Letterheads: specification, pricing and artwork
3 min read
Full-colour A4 letterheads printed on 100 gsm bond, suitable for both laser and inkjet overprinting.
This guide covers the specification, what the options actually change, what it costs at each quantity, and how to supply artwork that prints correctly first time.
Specification
Finished size is 210 × 297 mm, so artwork should be supplied at 216 × 303 mm to include 3 mm of bleed on every edge, in CMYK at 300 DPI or better.
Production takes 3 working days before transit, and standard delivery is free to every PIN code in India.
- A4 210 x 297 mm
- 100 gsm bond paper
- Laser and inkjet safe
What you can choose
This product is supplied to a single standard specification, which keeps both the price and the turnaround predictable.
Quantities and what they cost
100 costs ₹450 — ₹4.5 each — while 1000 works out at ₹3 each, a drop of about 33%.
The temptation is always to buy the biggest quantity, because the per-unit price falls sharply. That is only a saving if you use them before something changes — an address, a phone number, a price, a person. Order roughly nine months of realistic use.
- 100 — ₹450 (₹4.5 each)
- 250 — ₹950 (₹3.8 each)
- 500 — ₹1,700 (₹3.4 each) · most popular
- 1000 — ₹3,000 (₹3 each)
Preparing the artwork
Finished size is 210 × 297 mm, so artwork should be supplied at 216 × 303 mm to include 3 mm of bleed on every edge, in CMYK at 300 DPI or better.
Bleed matters if anything in your design runs to the edge. Extend the background 3 mm past the cut line on all four sides, and keep text at least 10 mm inside it, or the guillotine may take part of it.
Every file is checked automatically before it reaches a press. Anything that would print badly is blocked while it can still be fixed; anything borderline is flagged for you to decide.
- Supply as PDF, or as PNG, JPG or TIFF at 300 DPI at final size.
- Work in CMYK. RGB files are converted, which can shift bright blues and greens.
- Embed fonts, or convert text to outlines, so nothing is substituted.
- One page.
Delivery and lead time
Production takes 3 working days. Transit is added on top of that and depends on where it is going, but standard delivery costs nothing anywhere in India — distance is paid for in days rather than rupees.
Orders placed after midday start production the following working day, and the promised date always allows for that.
- Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad — about 5 working days in total.
- Tier-one cities such as Pune, Jaipur, Kochi and Chandigarh — about 6 days.
- Most other pincodes — about 8 days.
- North-east and the islands — 11 to 15 days.
GST and invoicing
Printed matter under HSN 4911, taxed at 12%.
Prices shown are MRP and already include GST, so the figure on the product page is what gets charged. Add your GSTIN at checkout and the tax invoice carries it, along with the HSN per line and the tax split, so input credit can be claimed without a follow-up.
It is far easier to enter a GSTIN at checkout than to have an issued invoice amended afterwards.
Common mistakes on this product
The two problems that come up most often on letterheads are missing bleed on designs that run to the edge, and logos taken from a website at screen resolution. Both are caught before printing, but both cost a day while a corrected file is supplied.
The fix for the second is always the same: ask your designer for the original vector file. A logo as PDF, AI, EPS or SVG has no resolution at all and prints perfectly at any size.
Common questions
What size should artwork be for letterheads?
Finished size is 210 × 297 mm, so artwork should be supplied at 216 × 303 mm to include 3 mm of bleed on every edge, in CMYK at 300 DPI or better.
How long does delivery take?
Production takes 3 working days, plus transit — two days to a metro and up to twelve to the islands. Standard delivery is free everywhere.