporated The Porte Publishing Company and In 1930 changed the name to The Porte Press. As years passed and printers from around the country began seeing the value and accuracy of the Franklin Printing Price List, Franklin quickly became a mainstay in most American print shops including many U.S. government-printing facilities.
For over 50 years a gentleman named Elman Snow and his wife criss-crossed North America selling the Porte Pricing guides full time. They kept a small home in Salt Lake but were rarely there and did not have any children, choosing the life of constant travel. During World War 2 the pricing guide was designated as a mandatory nation price under the rationing acts required during the war. To this day, Franklin Rates are specified by many State and Federal agencies and considered neutral and binding in legal litigation.
In the early 1980's the company was purchased by Hal Harrison and took its current name, Franklin Estimating Systems. Soon after Franklin began developing their first software product. By the mid 1980's the DOS version had been released and was a huge success. The effort to create a Windows version began in the mid 1990's and was guided by Doug Meacham. His design structure proved to be powerful and flexible enough to stand 30 years and still running.
In 2008 the company was bought out by Greg Harrison and work soon began on rewriting on a cloud based MIS system, Franklin Anywhere. The project was a huge undertaking and took over 8 years to complete. The entire program was designed and built by the entire Franklin team, thus in keeping with the company motto: By Printers, For Printers.
Franklin Estimating's dedicated staff is here to serve you, the printer. We have a very deep understanding of the printing industry with many of our employees being former pressmen, plant managers, shop owners, and estimators.
Please give us a good look; we are sure you will see why we have been successful serving printers for over 99 years in a very competitive industry.