Label rolls

Look at the 35 × 35mm row again. 1000 labels are $206.25. 5000 labels — five times as many — are $207.14. That is not a misprint and it is not a promotion.

Label production carries a minimum order value rather than a minimum quantity. Setting up a die, mounting a roll and running the first metre costs what it costs, so below a certain point the price simply stops falling and you pay the minimum whether you take a hundred labels or a few thousand. On small labels that point is a long way up: a short run and a long one land within a dollar of each other.

Most label shops publish a per-label figure in that range — “from 6c a label” — which is the minimum divided by the quantity rather than a rate anyone can buy at. It falls as the quantity rises and the total does not move at all. That is why this page prints totals in the first column and treats the per-label figure as the footnote it is.

The practical version: if you are ordering fewer than 5000 small labels, order 5000. Paper labels keep for years in a sealed bag out of sunlight, and the ones you do not use this year cost you almost nothing. The advice reverses on the large sizes, where the minimum stops binding and you are paying for real material — a 150 × 150mm label is $1225.81 at 5000 against $364.38 at 1000, and there the quantity is a real decision.

A roll label is die-cut onto a continuous liner and wound on a core, so it peels off one at a time, in order, with the next one already presented. Applying a few hundred by hand is a rhythm rather than a chore, and any benchtop applicator takes a roll and nothing else. If labels are going onto stock as it is packed, this is the format.

A sheet is better when the labels are being handed around, used a few at a time, or printed in mixed designs on one page. Those are sold as sticker sheets, priced per sheet from $29.10 — a different product on a different price list, not an option on this one.

One design per roll. Two designs is two rolls and carries its own small setup, which the desk quotes before anything starts rather than guessing at here.

The table above is white paper with a permanent adhesive and a UV coating, square or rectangular, one design, at the four sizes listed. That is the specification we hold real figures for, so it is the specification you can order without asking.

Everything else is a quote, and quickly: synthetic and clear films for bottles that live in a fridge or a cool room, removable adhesive for anything that has to come off cleanly, gloss or matte lamination instead of the UV, circles and ovals, custom contours, and any size not on the list. None of that is exotic and most of it is close in price — it is simply not a number this page is willing to invent.

Labels going onto a bottle that gets wet, frozen or handled with oily hands should be on a synthetic film rather than paper, and it is worth saying so when you ask. Paper is the right stock for dry goods, boxes, jars on a shelf and anything that will not be scrubbed.

Taking the logo, wording and ingredients or barcode you already have and setting them inside the label's die line is part of the price. That includes pulling artwork back from the cut edge so nothing is trimmed off, checking that small legal type is still legible at size, and telling you when a logo saved off a website will not hold up on a 35mm label.

What is quoted separately is design from nothing — a product that needs a look rather than a layout. Say so on the quote form and the desk prices it before anything starts.

A proof goes to you with the artwork placed inside the die line at size, and nothing runs until you approve it. The turnaround on this page — 2-4 working days — runs from that approval and your payment rather than from when you first ask, so a quick sign-off is the fastest route to labels on a shelf.

The proof page carries a private tracker link that moves through printing, dispatched and delivered on its own. How it works sets out the whole sequence.