Custom Cardboard
Custom cardboard sheets cut to your size in the grade and thickness your job needs — grayboard, corrugated, chipboard or boxboard — plain or printed, from 100 sheets. Spec and price the same working day.
Board, cut to the size you actually use
- Board
- Grayboard 1–3 mm; corrugated E/B/BC; boxboard 14–24pt; WLC; kraft 300–600 gsm
- Formats
- Guillotined sheets; die-cut blanks with shapes, slots or windows
- Sizing
- Any size to about 1000 × 1400 mm; ±1 mm guillotined, ±0.5 mm die-cut
Get a price for Cardboard
Send the size and quantity — we reply the same working day with a price, a dieline and a date. Artwork optional at this stage.
- Free dielineThe flat drawing comes with the quote, before you commit.
- Proof before pressNothing is printed until you have seen it laid on the dieline.
- Die kept for reordersTooling is paid once. Every reorder skips straight to press.
- Quoted in four marketsUS, UK, Canada and Australia, in the delivery currency.
The grades and what each is for
| Grayboard (chipboard), 1–3 mm | Rigid, recycled, unbleached; backers, pads, rigid-box components |
|---|---|
| Corrugated E, B, BC | Light and stiff; layer pads, stiffeners, shipping blanks |
| Folding boxboard, 14–24pt | Coated white; printed cards, blanks, inserts |
| White lined chipboard | Gray core, white face; printed backers and platforms |
| Kraft board, 300–600 gsm | Natural brown; tags, backers, sleeves |
Cut sizes, tolerances and grain
Sheets are guillotined to ±1 mm or die-cut to ±0.5 mm. Board has a grain, and a sheet that will be folded or that has to stay flat under a print is cut with the grain running the right way — long grain for a folded blank, short grain where the sheet must not curl. Say what the sheet is for and we set the grain; it is the detail that separates a flat backer from a curled one.
What people order cut board for
Our corrugated boxes in every flute are the board above folded into something; this page is the board as a sheet.
- Stiffeners for mailers and envelopes, so prints and documents arrive flat.
- Layer pads and dividers between products in a shipper.
- Backers for notepads, calendars, and hanging retail cards.
- Blanks for die-cutting or hand-making prototypes.
- Floors and platforms inside gift boxes and trays.
Printed and finished sheets
Boxboard and white lined chipboard take full-color print, lamination and foil; grayboard and kraft take one or two colors. A printed sheet is a flat print with no folds, the easiest thing to print well. A sheet with a die-cut shape — a round corner, a slot, a window — is a die-cut blank rather than a guillotined sheet, and is quoted as one.
Grayboard varies in shade between batches. If a plain gray sheet is visible in the pack, ask for white lined chipboard for consistency.
Recycled content, and what the board is made of
Grayboard and chipboard are made from recycled fiber, and most corrugated liners carry a high recycled share. Coated boxboard is largely virgin fiber for whiteness and print quality. Every grade on this page recycles as paper; a laminate on a printed sheet is the only thing that changes that.
Cardboard — specification
The rows that are specific to this build first, then what applies to every job we run. Anything not listed is a question, not a limit — send the brief.
This build
- Board
- Grayboard 1–3 mm; corrugated E/B/BC; boxboard 14–24pt; WLC; kraft 300–600 gsm
- Formats
- Guillotined sheets; die-cut blanks with shapes, slots or windows
- Sizing
- Any size to about 1000 × 1400 mm; ±1 mm guillotined, ±0.5 mm die-cut
- Grain
- Set to the use — long grain for folding, short grain for flatness
- Full color on white boards; 1–2 colors on gray and kraft
- Supply
- Flat, banded or shrink-wrapped in counts
- Minimum
- 100 sheets
On every job
- Print process
- Flexo in one to four colors straight onto the liner; litho-lamination where the box needs full color or a photograph.
- Color
- Flat colors on kraft. Full color needs a white top liner or a laminated sheet, because brown shifts every color warm.
- Tolerance
- Cutting plus or minus 1.5 mm. The flute compresses, so corrugated runs wider than folding board.
- Tooling
- No die on a regular slotted box, which is cut on a slotter. Die-cut mailers and trays need one, made once and kept.
- Food contact
- Food-grade liners and a vented build where the box carries hot food.
- Sustainability
- High recycled content through liners and flute as standard, and the box recycles whole if it is sealed with paper tape.
- Artwork
- Vector PDF or AI, 3 mm bleed, 4 mm safe area, fonts outlined. We check every file and send a proof before press.
- Dieline
- Supplied free with the quote, before you commit. Yours whether or not you order.
- Sample
- A plain unprinted sample at the finished size on request, for fit and construction.
- Reorders
- Skip the tooling and go straight to press at a lower unit price.
- Lead time
- Quoted with the price against your fill date rather than promised before we have seen the spec.
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia — priced in the delivery currency, freight included.
Boards and films we build cardboard on
Corrugated is a fluted sheet glued between two liners, and the flute decides nearly everything: how it prints, how it dents, how high it stacks. These are the grades we run.
E flute
About 1.5 mm. Prints well and folds crisply; dents under a stack. Retail boxes, mailers and light shippers.
1.5 mm, single wallB flute
About 3 mm. The working default for parcels — takes print reasonably and stacks reasonably. Most shipping boxes are B.
3 mm, single wallC flute
About 4 mm. More cushioning than B, slightly less stacking strength per weight. Common on grocery and produce cases.
4 mm, single wallBC double wall
B and C glued together, about 7 mm. Heavy or fragile goods, pallet stacking, anything over roughly 15 kg.
7 mm, double wallKraft liner
Brown, strong, absorbent. One or two flat colors flexo print well on it; photographs drink into the brown and go muddy.
Outer and inner linerWhite top liner
A bleached outer liner for full-color print on corrugated. Costs more and marks more easily than kraft.
Outer liner onlyRecycled-content corrugated
High post-consumer fiber through liners and flute. The default for shippers; a slightly greyer brown and no loss of strength at grade.
All flutesCoated and water-resistant
A coating or a wax-free barrier liner for damp stores and cold chains. Check the recycling stream before printing a claim on it.
B and C fluteNot sure which? Say what goes in it and where it is sold — the material follows from that. Our notes on recycled, recyclable and compostable cover which claims each stock can honestly carry.
- 01
Send what you have
A dimension, a photograph beside a ruler, or the product itself. No technical drawing needed — that part is ours.
- 02
We quote and draw
A price, a dieline and a date come back together. If a different build would suit the product better, that is in the reply too.
- 03
Approve the dieline
The flat drawing is yours to check: which panel is the front, where the folds fall, how deep the cavity really is.
- 04
Artwork on the dieline
You place your design on the flat we sent, or we place it for you, and you see a proof before anything goes to press.
- 05
A sample if you want one
A plain unprinted sample at the finished size shows fit and construction — the things a drawing cannot.
- 06
Cut, printed, shipped
The die is cut once and kept, so every reorder skips the tooling and goes straight to press at a lower unit price.
Format
Vector PDF or AI where possible. Raster artwork at 300dpi at final size, in CMYK.
Bleed
3 mm past every trim line, so a fraction of drift on the cutter never leaves a white edge.
Safe area
Keep type and anything important 4 mm inside the cut and away from every fold.
Color
Convert to CMYK before sending. Uncoated stock prints lighter; a spot color is the only exact match.
Fonts
Outline them or supply the files. A missing font substitutes silently and the proof will not match.
Barcodes
On a light, matte, unvarnished patch with the quiet zone clear — a code on gloss fails the scanner.
Not set up that way? Send it anyway — fixing a file is a short conversation, and we check every one before press. Our guide to preparing print files covers each point.
Corrugated takes fewer finishes than folding board, and the ones it takes it takes well.
Flexo on kraft
One or two flat colors straight onto brown. Cheap, fast, honest.
Litho-lamination
An offset sheet glued to the flute: full color and photographs on a shipper.
Aqueous varnish
Scuff resistance with no film, so the box still recycles whole.
White top print
Full color flexo on a bleached liner; brighter, and it marks more easily.
Inside print
A second pass on the inner liner — the panel a customer sees first.
Printed tape seal
The brand applied at the last moment, on paper tape that recycles with the box.
Not sure which suits the shelf it sells from? Say where the product is sold and we suggest one — our notes on specialty finishes show them on real boxes.
Sizing a corrugated box against the carrier, not the catalog: cardboard
Corrugated is cut to your internal size, so the box goes round the product rather than the product going into a stock size. That is where the money is: a box 20 mm smaller each way is often a whole postage band cheaper.
- Internal dimensions
- Length, width and depth of the space you need. Board thickness is added outside that, and the flute is thicker than people expect.
- Clearance and void fill
- 5–10 mm a side for a rigid product. Size it properly and you need no void fill at all, which is cheaper and better received.
- Stacking
- Tell us how high the boxes stack on a pallet or a shelf. Edge crush grade is specified from that, not guessed.
- Weight
- The contents weight sets the flute and the liner grade. Over about 15 kg we move to double wall.
- Score allowance
- Corrugated needs more room at the folds than boxboard. The dieline accounts for it; a box drawn from flat dimensions comes out tight.
- Cutting tolerance
- Plus or minus 1.5 mm on corrugated, wider than folding board because the flute compresses.
Not sure your numbers are right? Send the product dimensions rather than the box dimensions and we work the box out — the full method is in our guide to measuring for a box.
Interactive · five steps · no sign-up
Build your Cardboard in 3D
Pick a shape, type a size, choose a board and a finish. The preview on the left redraws as you go, and the spec lands with us exactly as you set it.
Frequently asked questions
Got a question about cardboard? The answers below cover what we get asked most. If yours is not here, send it with a brief, message us on WhatsApp, or call +1 503-461-4788 — we reply the same working day.
What kinds of cardboard do you cut?
Grayboard and chipboard, corrugated in E, B and BC flute, folding boxboard, white lined chipboard and kraft board. The grade follows the job.
Can you cut to any size?
Yes, up to about 1000 × 1400 mm, guillotined to ±1 mm or die-cut to ±0.5 mm.
What thickness should I use for a mailer stiffener?
1.5–2 mm grayboard for documents and prints up to A4; E flute for larger sheets where weight matters.
Does the grain direction matter?
Yes. Board folds cleanly along the grain and curls across it. Tell us what the sheet is for and we cut it the right way.
Can sheets be printed?
Yes. White boards take full color and foil; grayboard and kraft take one or two colors.
What is the minimum order?
100 sheets per size and grade.
Is grayboard recycled?
Yes, it is made from recycled fiber. All the grades here recycle as paper.
Can you cut shapes, not just rectangles?
Yes, as die-cut blanks: round corners, slots, windows, any outline. The die is made once and kept.
Why does my grayboard vary in color?
It is a recycled board and the shade changes between batches. Where the gray is visible, white lined chipboard gives a consistent face.
Can I get a sample?
Yes, a few sheets in the grade and thickness we suggest, so you can check stiffness and color.
How is it packed?
Flat, banded or shrink-wrapped in counts, on a pallet for larger quantities.
Do you ship outside the US?
Yes, to the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, quoted in the delivery currency.
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