Specifying a card order: MOQ, lead times, artwork and sampling

Card manufacturers publish a great deal about what they can make and almost nothing about how to order it. Minimum quantities, lead times, artwork requirements and sampling rules are the four things every buyer needs before they can commit, and they are the four things that usually arrive only after a form has been filled in and a salesperson has called back.

This guide states them plainly. It is written for the person assembling a specification to send to a factory: a distributor pricing a job for their own client, a trade printer adding credentials to a print order, an integrator scheduling around an installation date, or a programme owner placing a first volume order.

The figures given here are Kaway's own. Other manufacturers will differ, and the point of publishing them is so a buyer can compare rather than guess.

One point applies to all four: they belong in a single document. A specification that arrives as a product description on Monday, an artwork file on Wednesday and a quantity in a phone call on Friday is three specifications, and what gets made is whichever combination the factory assembled.

01. What the brief has to contain

A card brief is a record, not a conversation. It connects the product, the application, the artwork, the commercial terms and the acceptance route in one place, under one revision number, so that every later question is answered against one document.

Everything below can be answered in one email, and an order specified this way will be quoted the same day rather than entering a round of clarifying questions.

What goes in it

• Quantity, and whether it is a single run or the first of several.
• The reader or lock model the credential has to work with, or the chip if it is already specified.
• Material, and finish: matte, gloss, frosted, foil, embossing.
• Format: standard ISO 7810 ID-1, key fob, wristband, custom shape, and whether a slot or hole is needed.
• Artwork, or a rough, with any Pantone references that matter.
• Variable data: numbering ranges, barcodes, whether print has to match encoding.
• Encoding: blank stock, or encoded, and by whom.
• Required delivery date, and the destination, so transit can be worked backwards.
• Packing: bulk, boxed in fixed counts, individually sleeved, or drop shipped to a third party.
• Configuration responsibility, where the credential has to work inside somebody else's system: who supplies the keys or the configuration, and who is accountable if it does not read.
• Which requirements are fixed and which are still open, stated explicitly rather than left to be inferred.

Ask the supplier what is missing

A brief is rarely complete on the first pass, and a manufacturer reading it usually sees the gap faster than the buyer does. Ask for that list before quotation rather than after: missing information, alternatives worth considering, and anything that will be hard to hold consistently across a run.

02. Minimum order quantity, and what it is actually for

A minimum order is not a commercial hurdle. It is the point below which setting up the line costs more than the cards.

Where the setup cost sits

Printing plates or a digital colour profile, an inlay layout for the chosen chip and antenna, lamination plate setup, die tooling for the format, and a first article check. Those costs are identical whether the run is 500 cards or 50,000. Below a certain quantity they dominate the unit price to the point where the number stops being useful to anybody.

Where that line sits here

Minimum order is 500 units. If a project sits below that, it is still worth asking. There are cases, a pilot before a rollout or a replacement batch for an existing programme, where it makes sense on both sides.

Confirm the number for your own order, in writing

A published minimum is a general figure. The one that governs an order is the one confirmed for that construction, that quantity and that commercial offer, in writing, before anything is released. A figure on a website or in last year's email is not a universal promise, and a buyer who treats it as one can find the real number arriving after a client has been priced.

What changes as quantity rises

The first meaningful break is where the run fills a sheet without waste. The second is where a colour setup is amortised across enough cards to stop mattering. Beyond that, price moves slowly. A buyer expecting the curve to keep falling steeply at high volume is usually disappointed, and it is better to say that before the negotiation than after.

The quantity question that actually matters

Not "what is your MOQ" but "at what quantity does this stop being expensive per unit". Those are different numbers, and the second one is the one that should shape the order.

03. Lead times, stated as calendar days

Lead times in this industry are quoted inconsistently, sometimes in working days, sometimes from order date, sometimes from artwork approval, which makes comparison between quotes almost meaningless. Kaway quotes them in calendar days: standard production is 13 calendar days, 8 calendar days on express and 12 calendar days for wooden cards.

The three figures

Thirteen calendar days on a standard run. Eight on an express run. Twelve on wooden cards, which are faster than standard PVC because the material sequence is different, not because they are simpler.

What the clock does not include

Two things, and both are usually where schedules actually slip. The first is the time between a quote being accepted and artwork being approved, which is entirely in the buyer's hands and routinely takes longer than production. The second is transit, which depends on destination and mode.

How to protect a date

Work backwards from the date the cards have to be in the client's hands, subtract transit, subtract production, and the number you are left with is the real artwork deadline. Most late deliveries are artwork approvals that slipped by a week against a production schedule that never moved.

04. Artwork, and the five things that cause reprints

A card is not a small poster. The constraints are specific and they are not obvious to a designer who has not made one before.

1. Bleed and safe area

Cards are printed on a sheet and then die cut, and the die has a tolerance. Artwork needs bleed beyond the trim line, and anything that must not be cut, logos, text, borders, needs to sit inside a safe margin. A design with a thin frame parallel to the edge is the single most common cause of a batch that looks misaligned, because any drift shows immediately against a straight line.

2. Colour, and what happens on PVC

Supply CMYK, not RGB, and expect that a screen and a laminated PVC surface are different substrates. Deep blacks, bright oranges and metallics behave differently from what a monitor shows. If a brand colour is critical, specify a Pantone reference and ask for it to be matched on the physical sample rather than approving a PDF.

3. Resolution and vectors

300 dpi minimum for raster elements at final size. Logos and type as vectors wherever possible, because a card is small and any softness in a logo is visible at the distance a card is actually held.

4. Where the chip and antenna sit

The inlay occupies a defined area inside the card body. Deep embossing, a punched slot, a hole for a lanyard, or hot foil over the antenna area all have to be positioned around it. This is worth raising at the quoting stage, not after artwork is approved, because it can change the design. It matters most on special shape cards, where the outline itself is yours.

5. Variable data

Numbering, barcodes, QR codes, names, and encoded UIDs printed on the card. Anything that changes per card is a separate production step with its own rules, and it sits alongside the rest of the personalisation and encoding work. Specify the range, the format, whether the printed number must match the encoded UID, and where on the card it sits.

Say the awkward thing early

If a design is going to be difficult to produce consistently, the right moment to say so is at the quote, not after a client has signed off the visual. A manufacturer who only raises it at the proof stage has not done you a favour.

05. Sampling, and why it is not optional

Colour on screen is not colour on PVC, and it is certainly not colour on walnut, where the grain shows through and shifts every ink on the card.

What a sample proves

Colour on the real substrate, the feel and thickness of the finished card, the finish, matte, gloss, frosted, foil, against the artwork, and where relevant the read performance of the chip on the actual reader.

What it does not prove

A blank sample proves the card is right. It does not prove the encoding is right. If the credential is going into an access system, the meaningful test is a sample encoded by the system that will encode the production run, presented to the readers it will actually face. The compatibility guide sets out the full test protocol.

The rule that protects a run

Nothing should go on the line until a sample is approved. A free sample goes out before any order.

06. Materials, and what each one costs you elsewhere

PVC

The default. Cheapest, most predictable, best colour reproduction, widest finish options. Nothing else matches it on cost per unit.

Recycled PVC

An eighty per cent recycled core. Visually and functionally close to standard PVC, with a small price premium and a materials story that is specific enough to survive a procurement questionnaire.

PET

Specified where the card faces heat or chemical exposure, or where the end of life profile matters more than cost.

Wood and bamboo

Basswood, cherry, black walnut and bamboo. Wood costs more than PVC. It also does not get thrown away, which for a hotel group or a membership programme is frequently the whole point. Practical consequences: grain shows through print so artwork needs to be designed for it rather than adapted to it, thickness tolerance is wider than PVC, and production runs twelve days rather than thirteen. What a wooden card changes, and what it does not, is covered separately, and the materials guide compares all three bodies side by side.

The certification point

Wooden cards are produced at an FSC certified facility (FSC-C195226). Read any certification claim closely, including that one: a certificate is held by a legal entity and covers defined products, so the useful questions are which products the claim applies to and who holds the certificate. A supplier claiming an FSC certificate covers their whole catalogue is describing something that does not exist.

07. Customs and paperwork

Cards with an embedded chip are normally classified under HS heading 8523.52, cards incorporating one or more electronic integrated circuits, known as smart cards. Plain printed cards without a chip fall elsewhere, which matters more than it sounds: the same order split across two classifications can clear at two different rates.

Your clearing agent confirms the exact national tariff line. What a manufacturer should provide without being asked is a commercial invoice matching the goods, a packing list, the correct HS heading, and where required a technical statement describing the construction and the chips. Those documents can be issued under the buyer's own brand.

08. Closing the approval gates, and naming what is still open

The gap between a quote and a released order is where most card problems are created, because several separate agreements have to line up at once: price, quantity, artwork revision, sample, and what counts as acceptable on delivery. Approving them one at a time, in different threads, is how an order ends up released against an artwork file nobody can now identify.

What has to be closed before release

• Application. Where the credential is used and, where it has to work inside somebody else's system, who is responsible for configuring it.
• Commercial terms. Quantity, price, sampling terms and timings, confirmed in writing for this order.
• Artwork revision. One file, identified by revision number rather than by filename, approved by whoever is entitled to approve it.
• Sample. A representative sample approved against that same revision, not against an earlier one.
• Acceptance evidence. What is inspected on arrival, against which document, and what happens if it fails; the delivery inspection checklist sets out a route.
• Change notification. Who tells whom, in writing, if anything in the construction changes between approval and dispatch.

The revision number is what ties the list together. Artwork approved against revision three and a sample approved against revision two is not an approved order, it is two approvals of two different cards.

Say what is still undecided

A buyer is entitled to ask for technical input before every requirement is settled. What causes damage is an open decision that is not marked as one. Mark them, ask what each one changes downstream, and keep a clear line between an exploratory quote and a released production specification. The approval record has to resolve every requirement that affects what will be made, tested and delivered. Anything still open at that point is a decision somebody else makes on your behalf.

A worked example

Illustrative scenario, not a Kaway case study. A buyer specifies a custom RFID card for an office fit-out: material, finish, quantity, packing and a delivery date, but not the installed system, because the integrator has not confirmed it. Everything in that brief can be quoted. None of it can be released. Keep it open on exactly that one point and agree in advance the test that closes it: a sample encoded by whoever will encode the production run, read on the readers the cards will actually face.

09. Technical references

• ISO/IEC 7810, identification cards and physical characteristics, which is the format a specification should name rather than describe in millimetres: iso.org/standard/70483.html.

10. Where Kaway fits

Most of what leaves the Kaway line ships under somebody else's brand, and the arrangement is explicit.

No Kaway marking on the product. Material data sheets and applicable certifications go into the delivery dossier under the partner's brand. Kaway ships direct to the end client where asked, under that brand and with that paperwork, to more than fifty three countries, and does not approach a client a partner has introduced or is already working with. The full terms sit on the distributor page and on the FAQ.

Kaway manufactures at the plant in Dongguan, China, and cards have been manufactured at the Dongguan plant since 2007. The line is built for eight million cards a month and normal production runs below that. Buyers and distributors visit regularly, and that is encouraged rather than tolerated.

Send Kaway Group your specification and required delivery date to discuss the proposed order. Quote requests are answered the same working day: contact the plant directly.

11. Frequently asked questions

Is there one minimum order for every custom card?

Do not assume so, here or anywhere else. Minimum order is 500 units at Kaway, but the number that governs an order is the one confirmed in writing for the proposed construction, quantity and commercial offer.

Can we order below 500 units?

It is worth asking. The answer is sometimes yes, particularly for a pilot ahead of a rollout or a small replacement batch on an existing programme. What no supplier should do is pretend the unit price at fifty units is reasonable.

How fast is a quote request answered?

Quote requests are answered the same working day. Where something cannot be done, that answer comes back the same day too, which is more useful than a slow yes.

Is the express run a different production process?

No. It is the same process with scheduling priority, which is why it is eight days rather than two. There is a floor below which lamination and curing cannot be compressed without affecting the card.

Can artwork and specification be held for repeat orders?

Yes, and for a partner reordering on a cycle this is the main practical benefit of staying with one manufacturer. Specification consistency across reorders is harder than it sounds and it is where most supplier changes go wrong.

Does Kaway sell to end users?

Kaway manufactures for the trade and does not approach the clients its partners bring.