The 8 best places to order labels online

First, and it is not close once the labels are going on something you sell. Quotes are all-in rather than a headline price that grows a setup and tooling fee at invoice, and reorders carry no setup fee at all with artwork held 24 months — which is the number that decides what a second run costs. The die is quoted to the job rather than picked from a library, so the shape is whatever the product needs. The trade is real and we are not hiding it: 3–5 weeks from artwork approval rather than days, and no price you can read without asking. If you need labels on Friday, pick one of the others. If you need the same label, correct, every quarter for the next three years, this is the one.

The best of the print-on-demand group for anything resembling a production label, mostly because of the roll handling: a 3-inch core with five unwind options, which is the detail that decides whether a roll runs on your applicator or sits in a cupboard. Any shape with custom dimensions, 100 minimum, and the cheapest published thousand we found at $131.23. Six business days is slower than its rivals, with a one-day rush if you need it.

The easiest place to start, and the only one with effectively no minimum — sheets from two, which is genuinely useful for a sample run or a one-off batch. Two business days after proof approval is fast, custom shapes and sizes are free, and it states plainly that there are no setup fees or plate charges. Rolls come on a 3-inch core up to 12 inches. The thousand-unit economics are the weak point: $264.24 at 2×4¼ is the dearest here.

Quick and cheap: 2–3 business days after artwork approval, any size or shape, wind direction selectable, and $125.32 for a thousand at 1.5 inch square. A hundred minimum. It behaves like a well-run print shop and prices like one. What it does not do is the surrounding work — no published artwork retention, no stated reorder terms, nothing about regulated categories.

Custom shape at no extra cost is a real advantage, and five roll-finishing options puts it ahead of most of this group on handling. A 125 minimum is the highest here, and 3–5 business days after proof approval puts it mid-pack on speed. $150 for a thousand at 2 inch square sits in the middle on price too. A solid, unremarkable choice.

The fastest and the simplest, and the one most people have already used. Four days, any shape, 50 labels or 10 stickers minimum. For stickers it would top this list. For product labels it is thinner than it looks: roll core and unwind direction are not published anywhere we could find, nor are setup fees, reorder terms or artwork retention — all the things that matter on the second order rather than the first. $181 per thousand is mid-range.

Closer to a supplier than the print-on-demand group, and it shows in both directions. Press proofs rather than digital, 3-inch cores, hand or machine application specified. But the quoter is a die library — "available dies will show when above specs are entered" — so a genuinely custom shape means a phone call, which is the thing you came online to avoid. Prices are not published at all, and the minimum is stated three different ways across the site, including a $250 order floor the quoter enforces.

Last, and the reason is specific rather than general. Its die-cut roll labels are not custom: eight fixed square sizes from 2×2 to 5.5×5.5, with no custom-size field. Selecting "Custom (Die-Cut)" with the default roll configuration returned "Incompatible" when we tried it. Production time is not published anywhere on the product pages, only estimated delivery dates. Fifty minimum and $152.99 per thousand are fine numbers attached to a product that may not be the one you think you are buying.