The Real Cost of Hot Stamp Foil

Written By: Jason Brownell

“I could have sworn the man just levitated” said a spectator at a magic show. Things are not always as they appear. Take for example the blue/black dress vs. white/gold dress controversy. Is milk good or bad? Enough said…

What’s the real cost of hot stamp foil?

It’s an illusion similar to the ole person sawed in half trick. So many questions need to be asked to answer this one. Sure the square inch cost of this decorating method makes it appear a very inexpensive way to brand. However, did you ever think about:

The scrap it produces?
The cost of grinding your product up in the event of a scrapped part?
The cost of your injection molding machine to remake the scrapped part?
The cost of the new resin going into that remade part?
The loss of capacity to your production floor?
The dollar amount of the products you could have made if you hadn’t lost production capacity?

Scary to think about isn’t it? Maybe that’s why many companies rarely look beyond the square inch cost for the material and don’t look any further.

To understand the true cost I would like to invite you to challenge yourself and take a look at the video. It can be an eye opening experience. Hopefully things are going well for your production team and the scrap associated with decorating is at an all-time low. But for the vast majority of molders, improvements can be made in this area.