Custom Promotional Paper Cups
Custom promotional paper cups from 100 — hot and cold cups printed for a launch, a sampling stand, a trade show or a campaign, in single or double wall with matching lids.
A cup that carries a message for as long as the drink lasts
- Paper
- Paper cup board, food-grade, with PE or aqueous coating; double wall for hot carry
- Sizes
- 4, 8, 12 and 16 oz; small sampling cups and standard coffee sizes
- Full color wrap printed on a fan template; numbered or multi-design runs
Order online
Order promotional paper cups
Starting from $0.75 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 Promotional Paper Cups
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.
Where promotional cups get used
| Product sampling | Small 4 or 8 oz cups for tasting coffee, juice, soup or a new drink |
|---|---|
| Trade shows and conferences | Branded coffee cups handed out at a stand or a sponsored station |
| Launch and campaign events | Cups printed with a date, a hashtag or a QR code |
| Office and client gifting | Cups with a company mark for meetings and hospitality |
| Fundraisers and sports days | Numbered or team-colored cups for drinks stations |
Designing for a cup that tapers
A paper cup is a cone, so a flat design is printed as a curved fan that wraps around it. Straight lines in the artwork will curve unless they are drawn on our template. Text near the base comes out smaller than the same text near the rim, and the seam where the sidewall overlaps interrupts anything running all the way round.
Put the main message in the top two thirds, facing the drinker’s grip, and keep a logo off the seam. A QR code needs a flat-looking area of at least 20 mm and plenty of contrast to scan off a curve.
Hot, cold, single wall or double
- Single wall cupstock for cold drinks and short-hold hot drinks with a sleeve.
- Double wall for hot coffee carried around an event, with no sleeve needed.
- Cold cups with a heavier coating so condensation does not soften the board.
- Lids in matching sizes, sip-through for hot and domed or flat for cold.
A run made for one event
Campaign cups are usually ordered once, for a date, and are useless after it. That makes the quantity question important: we size the order to expected attendance and drinks per person rather than a round number. Small sampling cups are sold in larger counts than full-size coffee cups because people taste more than they drink. Our double wall paper cups for hot drinks explain the insulated build in more detail.
Numbered and personalized series
Cups can carry a printed number or a short run of different designs, useful for a raffle station, a team event or a series of collectible designs across a festival weekend. Each design changes the plate, so we keep the count of designs low and the run of each high enough to print well. See our promotional packaging range for boxes and kits that go alongside.
Send the event date, the drink, the expected attendance and the artwork. That sets the cup size, the wall and the count.
Promotional Paper Cups — 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
- Paper
- Paper cup board, food-grade, with PE or aqueous coating; double wall for hot carry
- Sizes
- 4, 8, 12 and 16 oz; small sampling cups and standard coffee sizes
- Full color wrap printed on a fan template; numbered or multi-design runs
- Lids
- Sip-through hot lids, flat and domed cold lids to match
- Use
- Events, sampling, trade shows, launches, fundraisers
- Minimum
- 100 cups per design
On every job
- Print process
- Digital below about a thousand, offset above it. One side or both, with spot colors where a match has to hold.
- Color
- CMYK as standard. Uncoated and kraft stocks print lighter and warmer; a spot color is the only exact match.
- Tolerance
- Cutting plus or minus 1 mm, creasing plus or minus 0.5 mm, confirmed on a plain sample before the run.
- Tooling
- A cutting die per size, made once and kept. Foil and emboss dies per artwork, also kept.
- Food contact
- Food-grade board and inks where the carton touches food, with the interior left plain.
- Sustainability
- Mono-material board wherever the product allows; recycled-content and FSC stocks; no claim printed the pack does not earn.
- 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 promotional paper cups on
A folding carton is one sheet of board, so the board is the product. These are the stocks we run for cartons, what each is good at, and where it lets you down.
Natural kraft
Unbleached folding board. Warm, hides marks, costs least. Mutes color — one or two flat colors print well, photographs do not.
250–350gsm sleeves; 14–24pt cartonsWhite SBS
Solid bleached sulfate: bright, coated, the retail carton standard. Takes accurate color and every finish. Shows scuffs sooner than kraft.
14–24ptWhite lined chipboard
A recycled gray core under a white printing face. Cheaper than SBS and slightly duller; the back of the sheet stays gray.
16–24ptKraft-look coated
A kraft face over a coated inner. The natural look with a barrier behind it — the answer where oil, grease or moisture would mark plain kraft.
14–20ptRecycled-content board
Post-consumer fiber with a gray-brown cast. Right for outers and inner components; poor for bright whites and photography.
16–22ptMicro-flute E and F
A fine corrugated layer where a carton needs structure it cannot get from board — a large panel, a heavy product, a box that ships alone.
E 1.5 mm; F 0.8 mmUncoated and textured
No clay coat, or a linen or laid grain. Print reads softer and warmer; a deboss goes deeper. Photographs do not sit well on it.
280–350gsmMetalized and pearlescent
A metallic or pearl face for a shelf that needs to catch light. Costly, and it fights a photograph — a mark or a pattern suits it better.
16–20ptNot 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.
Every finish here is a decision about light on a shelf, not about luxury.
Matte lamination
Reads considered, hides marks, takes a ballpoint.
Gloss lamination
Lifts color; glares under shop lighting.
Soft-touch
Velvet in the hand; shows fingerprints in a bag.
Hot foil
Real metal leaf — the most reliable premium signal.
Emboss / deboss
Shape with no ink; works in the dark.
Spot UV
Gloss shapes on a matte field.
Uncoated kraft
Warm, natural, mutes color.
Textured stock
Texture in the paper; cannot scuff off.
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 folding carton so the die comes out right: promotional paper cups
Measure the product, not the box it is in now. A carton is built around what has to fit inside it, assembled — cap on, lid fitted, folded if it folds — at its widest point in each direction. Send those three numbers and say which is which.
- Length x width x height
- Internal, always. External dimensions include the board and are what the carrier measures, not what the product needs.
- Clearance
- 2–3 mm a side for a snug fit; more where an insert or void fill goes in. A carton cut exactly to the product is slow to pack and transmits every knock.
- Board thickness
- Heavier board takes internal space from the product. It matters most on small boxes, where four walls of 24pt is a real share of the cavity.
- Varies between batches?
- Glass, textiles, molded parts and cured soap all do. Measure several and build to the largest.
- Cutting tolerance
- Plus or minus 1 mm on folding board. Confirmed on a plain sample before the run.
- Units
- Metric or imperial, as long as you say which. Mixing them in one spec is where mistakes happen.
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 Promotional Paper Cups 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 promotional paper cups? 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 size promotional paper cups should I order for sampling?
Usually 4 oz. Tasting portions are small and people try several, so sampling cups are ordered in higher counts than coffee cups.
Can promotional paper cups carry a QR code?
Yes, if it is at least about 20 mm wide, high contrast and placed away from the seam so it scans off the curved wall.
Why does my logo look curved on a printed paper cup?
A cup is a cone, so artwork is printed as a fan that wraps round it. We supply a template so straight lines come out straight.
Do promotional paper cups need sleeves for hot coffee?
Single wall cups do for a long carry. Double wall cups are insulated and can be held without a sleeve.
Can I print different designs on one promotional cup order?
Yes. Each design needs its own plate, so a short series of designs works best with a reasonable count of each.
Are promotional paper cups suitable for cold drinks?
Yes. Cold cups use a heavier coating so condensation does not soften the cup during an event.
How many promotional paper cups do I need for an event?
Work from attendance and drinks per person, then add a margin. We help size the order to the event rather than a round number.
Can promotional paper cups be numbered?
Yes. Cups can carry printed numbers for raffles, team stations or collectible series.
Do you supply lids with promotional paper cups?
Yes, in matching sizes: sip-through lids for hot drinks and flat or domed lids for cold ones.
Where should the main message go on a promotional cup?
In the upper two thirds of the wall, facing outward from the hand, and away from the side seam.
Can promotional cups be printed with an event date?
Yes. Dates, hashtags and venue names are common, since these cups are usually ordered for one event.
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