A sticker is the only advertisement your customer installs for you. Every other piece of print is thrown away, filed, or looked at once. A sticker gets applied to a laptop, a water bottle, a hard hat or a toolbox, and then it works for two or three years without you paying anything further.
That is the whole argument, and it is an argument about cost per impression rather than cost per piece. Let us be straight about both numbers.
What stickers actually cost here
Our custom stickers are square cut labels printed on 60lb slit back label stock, full colour on one side. Here is the real price list, not a starting-from figure.
| Size | Quantity | Price | Per sticker |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 x 3.5 | 100 | $75.00 | $0.75 |
| 4 x 6 | 100 | $102.05 | $1.02 |
| 8.5 x 11 | 100 | $173.95 | $1.74 |
| 8.5 x 11 | 250 | $335.80 | $1.34 |
Seventy five cents for a small sticker is not the cheapest number in the sticker market and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Novelty die cut sticker shops running thousands of the same shape go lower. What you are buying here is commercial label stock with a clean slit back liner, printed at press quality, in quantities that suit a business rather than a merch drop.
The trick most print sites will not tell you
The 8.5 x 11 size is one large label, not a sheet of small ones. But nothing stops you laying out twelve small designs on that 8.5 x 11 artwork and cutting them apart yourself.
Twelve per sheet at 100 sheets is 1,200 stickers for $173.95, which works out at about 14.5 cents each. That is roughly a fifth of the per sticker price of ordering the 2 x 3.5 size directly.
The catch is real: you are cutting 1,200 stickers by hand, or paying someone to, and the edges will not be as clean as a machine cut. For a giveaway bowl at a trade show, that is a trade most people would take. For a product label going on a retail shelf, it is not. Order the cut size.
Where stickers genuinely outperform other print
Stickers are not a substitute for flyers or cards. They do a different job, and there are a few places where nothing else works as well.
- Packaging seals. A branded sticker closing a box or a bag turns generic packaging into yours. This is the single highest value use, because it costs one sticker per order and it lands in the hands of someone who already bought from you.
- Product and jar labels. Food producers, candle makers, sauce bottlers, soap. This is what slit back label stock is designed for.
- Trade show giveaways. People take a sticker when they will not take a brochure, and the sticker survives the trip home. Worth pairing with the kit in our trade show display guide.
- Equipment and asset marking. Trades, rentals, service businesses. Your logo on the gear you leave behind at a site is advertising to the next contractor who walks in.
- Warranty, date and batch marking. Unglamorous and useful.
Where a sticker is the wrong product
Being honest about this saves you money.
| You want | Use this instead | From |
|---|---|---|
| One large graphic on a window or door | Adhesive vinyl | $71.15 |
| Something on a wall that comes off cleanly | Removable wall decals | $29.80 |
| Window graphics you will change or reuse | Window clings | $136.45 |
| Solid graphics that stay see-through from inside | Perforated window vinyl | $64.00 |
| Something on a floor that people walk on | Anti-slip floor decals | $45.83 |
| Something on a vehicle | Car magnets | $25.28 |
| Something that lives in a kitchen for a year | Fridge magnets | $61.38 |
The pattern: paper label stock is for small things applied once, to dry surfaces, indoors or in packaging. Anything wet, outdoors, walked on, or bigger than a sheet of paper wants vinyl.
What our sticker stock is and is not
60lb slit back label is a coated paper face stock on a split liner. The split is the useful part: you peel from the middle rather than fighting a corner, which matters when someone is applying a few hundred of them.
Being clear about the limits:
- It is paper, not vinyl. It is not waterproof. A sticker on a water bottle that goes through a dishwasher will not survive. For anything that gets wet, a vinyl or polypropylene face stock is the right material, and our guide to paper, poly and BOPP label materials explains why.
- It is square cut, not die cut. You get rectangles at the size you ordered. Custom shapes are a different process.
- It prints one side. Which is what a label needs, since the other side is adhesive.
- Sizes and quantities are currently limited to the four options in the table above. If you need a size or quantity that is not listed, get in touch before you assume it is not possible.
Designing a sticker people keep
This is where most sticker spend is wasted. A sticker with a phone number and four services listed on it is a business card with glue on the back, and nobody puts it on a laptop.
The test is simple: would someone apply this to something they own, for their own reasons? If the answer is no, you have printed a label, not a sticker, and you should price it as a label.
- One idea. A logo, a mark, a short phrase. Not a logo plus a tagline plus a URL plus a QR code.
- No contact details on a keeper sticker. Counterintuitive and correct. Contact details are what make a sticker feel like an advert, and an advert does not get applied. The brand is the point.
- Design to the shape you are buying. A round logo on a 2 x 3.5 rectangle leaves two dead corners. Either fill the rectangle or accept the white space deliberately.
- Keep art clear of the edges. Square cut labels are cut in a stack, and the cut wanders slightly. Keep anything important at least a sixteenth of an inch inside the trim. Full specifications are in our print ready artwork guide.
- Think about the surface colour. Paper label stock is opaque white, so your background prints as designed. That is an advantage over clear vinyl, where the surface underneath shows through.
The cost per impression argument, with real numbers
A 2 x 3.5 sticker costs 75 cents. Applied to a laptop lid that its owner opens in coffee shops and meetings for two years, it is seen conservatively a few thousand times.
Compare that to a flyer, which at 5,000 pieces works out at under 7 cents each and is read once and binned, or a postcard at around 21 cents at 500 that gets three seconds at a kitchen counter. Per impression, the sticker is not close. Per piece, it is the most expensive thing on the list.
Which means the decision is about placement, not price. A sticker handed to someone who will not apply it is the worst value print you can buy. A sticker applied to something visible is the best.
Common questions
How much do custom stickers cost?
At FlashyPrint, 100 stickers at 2 x 3.5 are $75.00, which is 75 cents each. 100 at 4 x 6 are $102.05, and 100 at 8.5 x 11 are $173.95. Quantity of 250 is available at 8.5 x 11 for $335.80.
Are your stickers waterproof?
No. They are printed on 60lb slit back label stock, which is a coated paper. It handles incidental moisture but it is not waterproof and will not survive a dishwasher or prolonged outdoor exposure. For water resistance you need a vinyl or polypropylene face stock.
Do you print die cut stickers in custom shapes?
Our current sticker product is square cut, which means you receive rectangles at the ordered size. If you need a custom shape, contact us before ordering rather than assuming, because the answer depends on the shape and the quantity.
What is slit back label stock?
Label stock whose backing liner is split down the middle, so you peel from the centre rather than picking at a corner. It makes applying a few hundred labels considerably faster, which is why it is the standard for commercial label work.
What is the cheapest way to get a lot of stickers?
Order the 8.5 x 11 size, lay out multiple designs on the sheet, and cut them apart yourself. Twelve per sheet across 100 sheets is 1,200 stickers for $173.95, about 14.5 cents each. The trade off is hand cutting and slightly less clean edges.
Should a sticker have my phone number on it?
Not if you want people to apply it. Contact details make a sticker read as an advertisement, and people do not decorate their belongings with advertisements. Put the brand on the sticker and the phone number on a business card.
Stickers or magnets for a local business?
Magnets for households, because a fridge magnet with your hours on it stays in a kitchen for a year and is meant to carry contact details. Stickers for brand building, packaging and giveaways, where the goal is the mark rather than the number.
Can I use paper stickers on product packaging?
Yes, and this is the best use for them. Packaging seals, box closures, bag labels, jar and bottle labels on dry goods. The one exception is anything refrigerated or handled wet, where condensation will lift a paper label over time.
Before you order
Every FlashyPrint order includes a free hand-checked artwork review before anything goes to press. Bleed, resolution, colour mode and fonts, checked by a person rather than a script. Stickers are small, which means resolution problems that hide on a poster are obvious on a label. We would rather tell you before the run than after it.