Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Riverhead, New York

The honest first question for anyone ordering from Riverhead is not what size to pick or what the artwork should look like, it is whether you would rather collect the box in person or have it shipped to you. Everything else on this page follows from that one choice. Both routes are open, neither is treated as the default, and the answer usually comes down to whether you were already going to be heading west for other reasons. Once that is settled, the rest is sizes, quantity and artwork.

Collecting in person, or having the box sent

Pickup is free. Shipping is a flat fee set by the number of buttons on the order, not by where the order is going, so there is no penalty for sitting at the eastern end of Suffolk County. The tiers run $9.99 up to 100 buttons, $14.99 up to 250, $19.99 up to 500 and $24.99 up to 1000. If the trip west is not already on your calendar for some other errand, shipping is the simpler call. The straight line distance from the shop is 38.4 miles, due east, which is far enough that a special trip made only to save the shipping fee rarely pays for itself once you count the fuel.

Why the quantity you type matters more than you think

The two sets of boundaries sit on the same three numbers and are counted from different totals. An order of 500 ships at $19.99. An order of 501 ships at $24.99. That is five dollars for one extra button. The same thing happens at 100, 250 and 1000. If you find yourself landing on 260 or 520 or 1010, it is worth asking whether you actually need those last few or whether you would rather round down and keep the lower tier, or round up properly and get real use out of the room the higher tier gives you. Nobody will tell you off for ordering 999.

The five places nearest you, all inside seven miles

The five nearest towns we also cover sit remarkably close together: Flanders at 3.4 miles, Calverton at 5.7, Westhampton at 6.4, Remsenburg-Speonk at 6.9 and East Quogue at 7.1. Every one of them is within 7.1 miles. That matters if you are one of several acts who share bills, a rehearsal space or a merch table, because the shipping tier counts total buttons on the order, not designs and not people. Three acts each wanting 80 buttons pay three separate $9.99 fees if they order separately, and one $14.99 fee if they put 240 buttons on a single order and sort out the boxes between themselves afterwards. There is a discount at 100 of a size, a better one at 250 and the best online one at 500. The saving is purely on shipping.

What 500 buttons of the 1 inch comes to

Worked all the way through: 500 of the 1.5 inch button at $1.32 each, the published 500 to 999 figure, is $660.00 in buttons. Flat shipping on an order of that size is $19.99, so the total is $679.99 before tax. The five sizes are priced at $1.89 for the 1.5 inch, $1.99 for the 2.25 inch and $2.49 for the 3 inch, and those figures hold, up to ninety-nine of that size, whatever else is on the order. Order what the list needs, then look at the band boundaries once. They are the only place where ordering more costs less. The list runs down to the 1 inch at $1.49, with the 1.25 inch at $1.69 just above it.

Choosing between the five sizes

There are five sizes of round pin-back button and nothing else. The 1.5 inch is the one most people picture: a logo, a single word, a face. It is small, so anything with fine lettering around the edge tends to close up. The 2.25 inch is the workhorse for a band name plus a bit of artwork. The 3 inch reads from across a room and suits a single bold image or a tour graphic with dates on it. Many people order two sizes and price them differently, a cheap one that people take without thinking and a larger one for anyone who wants the good version.

Getting the artwork right for a circle

Buttons are printed in full colour from artwork you upload, and the thing worth planning for is that a circle is not a rectangle. The outer edge of the printed area wraps around the curve of the shell, so anything you care about, text especially, wants to sit well inside the edge rather than hugging it. Centred designs survive this better than designs anchored to a corner. If your band logo was built to sit on a rectangular banner, it is usually worth rebuilding it inside a circle rather than shrinking the whole thing until it fits, because shrinking is what makes lettering disappear at the smaller size.

For the solo act with one design

You do not need a spread. One of the 1.5 inch pays $1.89. A hundred of it pays $1.51, which is the 100 to 249 rate. That is a merch item you can price at a couple of dollars and hand to people who are not going to buy a shirt, and it fits in a coat pocket on the way to the show.

For the band splitting costs four ways

Work out the total first, then divide. The arithmetic is still one multiplication. You read the rate off the band your count lands in first. Quantity now has two consequences, one on the rate for a size and one on the postage for the order.

For whoever runs the merch table

Order the two sizes at once so you have a low price point and a higher one. Buttons are the item people buy when they have already decided not to buy anything else, so having a second tier at 2.25 or 3 inch gives someone a reason to spend more than the minimum without you having to sell them anything.

For a support act on a short run of dates

If you are playing a handful of rooms and do not know what will move, the per button rate you can look up means a small order is not punished on a per-unit basis. Fifty of the 2.25 inch is $1.99 each and five hundred of the same size is $1.39 each, because 500 lands in the 500 to 999 band. The only thing a small order costs you proportionally is the shipping fee spread across fewer items.

Questions people actually ask

Can I collect my order in person instead of having it shipped to Riverhead? Yes. Pickup is free and is a genuine alternative to shipping, not a fallback. It only makes sense if the trip west was already happening for another reason.

Three bands near Riverhead want buttons. Can we put it all on one order? Yes, and it is usually the cheaper route. Shipping tiers count total buttons across the order regardless of how many separate designs are on it, so one combined order pays one fee instead of three.

If I order 600 buttons to Riverhead instead of 500, does the price per button drop? No, not between those two counts: 500 and 600 both sit in the 500 to 999 band for a single size. The rate you pay depends on how many of that one size are on the order. What changes is the shipping tier, which moves from $19.99 to $24.99 once you pass 500, so the extra hundred buttons cost their normal rate plus five dollars of shipping.

Does shipping to Riverhead cost more than shipping somewhere closer to the shop? No. The shipping fee is set by the number of buttons on the order and nothing else. An order going out to the eastern end of the county pays the same tier as one going a few streets from the shop.

Can I mix the five sizes on one order going to Riverhead? Yes. Each size is charged at its own rate, on its own count and the shipping tier is worked out from the combined count, so 200 of the 1.5 inch plus 50 of the 2.25 inch is 250 buttons and lands in the $14.99 tier.