Custom Ecommerce Packaging Inserts
Custom ecommerce packaging inserts from 100 — die-cut paperboard and corrugated trays that sit inside a mailer box and hold each product of an online order in its own cavity, so a kit arrives laid out the way it was packed.
Every product in the order gets its own place in the box
- Board
- Folding paperboard 18–24 pt, E-flute corrugated or kraft board
- Build
- Die-cut tray with one cavity per product; single or stacked layers
- Fit
- Sized to the inside of your mailer and the measured products
Order online
Order ecommerce packaging inserts
Starting from $1.20 per unit
Printed to your artwork or plain, sold in runs of 100 up to 5,000 units per product online. Freight to the US, UK, Canada and Australia is inside the price.
How an online order runs
- Add the units you needThen check out with your delivery address. Add other products to the same order on the way.
- A digital proof comes backLaid on the dieline, before anything prints. Change it as often as you need.
- Pay once you approve itPay by PayPal invoice or bank transfer after you approve your digital proof, or cash on delivery in the US and Canada.
- We make it and ship it deliveredYour delivery date is confirmed with the proof, against the spec and your fill date. Freight and customs are handled on the way to you.
Another size, board or finish, or more than 5,000 units? Send the spec for a price instead. Freight by market and our terms cover delivery and remakes.
Get a price for Ecommerce Packaging Inserts
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.
Laying out a kit before cutting anything
The insert starts as a floor plan. We take the inside dimensions of the mailer and the measured size of each product, then arrange the cavities so the heaviest item sits low and central and the lighter ones surround it. The layout also decides what the customer sees first: the hero product in the middle, smaller items to the sides, a card or leaflet on top.
You receive that layout as a dieline with the quote, so the arrangement can be agreed before anything is printed.
Paperboard or corrugated
| Folding paperboard | Light items: cosmetics, tubes, small bottles; prints in full color |
|---|---|
| E-flute corrugated | Heavier kits and glass; more crush strength, still printable |
| Kraft board | Plain, uncoated look for natural or refill brands |
| Stacked layers | A second tray lifts out to reveal a lower layer of products |
If a product is very fragile or oddly shaped, a foam cavity may hold it better than board. We will say so when we see the product.
Faster packing at the fulfillment bench
- Each cavity only takes one product, so a packer can see at a glance whether the order is complete.
- Cavities can carry a printed outline or name to show which item goes where.
- The insert drops in flat and folds up without glue or tape.
- One insert can serve several kit sizes if the empty cavities are filled with a card plug.
- Filler such as crinkle paper or air pillows is often no longer needed, which saves material and time.
How an insert changes the shipping size
Holding products in place lets the mailer be smaller, because there is no need for empty space and filler around them. A smaller box can drop into a lower shipping tier, especially when carriers charge by dimensional weight. Our guide to inserts that hold a product explains how snug a fit should be.
Printing the parts the customer sees
Paperboard inserts print in full color, so the tray can repeat the brand color of the mailer or carry a short line of text beside each product. Corrugated inserts print well in one or two colors on a white or kraft liner. Many brands leave the insert plain and let the products speak; others print a thank-you or a use guide on the lift-out layer. For the outer box, see our printed shipping and mailer boxes.
Ecommerce Packaging Inserts — 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
- Folding paperboard 18–24 pt, E-flute corrugated or kraft board
- Build
- Die-cut tray with one cavity per product; single or stacked layers
- Fit
- Sized to the inside of your mailer and the measured products
- Full color on paperboard; one or two colors on corrugated
- Assembly
- Folds up flat, no glue or tape
- Minimum
- 100 inserts per layout
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 ecommerce packaging inserts 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 grayer 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: ecommerce packaging inserts
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 Ecommerce Packaging Inserts 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 ecommerce packaging inserts? 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 are ecommerce packaging inserts?
Die-cut trays that sit inside a mailer box and hold each product of an online order in its own cavity, so items stay apart in transit and arrive laid out neatly.
Can ecommerce packaging inserts hold several different products?
Yes. That is their main job: each cavity is cut to one product, so a bottle, a jar and a card can all sit in the same insert.
Do I need my mailer box from you to order ecommerce packaging inserts?
No. Send the inside dimensions of your current box and we cut the insert to fit it. We can also quote the box and the insert together.
Are ecommerce packaging inserts paperboard or corrugated?
Either. Paperboard suits light items and prints in full color; E-flute corrugated suits heavier kits and glass.
Can ecommerce packaging inserts replace void fill?
Usually. When every product has its own cavity, crinkle paper or air pillows are often no longer needed.
Can ecommerce packaging inserts be printed?
Yes. Paperboard inserts print in full color and can name each item beside its cavity. Corrugated prints in one or two colors.
Can one ecommerce packaging insert work for different kit sizes?
Yes, if the unused cavities are filled with a card plug, so a smaller order still sits tight.
Can ecommerce packaging inserts have two layers?
Yes. A lift-out upper tray can reveal a second layer of products underneath, which works well for larger kits.
Are ecommerce packaging inserts recyclable?
Paperboard and corrugated inserts go into paper recycling with the box, as long as no foam or plastic is added.
How do you size ecommerce packaging inserts?
From the inside dimensions of the mailer and the measured size of each product. A sample of each item gives the most accurate fit.
Do ecommerce packaging inserts need glue?
No. They are die-cut and scored so they fold up by hand on the packing bench, with locking tabs where needed.
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