Money Saving Tips on Beer Label Printing

Over the years working with breweries of different sizes, saving money on the cost of labels has always been important. Through all of this experience, both in the printing and design of labels, I have been able to better understand ways to save money on beer label printing and in many ways create better branding at the same time. I hope you find these tips useful in saving money, and how you can approach your beer label design

If you haven’t checked it out, I have an in-depth article here about can label materials and design ideas.

Shop Around

There are a lot of label companies out there, and your best option may not be local.

Yeah, no duh right? I still wanted to include this because I have worked with clients that got better pricing (or better service, even) from switching label printers. One brewery that I work with saved half…HALF…the costs on their labels by switching to a label printer that I trust and work with regularly. There are many label printing companies out there these days, so that also can bring competition. Some printers have better printing equipment that can reduce production costs and provide you with better quality labels! 

But, I support local!!

Yeah, I totally get it and love to support local when I can. If you find a better fit for your label needs outside your local area, it could still be cheaper and better after factoring in shipping costs.

A last note on picking a label provider. If you are using a mobile canning service, ask them what the best label materials and setup is for them. They might have an ideal setup to get runs out smoother, reducing label waste.

Group Label Orders for Printing

It’s hard to keep up with promiscuous beer customers. Add to that trying to stay on top of trends. All of these things can make it challenging to plan out releases in advance, but there are definitely benefits if you can pull this together.

So, if you know have beer releases planned but haven’t created label designs for them, take a look at doing that now! Not only could you save costs on printing runs, but that leads to the next point where you might save money on design costs, too.

The label company that I work with gives you better pricing if you group orders together. Here’s an overview of how that works. The cost per label goes down the more you print, so if you print 10,000 labels versus 5,000 labels, you will get a better cost for each label. If you run 3 labels at 5,000 qty each, some printers might charge the more expensive 5,000 price times three. Printers that will allow you to group orders together will charge the per label cost of a 15,000 label run.

For other ideas on your beer label printing and design needs, check out these episodes on the Branding Brews podcast!

Label Materials with Avery Dennison

Label Printing with Scott McKean 

Get these tips, plus 4 other cost saving ideas in the PDF guide below!