NAICS 323113Canadian industry · 6-digitregional market

Commercial screen printing

SoftwarePrint Management Information Systems 323

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in commercial printing using silk-screen printing equipment. Establishments in this Canadian industry typically have a pre-press capability, for example, to cut stencils. Typically, these establishments print on clothing; or produce paper documents of a graphical nature, such as pictures and large-format sign-type lettering. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 429
Under 10 employeesA: 72%
Establishments · USA: 5,800
Employment · USA: 69,967
Payroll · USA: $3.0B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–419345%

5–911727%

10–197016%

20–49389%

50–9972%

100–19931%

200–49910%

500+0—

Of 429 Canadian establishments with employees, 72% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario17541%

Quebec9021%

British Columbia8019%

Alberta338%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 323, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

regional competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 323 Printing and related support activities

A shrinking market with too many presses. Survivors specialise — packaging, labels, wide format — or win on turnaround.

Who sets the price: The buyer, against overcapacity and online print.
The software it runs on: Print management information systems, web-to-print, estimating.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 3231 Printing and related support activities covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3231

Commercial Print Shop AcquisitionOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

The pre-screen called this a classic acquisition target, and on the surface it is: 2,276 of 3,124 Canadian establishments — 73% — have fewer than ten employees [A], owners are retiring, the customers are local businesses that reorder, and shops sell for low multiples with the equipment included. The screen's test is whether the recurring work recurs at the same size, and the largest printers say it does not. Quad, one of the largest commercial printers in North America, reported 2025 net sales of US$2.4B, down 9.4%, or 4.8% excluding the European business it sold, citing lower print volumes and lower paper sales; it guides 2026 down a further 1% to 5% and earned an 8.1% adjusted EBITDA margin [A]. In Canada the picture is milder: Transcontinental's Retail Services and Printing sector took C$1,057.7M in fiscal 2025 against C$1,069.7M, a fall of 1.1% — but acquisitions and a favourable dollar covered an organic decline of C$30.6M, which the company puts down to lower flyer-printing volume, partly from the Canada Post labour conflict; the sector's adjusted operating earnings before depreciation and amortization were C$202.4M against C$201.0M [A]. So the buyer of a print shop is buying a cash flow that shrinks a few percent a year, secured on presses whose resale value falls with every other shop that closes. Price is set by the customer, because there are too many presses and an online printer is one click away. The low multiple is not a bargain; it is the market pricing the decline. The survivors the subsector profile names — labels, packaging, wide format, fast-turnaround digital — are real, and a full study of one of those as a specific shop would be a different and fairer question than this group-level screen can answer. The software sold to printers is screened separately.

NAICS 32315 vendors named12 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 323 Printing and related support activities

Print Management Information SystemsOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

Incumbent EFI Productivity Software (Pace, Monarch) and Avanti Slingshot (Ricoh; Canadian — Toronto)

The installed base is shrinking. Commercial print volumes have declined structurally for two decades and every seat gained is taken from a shop that will close or merge, so vendor revenue compounds negatively even with a better product. Ricoh and EFI hold the category as an attachment to press sales. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.

NAICS 3233 vendors namedOpen →

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 72% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Alongside this industry

This is the most specific level NAICS defines. The other industries under 32311 are its nearest neighbours.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
323114	Quick printing	222	screened at 3231
323115	Digital printing	512	screened at 3231
323116	Manifold business forms printing	87	screened at 3231
323119	Other printing	1,651	screened at 3231