Custom Die-Cut Stickers for South Hempstead

Running the numbers before anything else

A 4 by 4 inch sticker is 16 square inches, and at 500 pieces the rate is 22 cents per square inch, so each one works out at $3.52 and the run of 500 comes to $1760.00. What that buys is five hundred shapes cut to the outline you drew, not five hundred squares with the artwork sitting in the middle of them. The cut line follows the art. A notch, a tail, a corner that is not a right angle: the shape comes off the sheet the way you drew it. That sum is one point on a sliding scale, and only two things move it: the area of the shape in square inches, and how many you order. Everything sent to South Hempstead is printed and cut at our single shop at 205 East Main Street in Huntington.

Where the rate steps down

Die-cut stickers are priced per square inch, and the rate falls as the count rises. From 1 to 24 pieces the rate is 35 cents. From 25 to 49 it is 30. From 50 to 99 it is 28. From 100 to 249 it is 26. From 250 to 499 it is 24. At 500 it is 22.

The boundaries are worth knowing before you settle on a number. An order sitting just under one costs more per piece than an order just over it, and on a large shape the difference is not trivial. If you are near the top of a band, price the first count in the next band as well and compare, because the per piece rate applies to the whole order and not only to the pieces above the line.

Size works the same blunt way. Narrowing a design from 4 inches across changes the area, and the area is what you pay for. A long thin shape and a compact shape with the same area cost the same.

Seals for a small product line

The most common version of this order is a packaging seal. Somebody has a small product line, the boxes or pouches or jars are plain, and the sticker is what closes the package and puts a name on it. That is a die-cut job by nature, because the shape usually wants to be a circle, an oval, a shield or a logo silhouette rather than a rectangle.

Two things tend to come up. A seal is small, which pushes the cost per piece down but also means small errors in the artwork are visible at actual size. And seals are usually repeat orders, because the packaging keeps moving, so the bands are worth thinking about across a year rather than one order at a time. If the line has more than one variety, each variety is its own artwork, so give us the counts side by side.

A name you share with the neighbours

South Hempstead sits 18.2 miles south west of the shop in a straight line, inside a cluster of places built on the same name root. Hempstead is 0.5 miles away and West Hempstead is 1.9. Lakeview is 1.5, Roosevelt is 1.9, and Rockville Centre is 2.0. We cover all of them, so we see the name confusion often enough to have a habit about it.

The habit is simple. The street address governs. We hold no ZIP code on file here, so nothing is matched on a ZIP at our end, and the full street line with the house or unit number is what an order is worked from. Write it the way you would write it on a letter, and add the unit or floor if there is one.

Artwork, and what the cut line needs

A die cut needs two things: the artwork, and a clear idea of where the cut should fall. Usually the cut is the outline of the design plus a small even margin, and if that is what you want you do not need to draw anything extra. Send the art on a transparent or clearly separated background and say to cut around the shape.

Be explicit when the design has an interior hole, a very fine point, or a piece of art you want cropped rather than followed. A thin spike at the end of a shape is hard to cut and harder to handle once cut, so those usually get softened slightly unless you say otherwise.

Check the scale too. Give the size you want in inches, not a percentage. A file can be any pixel dimension and still be meant to print at 4 inches across, and the inches are what the price comes from.

The minimum, and what it does not mean

An order qualifies at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first. That is a threshold, not a price floor. It does not mean the smallest order costs $10 flat, and it does not stop you ordering a handful of a large shape, because a big enough sticker reaches $10 of merchandise well before it reaches 10 pieces. Small trial runs sit in the 1 to 24 band at 35 cents per square inch, the highest rate on the scale, and that is the trade you make when you order a few of something to look at first.

Four ways this tends to come up

If you make a physical product and are printing your first proper packaging, price one seal size at two counts, one small and one at a band boundary, and see what the gap actually is.

If you are reordering a design you have run before, the artwork is settled and the only real decision is the count. That is the order where the bands do most of the work.

If you are handing stickers out rather than selling them, shape matters more than size, and a smaller shape at a higher count is usually a better use of the same money.

If you are ordering on somebody else's behalf, take the street address from them directly rather than off a forwarded label, because that is where the neighbouring names cause trouble.

Questions people ask

A 4 by 4 inch shape at 500 pieces comes to $1760.00. If my South Hempstead run uses a smaller shape, does that total come down? Yes. Price is per square inch, so a smaller shape has fewer square inches and a lower price per piece at the same count. The 22 cent rate at 500 does not change, but the area it multiplies does.

My first product run only needs 40 seals. What rate does a South Hempstead order that size fall into? 40 pieces sits in the 25 to 49 band, so the rate is 30 cents per square inch. If the count is likely to creep upward, 50 pieces crosses into the 28 cent band.

Does the order minimum rule out a short trial batch for a South Hempstead product line? No. The threshold is met at 10 or more pieces or at $10 of merchandise, whichever comes first, so a small number of larger stickers can qualify on value alone.

Hempstead and West Hempstead are both close by. How do I make sure a South Hempstead order is addressed correctly? Give the full street address including any unit or floor. We hold no ZIP code for the area, so the street line is what the order is worked from, and it is the part that keeps the similar names apart.

Can I collect a South Hempstead order in Huntington instead of having it sent? Yes. Local pickup at 205 East Main Street is free and can be chosen instead of shipping. Otherwise orders go out within the United States.