How to Make Your Own Loyalty Cards

What are the three ways to make your own loyalty cards?

To make loyalty cards yourself, print them at home, print them on plastic with a desktop card printer, or do the design and have them printed. What changes is the card, the cost and how much of the work you do.

How do the three routes compare?

If you already own a printer, home printing costs least to start. A card printer is quickest for one card at a time, and ordering gives you sealed print for the least work. We haven’t put a price on home printing, because it depends on your printer and the card and ink you buy.

All prices are before VAT. Card printer figures are UK reseller prices from October 2026, from our card printer guide. They change and vary between sellers, and leave out cleaning, printheads, design software and your time.

Which route for how many cards?

• Fewer than 25 cards: print them at home. Our minimum order is 25, so a handful is a job for your own printer.
• 25 or more of one design: have them printed. At £3.00 +vat each, 25 cards will probably cost more than doing it yourself, but 100 are 85p each and 1,000 are 24.5p each, +vat. How many loyalty cards to order helps you pick a number.
• One at a time, the moment someone joins: a card printer. Or add a write-on panel to printed cards, and write the name in at the till.

Can I print my own loyalty cards at home?

Yes, you can print your own loyalty cards at home, and for a small trial it’s a sensible way to start. An inkjet printer and some card will show you whether a stamp scheme works. Before you print, our guide to starting a loyalty card scheme has the sums. Plain card usually takes an ordinary stamp pad or a pen, but try one first.

What you need

• A computer, some design software and an inkjet printer, with paper or card to print on. Check the heaviest card your printer says it can take. Set the design up at 86 x 54mm.
• A desktop laminator, if you want them tougher, with the thickest pouches you can get, typically 500 microns (250 per sheet). If you’re using card, test one sheet first to see that it goes through.
• A paper slicer or scissors, and time: the more care you take over the cutting, the better they look.

How the sheet goes together

Print a spare sheet in case a cut goes wrong: 11 sheets gives you 100 cards and 10 to spare. For a back, feed the sheets through again and check the two sides line up. Laminate, then cut. Our guide to making membership cards at home goes through every step, and a loyalty card works the same way.

When is home printing the right answer?

• You’re testing an idea, and a few weeks of stamp cards will show whether customers take to it.
• The cards don’t need to last, such as for a promotion that ends in a month.
• Your budget doesn’t stretch to a print run yet. Keep your design file for when it does.

It gets harder as the numbers grow, because cutting out hundreds of cards by hand takes a long time. A laminated paper card also comes out thinner than our 760 micron cards, and a barcode on paper can be harder to scan once the card has warped. Our guide to plastic and paper cards compares the two.

Is a plastic card printer worth buying for loyalty cards?

Usually not, if all you need is a batch of one design. A desktop card printer earns its place when you need cards made one at a time, on the spot, or a photo printed on each card.

• What you need: the printer, a colour ribbon, blank white PVC cards, a cleaning kit and, in time, a new printhead.
• Buying one for the job: at 100 cards, the cheapest printer in our guide, with ribbon and blank cards, comes to about £603 +vat, printed on one side. 100 cards ordered from us are £85.00 +vat, printed on both sides.
• If you already own one: ribbon and blank cards for those 100 cost about £29 +vat, less than ordering. The print sits on the surface, where ours is sealed.

Our guide to buying a card printer or ordering printed cards has the full table, up to 1,000 cards.

What are the six steps to making your own loyalty card?

To design your own loyalty cards, decide how the scheme works, set the card up at the right size, and give each side one job. These six steps work for all three routes, and our loyalty card design guide goes deeper.

1. Choose stamps or points. A stamp card needs only a stamp or punch. A points card needs a code your till can read. Our loyalty card ideas suggest a reward for twelve kinds of business.
2. Set up the size. The card is 86 x 54mm. If you’re having it printed, make the artwork 92 x 60mm, which adds 3mm of bleed all round, or start from one of our free templates. In Canva, use 86 x 54mm, because Canva adds the bleed itself. At home, add the thin outline to cut along.
3. Put your name and the reward on the front. Make your logo and name the biggest things on the card, and say what the reward is in one line. Keep wording 3mm inside the edge, and no smaller than 6pt.
4. Add the stamp boxes or the code. Stamp circles are typically 10 to 12mm across. Ten 12mm boxes with 3mm gaps, for example, take up 72 x 27mm of the 80 x 48mm safe area. See loyalty stamp cards for how many boxes fit. For a points card, put the code in a white box with clear space round it. Our free barcode and QR code generators make one to size, and a QR code should be at least 15 x 15mm.
5. Use the back. Print the rules there, such as “One stamp per visit”, and your address. On cards you order, printing the back costs nothing extra.
6. Print a test and read it. Print it on paper at 100% scale, cut it out and read the smallest line at arm’s length. Then ask someone else to check the wording.

1. Name and logo, big enough to spot.
2. The reward, in one short line.
3. Stamp boxes, with the reward in the last.
4. Safe area: keep wording inside this dashed line, 3mm from the edge. The line isn’t printed.
5. White box, with clear space either side of the bars, shaded here.
6. The number, to type in if a scanner can’t read it.
7. The rules, short and plain.

How do I have my own design printed?

Email your file to sales@cpcards.co.uk with the quantity you need, and we’ll check the technical set-up free and quote. If you don’t have a finished file yet, there are four ways to design loyalty cards for print.

What happens when you send it

1. SendEmail the file and the quantity you need.
2. CheckOur free artwork check looks at bleed, resolution, colour mode and set-up. It’s technical, so checking the wording is down to you.
3. FixIf something needs changing, correct it and send it back at no charge, or we’ll do it for £10 +vat.
4. ApproveYour free email proof lets you check the layout and wording. Its colours are a guide only, because every screen shows colour differently.

If a colour has to be right, or you want to test a barcode on your own scanner, add a postal proof to your order: it’s optional, £65 +vat and takes around 5 working days.

If each card has its own number, your free email proof shows where the names and numbers sit. Check your spreadsheet before you send it, because our artwork check is technical and doesn’t cover names or spelling.

Looking for ideas? See our loyalty card examples, or feel the real thing with a sample pack.

How much do printed loyalty cards cost?

Loyalty cards start at £75.00 +vat for 25. The price per card falls as the quantity goes up, because much of the work in an order is the same whatever the quantity. Our guide to keeping the cost of plastic cards down has worked examples.

760 micron PVC with a High Gloss finish, full colour on both sides, from your print-ready artwork. Delivery is free within Great Britain, and our delivery prices list the charges for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands. Premium Matt is £20 +vat per order. Optional extras such as numbering and barcodes are priced on your quote.