Rounded corners and shaped cards

What it costs and why

Rounded corners require a die and a separate pass through a cutting machine after printing and trimming. That is a setup cost plus a per-unit cost, which is why the price does not scale down as sharply as printing does.

Fully shaped cards — leaves, circles, custom outlines — need a bespoke die made for your shape, which is a one-off charge that only makes sense on larger runs or repeat orders.

Designing for a die

Keep content further from the edge than usual. A die cuts with slightly more tolerance than a guillotine, so pull text 4 to 5 mm in rather than 3.

The specifications this applies to

For reference, here is how it works out on the products this comes up on most often.

• Standard Visiting Cards — 89 × 51 mm finished, 3 mm bleed, 300 DPI minimum, from ₹2 per unit with a minimum of 100.

Ordering

Every file is checked automatically before printing, so a mistake in any of this is caught while it can still be corrected rather than after a run is on paper.

Standard delivery is free to every PIN code in India — two working days to a metro, up to twelve to the islands — and prices include GST, so the figure on the product page is the figure charged. Add a GSTIN at checkout and the invoice carries it for input credit.

Choosing without seeing it

Paper and finish are difficult to judge from a screen, which is why the descriptions on each product say what a stock is best for, what it is poor for, and what it feels like in the hand rather than only listing a GSM figure.

If a decision genuinely hinges on the feel, order the smallest quantity first. On most products the minimum is 100 units, which costs very little against the risk of committing a full run to a stock that turns out wrong.