Custom printing
Printing, finishing and encoding under one roof
The card is only half the job. The material you choose, the finish on top of it, and the data inside it decide whether the card survives a year in a wallet — and whether it works in your reader.
01 · Materials
The stock decides how the card feels in the hand
Most cards sold in North America are 30 mil white PVC. It is a good default. But a printed PVC card reads as a freebie, while a soft-touch card with spot UV reads as a membership.
We print on five substrates. If you are unsure, order a sample pack and compare them side by side before you commit to a run of five thousand.
- White PVC — the industry default, works with every desktop card printer.
- PETG — tougher and more flexible, good for high-traffic access cards.
- Recycled PVC (rPVC) — same print quality, lower footprint, worth noting in a sustainability report.
- Heavyweight 40 mil — for premium gift cards and keepsake passes.
02 · Printing methods
Three ways we put ink on a card
The method follows the quantity. A hundred cards and fifty thousand cards are not printed the same way, and pretending otherwise is how quality slips.
Digital print
Best from 100 to about 2,000 cards. No plates, no setup charge, and economical for short runs, reorders and variable data where every card is different.
Offset litho
From a few thousand cards upward. Sharper solids, tighter colour control across a long run, and the lowest unit cost at volume. Plate and setup charges apply.
Screen & white ink
Screen printing handles heavy white laydown and spot colour on dark or transparent stock — the only way to get a clean white logo on a black card.
03 · Finishes
Finishes that change how the card is perceived
A finish is a small cost per card and usually the difference between a card people keep and a card people throw away at the door.
Why soft touch and matte win for memberships
Gloss looks cheap when it scuffs, and it scuffs in a wallet. Matte and soft-touch finishes hide handling marks, resist glare under counter lighting, and photograph better for social media — which matters more than it should for gyms and salons.
When to skip the fancy finish
If the card gets swiped through a motorised reader all day, or printed on in-house by a desktop printer, keep it simple: standard laminate, no heavy spot UV, no foil near the stripe. Durability beats decoration every time.
04 · Chips, stripes & encoding
The part that actually has to work
A beautiful card that will not open the door is scrap. Encoding is where most card orders quietly fail, so we treat it as an engineering step rather than an add-on.
- Send the spec, not a guess. Track format, sector keys, block layout, UID handling — whatever your controller documents.
- We test a sample batch on a reader before the production run, and we tell you what we tested on.
- Encoding errors are our cost, not yours — if the spec you gave us was followed and the card fails, we reprint.
| Technology | What we programme |
|---|---|
| Magnetic stripe | HiCo and LoCo, track 1/2/3, ISO or custom formats |
| MIFARE Classic | 1K and 4K, sector keys and block layouts to your spec |
| DESFire EV2 / EV3 | Application and file structures, AES keys |
| EM4100 / EM4200 | 125 kHz proximity, ID ranges and formatting |
| NFC (NTAG) | URLs, vCards, NDEF records, locked or rewritable |
| Barcode / QR | Code 39, Code 128, UPC, 2D, printed and verified |
05 · Variable data
Every card different, every card checked
Member numbers, names, expiry dates, tier levels, barcodes, QR codes and scratch-off PINs can all change from card to card. You send a spreadsheet; we merge it, print it, and reconcile the output against your file before anything ships.
We also return the data we used — including any generated serials or PINs — so your records and our print run match exactly.
- CSV / XLSX import
- Sequential serials
- Randomized PINs
- Unique QR per card
- Data reconciliation
06 · Artwork & file setup
Send what you have — we will meet you there
Print-ready files speed things up, but a logo from your website and a photo of an old card is enough for us to start. Prepress is included in the quote, not billed as an extra.
Ideal print file
| Format | PDF (press-ready) or AI / EPS with fonts outlined |
|---|---|
| Trim size | 85.6 × 54 mm with 2 mm bleed, 1/16 in safety |
| Colour | CMYK, or Pantone references for spot colour |
| Resolution | 300 dpi at final size for raster images |
| White ink | Separate spot layer named “White” |
| Variable fields | Spreadsheet plus a sample of each field |
What we will do for you
- Rebuild an existing card from a photo or a physical sample.
- Set up bleed, safety margins and the stripe or chip keep-out zone.
- Add white ink behind logos that must show on dark stock.
- Flag anything that will not survive the production process before you approve.
Order a free sample pack before you decide
Six substrates, four finishes, one swipe. Email us your address and we will post a sample pack anywhere in the US or Canada — no sales call attached.