Estimated Costs

Let’s run the numbers.

Each sheet produces 8 cards and each sheet is composed of:

• a sheet of card stock, $20 for 100 sheets
• a lamination pouch, $20 for 200 pouches
• printer ink, $0.50 double-sided color printing

($20/100 sheets + $20/200 pouches) / 8 cards = $0.02 per card without printing

($20/100 sheets + $20/200 pouches + $0.50 printing) / 8 cards = $0.10 per card with double-sided printing

You could make a deck of 100 cards for $10!

Sure, there may be a significant upfront cost to get started but you can quickly recoup the cost, especially if you’re already accustomed to ordering custom cards online, paying for shipping, and sleeving up cards.

These businesses and they charge as much as $2 per card and $0.75 cents per card for bulk orders. That’s a farcry from $0.10 per card!

The most expensive purchase you’ll likely make is the cutting machine, which can cost $300.

However, if you were considering ordering custom cards but decided to make them instead, you could recoup the cost of the printer in as few as 160 cards and as many as 460 cards, given the aforementioned pricing. To some, that may sound like a lot of cards, but to others, that’s negligible.

And if you’re already a card-making aficionado, perhaps you wouldn’t save much monetarily but if you’re doing the work manually, you’d save time and wear on your body if you used a cutting machine. Perhaps, that’s worth it in and of itself.