Optimal Card Count for Board Games

If you’re trying to print a cost-effective board game, then you should consider card count. Offset printing uses large parent sheets, as seen below. The more parent sheets you need for your project, the higher your cost. A parent sheet can only hold a certain amount of cards, based on your card style/dimensions and the size of the parent sheet determined by your card stock – so determining the optimal card count for your custom board game is key to staying within your budget. The same holds true for our Domestic Print Offering. Domestic printing still uses larger parent sheets, just like offset printing, only smaller and containing fewer cards per sheet.

Card game examples

If you already have a general idea of the number of cards you need for your game, be sure to check out our budgetary quote calculator. It’s free to use and you can experiment with different card counts to get a better idea of the amount you will be spending.

Cut down on cost by creating a game that only requires the number of cards that can fit on one parent sheet. Below you’ll find the list of magic numbers to help you choose the optimal card count for your game for both Internatoinal Offest and Domestic Digital

Common and Uncommon Card Backs

In some cases, your card backs can increase your price significantly, although this is an uncommon method, games that require each card back to have a different image affect price. Cards that have different backs are called unique or uncommon backs. Cards that use the same back image, like traditional poker cards, are referred to as common backs.

This doesn’t affect price until your card count starts to rise over 110 cards. For example, a sheet of 55 poker cards that have common and unique backs will need 2 printing plates (the front and back). A 110-card count job with unique backs needs 4 sets of plates (2 for the front and 2 for the back) while common backs will only need 3 plates (2 for the front and 1 for the back). Every time you add more cards to your unique back deck you need another parent sheet and another plate. Our Domestic Printing service differs here, as the number of backs does not affect price for Digital output.

Optimal Card Count Per Sheet

Some useful information to look into is how many cards you can fit on a parent sheet. The more parent sheets you use, the more expensive your game will be to produce. Be sure to check out our custom card size page so you can have multiple options going into this process.
Optimal Card Count Graphic

 

Domestic Card Game Parent Sheet Details

240 gsm Black Core Standard

  • Poker fits 16 cards/sheet
  • Tarot fits 10 cards/sheet

260 gsm Coreless Standard

  • Poker fits 18 cards/sheet
  • Tarot fits 12 cards/sheet

270 gsm Coreless Linen (textured)

  • Poker fits 18 cards/sheet
  • Tarot fits 12 cards/sheet

430 gsm 12 Mil White Plastic

  • Poker fits 18 cards/sheet
  • Tarot fits 12 cards/sheet

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