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The smallest size we make

1.5 inch custom buttons

A 1.5 inch round pin-back button at $1.89 each, flat at every quantity. This is the badge size: small enough to live on a collar or a lanyard without getting in the way.
Create 1.5 inch buttons

Price and dimensions

The 1.5 inch face, with its safe area marked. The disc is drawn to the same scale on every size page.

$1.89

per button, at every quantity. No tiers, no minimum.

Finished diameter
1.5 inches
Safe area for artwork
1.375 inches
Artwork printed and cut at
1.837 inches
Face at 300 DPI
450 pixels
Full file at 300 DPI
551 pixels square
Print area
the smallest we make
Create 1.5 inch buttons

Compare with2.25 inch3 inch

Is 1.5 inch the right size for you?

The honest way to answer this is to think about how far away the button has to be read from, and how much has to be on it.

It suits

  • One strong mark: an icon, a monogram, a symbol, a simple logo with no tagline.
  • A single short word or a number. A year, a name, a room, a team.
  • A set where everybody wears the same pin and nobody needs to read it from across a room.
  • Anything worn on a collar, a cap, a lanyard badge holder or a bag strap, where a larger disc would flop over.
  • Handing out a lot of them. At $1.89 each, a few hundred is a predictable number.

Pick a larger size instead for

  • More than about three or four words of text.
  • A logo whose tagline or registered mark has to stay legible. On this diameter it usually has to come off.
  • A group photo, or any photograph where a specific face has to be recognized.
  • A QR code. One will physically fit, but a code this small on a curved surface is asking a phone camera to work harder than it should.
  • Anything meant to be read from across a room rather than across a table.
The 3 button sizes drawn at true relative scaleCircles at their real relative size, resting on one line. 1.5 inch is 1.5 inches across, 2.25 inch is 2.25 inches across, 3 inch is 3 inches across. Doubling the diameter quadruples the printable face, so the largest disc is drawn visibly four times the area of the smallest rather than twice its size. The dashed ring inside each face is that size's safe area for artwork. The 1.5 inch circle is outlined to mark it as the size this page is about.1.5 in2.25 in3 in

A useful test before you commit: open your design, set it to 1.5 inches wide on screen with the zoom at 100 percent, and read it at arm’s length. That is what somebody two feet away is going to get. Most artwork that fails at this size fails because of one line of small type that was never the point of the design anyway.

What it costs to go bigger

Because the price is flat, the difference between the sizes is easy to work out, which makes this an unusually low stakes decision.

Stepping up from 1.5 inch to 2.25 inch costs $0.10 more per button, which is $10.00 across 100 buttons, and it buys you 2.25 times the print area. Going all the way to 3 inch costs $0.60 more per button, or $60.00 across 100 buttons, for 4 times the area.

So if the only thing pushing you toward the smallest size is budget, it is worth checking that number before you decide. If what is pushing you is that the button has to be small enough to wear on a collar, stay here.

Read about 2.25 inchRead about 3 inchSee all three at true scale

Artwork for a 1.5 inch button

Two numbers matter, and the second one catches people out.
A 1.5 inch button and its three diametersThe printed circle is 1.837 inches across and the sheet is punched at that diameter. The finished button is 1.5 inches. Artwork that has to stay readable belongs inside the 1.375 inch safe circle. The hatched ring between the finished face and the cut line folds over the metal shell and crimps underneath, so nothing printed in it is visible on the finished button.Cut line1.837 inFinished face1.5 inSafe area1.375 inThis ring folds under the shell
Artwork sitting inside the safe circleThe same mark and two lines of type on a 1.5 inch button, sitting inside the 1.375 inch safe circle. Nothing reaches the ring that folds under the shell, so nothing is cut off and nothing curves away from the reader.

Inside the safe circle

The same artwork set too large, cut off at the rimA mark and two lines of type on a 1.5 inch button, set large enough to cross the 1.375 inch safe circle. The ends of both lines run into the ring outside the 1.5 inch face and are cut off at the rim, because that ring folds under the shell. The band that is still visible but already curving away from the reader is shaded.

Crossing the safe circle

On the smallest face that ring is proportionally the widest of the three sizes, so the safe area is a real constraint here rather than a formality. Hairlines are the other casualty: a one pixel stroke that reads as a crisp line on a monitor can thin out to nothing at 1.5 inches across, so thicken any outline before you upload.

Full artwork guidelines, with a 1.5 inch template to download

Order 1.5 inch buttons

$1.89 each at any quantity, made in Huntington, NY.
Create 1.5 inch buttonsQuestions and answers