For the vast majority of students' unions, producing a campus dayplanner can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavour. Many students' unions are being gouged by for-profit companies, and often for generic books of mediocre quality.

The Federation's handbook project was initiated primarily to reduce the cost of producing high-quality handbooks, particularly for smaller students' unions. Students' unions of all sizes soon benefited from the project, and today even the largest students' unions in Canada realise savings from the economies of scale enjoyed by the common handbook project.

The volume of books produced allows for better quality paper, colour pages, and fewer advertisements, while achieving savings in writing and editing, design, printing, and binding. These economies of scale have enabled some students' unions to eliminate local advertising from their handbook. Other locals have chosen to continue to maintain local advertising, thereby reducing their costs even further.

Although producing a dayplanner through the Canadian Federation of Students dramatically reduces costs because of the size of the print run, that does not mean that the "local flavour" is compromised. Cover art, optional advertising, customizable calendar pages, and up to 64 pages of local content are all available with the project.