Custom Cardboard Boxes

Cardboard is specified in points of caliper, where a point is a thousandth of an inch. The practical range is 12pt to 24pt, roughly 230 gsm to 450 gsm.

What changes across that range is stiffness and how the box feels in the hand, not print quality - a 12pt box and a 24pt box print identically. So the choice is a structural and perceptual one. Lightweight products in a 20pt box gain nothing but cost. Cosmetics in a 12pt box feel cheap regardless of the artwork. The failure people notice is under-specifying: a box that gives under finger pressure undermines whatever is printed on it.

Coated one side is standard, leaving the interior uncoated. Coated two sides costs more and earns it when the box opens flat or the inside is part of the presentation. Full stock details are on our materials and printing page.

Measure at the widest point on each axis and give us length x width x depth. Our dielines work to internal dimensions, so you are describing the space the product needs, not the board around it.

The two errors that recur are measuring an unassembled product and forgetting a lid, cap or applicator that stands proud of the body. If you are unsure, send the product and we will measure it.

Cardboard is a retail material. It is designed to look good on a shelf, protect its contents from handling, and be carried home. It is not designed to be handed to a courier on its own.

Three signals that a job has outgrown it: the contents are heavy enough that the base flexes when lifted; the box will be shipped individually rather than inside an outer carton; or the box is over about 300mm across, where a single-wall carton starts to bow under its own span. Any of those points to corrugated - either a mailer box for direct shipping, or corrugated as the retail box itself.

The common setup for brands doing both retail and ecommerce is to use both: a printed cardboard carton as the retail box, inside a corrugated mailer for direct orders.

Unit price is the number people compare, and fill time is the one that quietly costs more. A straight tuck end has to be folded into shape, the base tucked, and the product inserted - a few seconds each, which is nothing at 100 units and significant at 10,000.

An auto-bottom costs more per box and snaps into shape in one motion, so it usually wins outright once volumes are meaningful or the packing is done in-house. A seal-end box goes further and is filled and glued on a line rather than by hand. If your packing is manual and your volume is growing, it is worth pricing the structures on total cost rather than unit cost alone.

Full-colour CMYK covers most artwork. Where a brand colour has to be identical across every reprint - and CMYK cannot reliably reproduce strong reds, oranges and deep blues - specify it as a Pantone spot ink instead. That matters most for a range of SKUs that sit together on a shelf, where drift between print runs is visible.

Because there are no die or plate fees, reordering the same box carries no tooling cost, and adding a second size or a variant artwork costs unit price alone at the same 100-unit minimum.

Send the product, or its dimensions, plus the quantity. The question that changes the answer most is whether the box ships on its own - if it does, you want corrugated and not cardboard, whatever the caliper. Related: product boxes, kraft paper bags, and the retail box range.