What Drives the Cost of Printing a Logo on 500 Pens

With the quantity fixed at 500, four choices set the price of putting your logo on a pen: the pen itself, how the logo goes on, how many colours and positions you print, and which delivery option you choose. The pen usually makes the biggest difference, because a plastic giveaway pen and a metal gift pen are very different prices before anything is printed on them.

You don't need to ask us for a figure. Every pen on our site shows its price for the quantity and options you enter, so type in 500 and watch the number change as you work through the choices below.

What does the pen itself add to the price?

More than any other choice on this page.

Plastic pens sit at the lower end, metal pens above them, and recognised brands above those. Within each type, the barrel finish, the mechanism and the material all make a difference, including whether the barrel is made from a recycled or certified material.

If you're comparing two pens that look similar, compare them at 500 on their product pages rather than at their starting prices, because the gap between two pens can change from one quantity break to the next.

How does the branding method change the price?

It depends on how many passes the logo needs.

Screen and pad printing apply one colour at a time. Each colour has its own setup and its own pass through the machine, so a one colour logo is the baseline and every extra colour adds to it.

Full colour printing applies the whole design in a single process. Extra colours don't add passes, which is why it's often the better route for a logo with several colours, a gradient or a photograph.

Laser engraving marks the metal directly, with no ink, so there are no colours to add. It's offered on metal pens, which cost more than plastic ones before any branding, so an engraved pen usually costs more overall than a printed plastic one.

Our guide to screen printing, embroidery and engraving explains how each method works.

Do extra colours and positions cost more?

On screen and pad printed pens, yes.

A second colour is a second pass. A second position, such as the other side of the barrel or the clip, is a second print job with its own setup. So a two colour logo printed on both sides is four passes rather than one, and the price reflects that.

The price on the product page updates as you add colours or positions, so you can see exactly what each one adds before you decide it's worth it.

Why is the price per pen lower at 500 than at 100?

Because the setup work happens once, however many pens go through it.

Preparing the artwork, making the screen or the printing plate and setting up the machine costs much the same for 100 pens as for 500. Spread across 500 pens, it adds far less to each one.

Prices step down at set quantity breaks rather than sliding smoothly. If you need a number just below a break, check the price at the break above it before you order, because ordering a few more sometimes costs less in total. Our guide to budgets, quantities and lead times explains quantity breaks across the range.

What are setup and origination charges on printed pens?

They're the one off costs of preparing your design for printing, as opposed to the cost of printing it.

On a pen, that covers preparing your artwork for the print area, making the screen or the plate used in pad printing, and setting up the machine. It's charged per design rather than per pen, which is the reason the price per pen falls as the quantity rises.

Two things follow from that. Reordering the same design later is usually cheaper than the first run, because the preparation has already been done. And splitting 500 pens into two smaller orders normally costs more than one order of 500, because the setup happens twice. Our tote bag pricing guide shows the same mechanism on bags.

Does delivery speed change the price?

It can, and you can compare the options before you choose.

Where they apply, your basket shows No-Rush, Standard and Express delivery options for each line, each with its own date, so you can choose the one that suits your deadline before you check out. The date you select at checkout is guaranteed.

If your deadline is close, our Express Curvy Pens are set up for speed. The express service on that pen is based on a one colour print on one side, up to a maximum quantity shown on the product page, so a simple design is what keeps an express order quick.

What doesn't change the price?

How intricate your logo is. On a printed pen, a detailed logo in one colour costs the same as a simple logo in one colour, because it's the same single pass.

Changes to your Visual Proof™. You can request as many changes as you need, and they don't cost anything.

Finding out the price. The product page shows it, and your Visual Proof™ comes back with it.

How do you get the price for 500 pens?

Open the page for the pen you're considering, enter 500, choose your print options and the price updates as you go. Try the next quantity break up while you're there.

Then request a free Visual Proof™. Our in-house designers will put your logo on the pen and send it back with the price and delivery date, usually in around 20 minutes. Where it's supported, you can change the quantity as part of the proof, which makes it easy to compare 500 with the next break up. The price on your proof is locked for 14 days, which leaves time to get the spend signed off.

If you've found the same pen for less elsewhere, our Price Match covers qualifying like-for-like comparisons. If you haven't chosen a pen yet, our guide to the best promotional pens for businesses matches pens to jobs.