Custom Pin Back Buttons for Terryville, New York

Most of the people who come to us for this kind of order are exhibitors: a marketing lead with a booth number, two or three staff working the aisle, and a table that needs something small to put in a visitor's hand that is not another folded leaflet. They are trying to solve a specific problem. A badge or a lanyard identifies the booth staff, but it does nothing for the person walking past. A button does. It is cheap enough to hand out freely, it is small enough to carry, and a fair number of them end up on a bag strap before the visitor has left the hall.

This page is written for that order placed from Terryville, in Brookhaven Township, Suffolk County, ZIP 11776.

What you are actually buying

Five sizes of round pin back button, and nothing else. The 1 inch, the 1.25 inch, the 1.5 inch, the 2.25 inch and the 3 inch. Full colour throughout, printed from artwork you upload yourself, so a logo, a tagline, a QR code or a booth number all work the same way.

The 1.5 inch is the one that reads as a badge rather than a statement. It sits flat on a lapel and takes a mark, a short word or a simple logo. The 2.25 inch is the size most exhibitors settle on, because it holds a logo and a few words of type at a size a passer by can read from a step away. The 3 inch is the one you choose when the artwork has to carry a scannable code, a longer line of copy, or an illustration with any real detail in it.

The rate steps at three counts and holds level between them.

• The 1 inch $1.49 each
• The 1.25 inch $1.69 each
• The 1.5 inch $1.89 each
• The 2.25 inch $1.99 each
• The 3 inch $2.49 each

That is the whole price list. A size reaching 100 moves every button of that size onto the lower rate. One is charged at the listed rate. A thousand of one size is the point where a person quotes it instead.

A booth sized order, costed out

Take the size an exhibitor most often lands on. Four hundred of the 2.25 inch button at $1.49 each, the rate that applies from 250 of one size, is $596.00 in buttons. Flat shipping for an order of that size is $19.99. The order comes to $615.99 before tax.

Nothing in that calculation changes if you split the four hundred across several designs or reorder the same design later. The per button rate is the per button rate. One rate per size per band, and every size uses the same band boundaries.

Where the shipping brackets fall, and why it matters

Shipping is flat and is set by the total number of buttons on the order:

• up to 100 $9.99
• up to 250 $14.99
• up to 500 $19.99
• up to 1000 $24.99

The breaks are not a negotiation. They are four bands with the boundaries written down. An order of 260 buttons pays the same $19.99 as an order of 500. If you were choosing between 260 and a larger figure, the shipping cost gives you no reason to stay low: everything from 251 through 500 carries the identical charge. The same logic applies at 100 and at 500. It is worth glancing at the bracket you are in before you settle the final count, because the step you have already paid for may be bigger than the number you were planning to order.

A cluster of neighbours, all of them close

The thing that shapes orders from Terryville more than anything else is how tightly the surrounding places sit. Port Jefferson Station is 1.2 miles off. East Setauket is 2.4 miles. Port Jefferson, Selden and Mount Sinai are each 2.7 miles. Five neighbouring places, every one of them inside a three mile radius.

That has a practical consequence for anyone coordinating a shared order. If your company has people spread across that cluster, or if a group of exhibitors from several of those places is sharing a stand, the buttons do not need to be split into separate orders. Put the whole count on one order, let the total number of buttons decide the shipping bracket, and hand the boxes out locally afterwards. Two orders of 200 sit in the $14.99 bracket apiece. One order of 400 sits in the $19.99 bracket once. The arithmetic favours combining.

How far east this is

In a straight line, Terryville is 18.1 miles east of the shop. That figure is a straight line measurement and not a route or a duration. It is worth knowing mainly because it tells you whether collecting in person is a reasonable proposition for you or whether shipping is simply the sensible way to handle it. For an order of a few hundred buttons going to a stand, most people ship.

Getting the artwork right for a hand out

A button that is being given away at a stand is read at arm's length and often in bad hall lighting. That pushes you toward fewer elements and heavier contrast than you would use in print. A logo and one short line usually beats a logo, a tagline, a web address and a strapline crammed together.

If you are putting a QR code on a button, the 3 inch is the size that gives the code room to sit at a scannable scale with a clear margin around it. Squeezing a code onto a 1.5 inch button rarely ends well.

Remember the button is round and the pin sits behind it, so artwork that relies on square corners or on text running to the very edge will need rethinking. Keep anything you need read away from the outer rim.

If you are working a stand with a team

Order one design for staff and a second for visitors. Staff buttons in the 1.5 inch, visitor giveaways in the 2.25 inch. Both go on one order, and the shipping bracket is worked out from the combined count rather than from each design separately.

If this is your first trade show

Start with the 2.25 inch and a single design. It is the size that does the most work for the least fuss, and at $1.99 flat you can decide the quantity on the basis of how many people you expect to talk to rather than on chasing a discount that does not exist.

If you exhibit several times a year

The published per button rate means a repeat order costs exactly what the first one did per piece. There is no advantage in stockpiling a year of buttons in one purchase, so you can order per show and keep the artwork current instead.

If you are ordering on behalf of several companies

Pool the count. Two orders of two hundred are two counts of two hundred, while one order of four hundred is a single count of four hundred and sits a band lower. Split the invoice on a simple per button basis and it comes out even.

Questions we get asked

Q: What does 400 of the 2.25 inch button come to for a Terryville order? A: $596.00 in buttons at $1.49 each, the rate that applies from 250 of one size, plus $19.99 flat shipping, which is $615.99 before tax.

Q: If a Terryville booth needs 260 buttons rather than 250, what happens to the cost? A: The buttons stay at the same published rate for each band per piece. The shipping moves from the up to 250 bracket at $14.99 into the up to 500 bracket at $19.99, so 260 and 500 carry the same shipping charge.

Q: Does a larger run from a Terryville exhibitor bring the price per button down? A: No. The order total does not set the rate. A single size's count does. Above 999 of one size the answer is a quote, so the published ladder stops there.

Q: Can a Terryville order mix the five sizes on one purchase? A: Yes. Each size is charged at its own count and so its own rate, and the shipping bracket is set by the total number of buttons on the order rather than by each size counted separately.

Q: Which nearby places do you also cover, if a Terryville customer wants to pool an order? A: Port Jefferson Station, East Setauket, Port Jefferson, Selden and Mount Sinai are all covered, and all five sit within 2.7 miles.