Best sticker printer for a tiny handmade-goods side business?
I make small handmade things and sell a few a month, and I want to make my own product labels and packaging stickers instead of ordering them in batches. Sticker printers are all over my search results this week — thermal ones, inkjet ones. For someone printing maybe 50-100 stickers a month, mostly small labels: what is actually worth buying? I do not want a subscription ink situation and I would rather buy the boring reliable thing than the cool gadget that dies in a year.
2 answers
- Used Brother-style thermal printer, skip ink entirely
You do not need ink at all. Thermal printers use heat, no cartridges, no subscription. A used Brother QL-series or similar on the resale market costs less than a year of inkjet cartridges would. For 50-100 small labels a month it will last you forever, labels per roll cost cents. The thing to check before buying: make sure the label size you want is standard, because the odd sizes get pricey. Buy the roll of boring black-on-white labels in bulk and call it a day.
- Do a waterproof test before you buy the printer.
Before spending anything, take one of your handmade things, stick a cheap label on it, and run it under the tap. Inkjet dies, thermal survives — that test alone will tell you which camp you are in. For 50 to 100 small labels a month, a no-ink thermal printer is the crafty choice: no dried-out cartridges, cheap labels, and the print quality is more than good enough for product labels. The only thing I would check is label roll availability for the model you pick, since some of the budget ones lock you into their own rolls.