How much should you spend on business cards?

There are only two printing methods Thought Merchants can genuinely recommend: mid-range and premium.

Spending less than $200? Use Moo.com

Moo.com is an excellent mid-range option, with prices starting at $34.99 depending on the size and number of cards. Moo offers a beautiful range of printing and paper options. It’s hard to go wrong with their high-quality paper stocks and digital printing capabilities.

My go-to is their Super Business Cards which has the right thickness, feel, and quality. A run of 400 cards will cost just over $160 shipped. If you are looking for something with a bit different feel then go for their Cotton Business Cards, just like Thought Merchants did! The cotton provides this lovely subtle texture that comes through the digital printing.

Moo offers a unique triplex business card with a seam of color around the edge. However, the Luxe card color seam only comes in a few colors. The limited selection of seam colors makes it difficult to color match your brand colors. The thickness of the Luxe cards is also a bit excessive.

In any case, Moo is a safe choice when you want sophisticated and straightforward business cards for under $200. Delivery is quick and reordering is straightforward.

Next step up is ~$900 at Mama’s Sauce

Mama’s Sauce is a step up into the premium segment, costing about $800-$1000 for 800-1000 business cards. You get plenty of bang for your buck: Mama can print any design using virtually any process...foil stamping, letterpress, embossing - you name it, they do it. You need to invest more in your visuals to capture the added investment.

The timeframe for printing these customized cards is 4-6 weeks from green-light. Results can be awe-inspiring, such as these foil-stamped, duplex black business cards with a painted orange gradient on the edges. We designed these cards for Crevalle, who are killing the first impression game.

So what’s my best option?

The answer depends on the type of business you do - it shouldn’t be too hard to decide.

If you have fewer but higher value clients, get the premium cards from Mama’s. Consider that each Mama’s card you hand out costs at least 1 dollar, which is only good value if you expect returns from most recipients.

If you want to reach out to a large number of potential clients or are just unsure, go with Moo’s stylish and straightforward cards. Use Moo cards until you have the conviction that pricier cards will be beneficial for your brand.

Either vendor will give you the confidence handing out your business cards.

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