Custom Plastic Printing: What Small Businesses Need to Know Before You Order

If you’ve searched “custom plastic printing” and landed on a dozen vague supplier sites with no real pricing or process, you’re not alone. Plastic printing covers a lot of ground — shopping bags, produce and takeout bags, poly mailers, packaging tape, even garment bags — and most sites don’t explain what you’re actually choosing between. Here’s the plain version, from a shop that’s been printing plastic for over 40 years.

What “Custom Plastic Printing” Actually Covers

When people say custom plastic printing, they usually mean one of a few things: printed plastic shopping bags for a retail counter, printed poly bags for takeout or delivery, custom packaging tape with a logo running down the seam, or printed film for garment and dry-cleaning bags. Each one uses a different plastic weight and a different printing process, so “custom plastic printing” as a search term is really shorthand for a handful of very different products. The first real decision isn’t design — it’s figuring out which product you actually need.

Plastic Bags vs. Other Plastic Packaging

Plastic shopping bags are the most common request, and they range from thin, lightweight bags for a boutique to heavier-gauge bags meant to hold real weight for a grocery or hardware order. Printed packaging tape is a smaller investment that still puts your logo in front of every customer who opens a shipped box. Garment bags protect clothing while doubling as a walking billboard for a dry cleaner or tailor. If you’re not sure which category fits your product, that’s a normal question to start with — not something you’re expected to already know before you call a printer.

Minimums, Materials, and What Drives Cost

Custom plastic printing is a wholesale process, and minimums vary by product. Printed plastic shopping bags typically start at 10,000 units, with soft-loop styles from 5,000. Garment bags start at 500. Below those thresholds, per-unit setup costs make custom printing impractical compared to stock bags. Above them, cost comes down to plastic thickness (gauge), bag size, number of ink colors, and quantity — more colors and lower quantities push the price up, while sticking to one or two colors at higher volume brings it down significantly. A straightforward request with your logo in one or two colors, on a standard bag size, is usually the fastest and most affordable path.

How the Process Should Work

You shouldn’t have to send print-ready artwork just to get a conversation started. A good custom plastic printing order starts with what you’re packaging, your approximate quantity, and how you want your brand to look — logo file or brand colors are enough to begin. From there you should see a digital proof showing exactly how the finished bag or tape will look before anything goes to press, with room to request changes and approve in writing. Nothing should print until you’ve signed off. That review step is what separates a printer you can trust with a reorder from one you’re gambling on.

Getting the Best Results From Your Design

Simple, high-contrast logos print more cleanly on plastic than fine detail or gradients, especially on thinner gauges. If your logo has small text, expect it to look best at a larger size or in fewer colors. Sending a vector file (AI, EPS, or high-res PDF) instead of a low-resolution image avoids delays at the proofing stage. And if you don’t have finished artwork yet, say so — a printer who’s done this for decades can usually help you get there rather than turning you away.

Pack Plus Printing has been custom printing plastic bags, packaging tape, and garment bags for retail, restaurant, and e-commerce businesses out of Brooklyn for more than 40 years. We’re still small and family-run, which means you talk to a real person from quote to delivery, not a ticket queue. Get a free quote and tell us what you’re packaging — we’ll walk you through the rest.