Custom die-cut stickers for Port Jefferson, New York

A food business ordering takeout container labels usually turns up with half the problem solved. They know the lid the label is going on, they have a rough idea how big it should sit there, they know it needs the shop name and usually a second line for what is inside, and the two things they cannot answer on their own are what a run of them costs and how the shape of the sticker gets decided. That is the conversation this page is written for.

Orders from the 11777 ZIP code reach us the same way any other order does: a design, a size in inches, a quantity, and an address. Nothing about a Port Jefferson order is handled differently from one placed a mile from the counter. What is worth walking through is the arithmetic, because die-cut stickers are priced by area and by quantity at once, and the two together decide almost everything about what you pay per container.

The label before anything else

A die-cut sticker is cut to the outline of the artwork rather than to a rectangle, so the first decision is not the price, it is the shape. A circle reads as a seal on a round lid. A rounded square sits flat on a flat one. An irregular outline, a logo with a tail or a leaf or a fork cut around it, is possible too, and it costs the same as any other shape of that size, because the price follows the square inches the sticker occupies rather than how complicated its edge is. Decide the shape and the size together, with the container in your hand.

What a run actually costs

Die-cut stickers are priced per square inch, and the rate falls as the quantity climbs. It is 35 cents per square inch at 1 to 24 pieces, 30 cents at 25 to 49, 28 cents at 50 to 99, 26 cents at 100 to 249, 24 cents at 250 to 499, and 22 cents at 500. Take a 3 by 3 inch label, a common size for a lid. That is 9 square inches. At 250 pieces the rate is 24 cents, which puts the sticker at $2.16 each and the run at $540.00. Push the same label to 500 and the rate drops to 22 cents, so each one is $1.98 and the 500 come to $990.00. Twice the labels for $450.00 more, not another $540.00, and that gap is the whole argument for the larger band if you know you will use them.

The ten piece line

There is an order minimum, and it is worth being precise, because it is not a price floor. An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces, or at $10 of merchandise, whichever you reach first. A handful of large labels can clear the $10 on merchandise alone without getting near ten pieces. A run of small ones clears it on count. Either route is fine.

A cluster you can order across

The unusual thing about this address, at least from where we sit, is how tightly the surrounding places sit around it. Port Jefferson Station is 1.7 miles away.

East Setauket and Setauket are both 2.4 miles. Mount Sinai is 2.6 miles and

Terryville is 2.7 miles. Five neighbours, all inside 2.7 miles, all covered. For a food business that is a practical fact rather than a geographic one: a second kitchen or a commissary belonging to the same operation is very likely inside that radius, and the labels for both can be one design on one order rather than two separate runs. All of those distances are straight line, measured point to point.

Where the work happens

Port Jefferson is 17.6 miles east of us in Suffolk County. Everything is printed and cut at one storefront at 205 East Main Street in Huntington, which matters mainly because it means there is one place to ask a question and one person who has seen your file. Orders ship anywhere in the United States.

Getting artwork onto a cut line

The cut follows an outline, so somewhere in your file there has to be a decision about where that outline runs. Usually it is a border offset a little way out from the logo, which is why so many container labels carry a thin ring of colour around the edge. If your artwork is a solid shape, the outline is the shape. If it is lettering on nothing, the outline has to be drawn, as a circle, a rounded rectangle, or a contour following the letters. Tell us which you want, or say you have no preference and we will pick the one that suits the design.

Four kinds of order that turn up

The kitchen using one label for everything. One design, one size, the shop name and a blank space nobody writes in. This is the simplest order there is, and the one where the 500 piece band earns its keep, because a single design goes on every container that leaves the counter.

The operator testing before committing. Twenty five pieces at 30 cents a square inch is a real order, not a sample, and it costs a fraction of a full run. You put them on containers, look at them across a counter, and then decide whether the size is right before spending $540.00 or $990.00 on the version you keep.

The business with several things to label. A soup container, a salad bowl, a bag seal, a jar. Four designs, four sizes, one order. Each design is priced on its own area and its own count, so a large run of one and a small run of another sit on different rates.

The second location. Same design, twice the quantity, divided at your end. It costs less per piece than two separate runs of half the size, which is the only reason to bother combining them.

Questions people ask before ordering

Can I collect a Port Jefferson order from the Huntington storefront instead of having it shipped? Yes. Local pickup is free, and you choose it at checkout instead of a shipping method. Nothing about the order changes except where it goes.

I want to test one container label design before committing to a big run. What does a small Port Jefferson order do to the per piece price? It raises it. At 25 to 49 pieces the rate is 30 cents per square inch rather than the 24 or 22 cents you would see on the larger bands, so a 3 by 3 inch label is $2.70 each in that band. That is the cost of finding out whether the size is right.

My 3 by 3 inch label came to $540.00 for 250. What does the same Port Jefferson order cost at 500? $990.00. The rate drops from 24 cents to 22 cents per square inch at 500, which takes each label from $2.16 to $1.98. The second 250 pieces effectively cost $450.00.

Is 11777 the only ZIP code I need for a Port Jefferson delivery address? It is the ZIP code we have listed for it. Enter the street address as you would on anything else and the order follows that address.

Do you cover Mount Sinai and Terryville too, or only Port Jefferson itself? Both, along with Port Jefferson Station, East Setauket and Setauket. All five are inside 2.7 miles, and none of them are priced differently.