How Much Do Enamel Pin Badges Cost To Make?

How Much Do Enamel Pin Badges Cost To Make? What is the true costs?

This is a question we get asked a lot, the quick answer is there is no quick answer! We feel this is a positive, because it means there are more ways to customise your enamel pin badges, such as size, thickness, number of enamel colours, clutch type, plating type and the list goes on! When you start playing about with all of these options with our live price feature, the price can switch up and down in an unlimited number of ways. Let’s take a look at some of them here.

SIZE

Size of Your Enamel Pin Badges

The size of your enamel pins is one of the first considerations you will choose. Such as 20mm, 30mm, 38mm, 50mm etc. We feel the most common sizes for enamel pins are between 20mm and 30mm. This range makes a great badge because they are very wearable. 50mm badges tend to be the max size, unless they are intended for collection purpose. 50mm badges tend to be more suited to sports and events like football, tennis, hockey and sporting tournaments.

Why Else Is Size Important?

Details. A small 20mm badge will struggle to hold the same amount of detail as a 50mm badge. This is because when designing enamel pins, the thinnest line we can use is 0.2mm for soft enamel, and 0.4mm for hard enamel. Hard enamel has to be 0.2mm thicker due to the fact that when we polish the badge down the lines can get ‘smudged’ out (custom hard enamel badges are effectively just custom soft enamel badges that are sanded and polished down to a smooth finish). But don’t worry, this ‘smudging is nothing anyone will notice.

How Does This Effect Price?

When you click onto any of our product pages, you are given a live price of the goods. No waiting around 3 days for a quote! As standard, all the free options are selected, such as nickel or gold plating, metal or rubber clutch and the smallest size of 13mm to 20mm badge size.

Looking at the standard options, 100 soft enamel pin badges at 13mm to 20mm would come to £163.20. If we move the size bracket up to 21mm to 25mm the price updates instantly to £165.60. If we go further and move it up to 26mm to 30mm in badge size the price increases to £178.80. This continues up to 51mm to 55mm where 100 soft enamel pins with standard options would be £284.40. You can see the pattern here.

ENAMEL COLOURS

How Many Colours To Choose For Your Enamel Pins?

There is no rule here either! You decide, this is your creation! As standard, we allow up to 4 colours free, if you want to add more you just need to select the drop down menu and selection the number of colours you require! Simple!

If we look at our current selection from above, we had 13mm to 20mm pin badges and the cost was £163.20 as standard. If we decide we want to have six different enamel colours in our badge design, the cost would increase to £170.40. Each pin badge per piece would be £0.06p extra, multiply by 100 badges and you increase the total by £6 extra. Seven colours would be £0.10p per badge extra so we add £10 onto your order

How Much Colour Is Too Much?

This comes back to the size again. A 20mm badge would be best kept simple and to maybe three or four colours. Any more and you run the risk of making your custom badges hard to read or identify. A 30mm to 40mm badge and you can introduce up to six or seven colours easy. If you are making 50mm+ enamel pins,  you can go to town and introduce up to eight or nine and even ten enamel colours! It is easy to get carried away, and what you see on Adobe Illustrator or even your drawing pad, will not transpire when you shrink it down to a 22mm enamel pin badge. The best way is to print out your design to size to get a feel of how it will look.

ENAMEL PIN BADGE QUANTITY

How Many Badges Should You Make. How Much Does It Cost To Make Enamel Pin Badges?

It is easy to overlook this option. The vast majority of people new to the enamel pin word will opt for 100 badges. This is the sweet spot, as at this quantity you have easily covered the set up costs and postage costs. If you opt for 25 badges, you will struggle to cover badge mold costs, which would mean you would have to sell your badges at too high a price to be desirable.

A Closer Look At The Numbers. Less Is Not Always More

The economies of scale are at play here. The more you buy, the cheaper they get per piece. It’s that simple. Sure, 1000 badges at 20mm might cost £552, and 100 enamel badges at 20mm cost £163.20, but on a per piece basis, your 1000 pieces order will be cheaper per piece and bring back a bigger return.

1000 badges are £552 work out at £0.55p each. 100 badges at £163 work out at £1.63 each. 1000 badges sold at £8 would turn over £8000, minus your £552, giving you a take home of £7448. 100 badges sold at £8 would turn over £800, minus your £163, giving you a take home of £637. These are all hypothetical figures, you should play about with the options and see what works for you.

CLUTCHES AND FIXINGS

Clutches and fixings are the often overlooked options by most people. These can really set your custom badges on fire! And the good news is that per 100 badges you might only pay £3 or £6 extra to really stand out and make a mark!

The standard free fittings are metal clutches and rubber clutches, these are still great options. A little insider tip, rubber clutches are the better option here, hey grip better and will rub less on the wearer.

Getting ‘Deluxey’

Why not splash out a little on your custom pins? Our personal favourite at Studio Dais are the deluxe clutches. They will come in the plating of your choice (usually the same plating you choose for your badge). They are £0.09p each, so with a 100 pin badge order, just an extra £9. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things is it?!

Other options to go the extra mile include magnets £0.22p each per badge or safety pins £0.13p each. You should always refer back to a per piece basis. Because what is 13p on an £8 badge? Or even 22p on an £8 badge? Nothing in the grand scheme of things!

PLATING FOR ENAMEL PINS

To plate or not to plate? It’s not a question. Plating is essential. We have our free standard options of nickel, black nickel, gold and bronze. We think this is a nice selection which will make any enamel pin badge stand out. If you wanted to get more personal with your badge options, again just click the drop down menu and be amazed at how much personalisation awaits you. From rose gold, antique silver, antique bronze, brass, white dye, black dye and even pantone matched dye.

Most extra plating options are £0.03 to £0.09 extra, meaning per 100 enamel pins, £3 or £9 extra.

PRESENT YOUR PINS ON BACKING CARDS

Backing cards are a great way to present your new pins. You can use the backing card to convey your branding and contact information at little extra cost. Per 100 badges, single sided cards are £0.19 each and double sided are £0.25 each, meaning either £19 or £25 extra on top of your badges respectively. Again if you sell your badges (and cards) for £8, what is 25p off your profits. Pins definitely sell better when presented as such. Try them out!

OTHER ‘EXTRA OPTIONS’ TO STAND OUT

Let’s see what other options there are to fully customise your enamel pin badges, medals, coins and other metalwares.

Glow In The Dark

Glow in the dark can be added to your custom pins to make them pop! This option is especially popular around Halloween time when getting spooky is all the rage. You can add in small amounts or go full on glow in the dark, we can even do different shades of glow in the dark so you can get a little  more variation!

Currently for one shade of epoxy it would cost you £0.06p, so for 100 badges £6 extra. not a great deal extra! Want two shades? £12 per 100 badges. We feel this is a good option every now and then to really surprise your customers.

Epoxy Coating

We love this option! Adding epoxy coatings is a great way to add some luxury to your badges, coins, medals etc. But you must understand, epoxy is only added to soft enamel badges or die struck etc.

The epoxy coating is added to give a smooth to the touch finish. It emulates hard enamel pin badges, or the classic hard enamel pin badges.

When done to a high standard (by us of course) you won’t ever want soft enamel pins without epoxy ever again! Epoxy on badges, medals, coins etc comes in at £0.03p per badge, so for a 100 badge order just £3 extra! Not bad! We highly recommend this affordable option if you have not tried them before.

Logo Stamp Reverse

This is a great option for some extra branding on your custom enamel pins! The logo stamp can be laser etched in or as part of the stamping process itself. There is no limit too! You could have your website domain name, your slogan or both! Other ideas are if you wanted to make a statement about the limited nature of your custom pins, so 1/100 or 22/100 etc. You are limited to your imagination.

For £0.19p per badge this is a great affordable little extra you should be treating yourself to every now and then. Your customers will make a big fuss over it, and that’s what you want… NOISE!

Conclusion

This article could go on and on, because making enamel pin badges and other custom metalwares is endless. We have only listed some of the options here, and you may also have some other ideas for getting personal and custom in your pin making journey?! If you have an idea we don’t have listed on the products page then get in touch.

How much do enamel pin badges cost to make? You should be able to work this out now!

We hope you have learned a few things in this detailed article, please have a look around the website and explore all of our custom products. We are always happy to talk about your ideas, either via email or phone, just get in touch today!

Contact us HERE for anything 🙂