Which Adhesive Vinyl Brand Is The Best?
A lot of people ask me what my favourite brand of vinyl is, and its really hard for me to say a definitive answer as I use different brands for different things. So I thought it was about time I did a side by side comparison of some of the most well known vinyl brands around, and show you the differences… and the similarities.
Watch the video below, or scroll further down and continue reading…
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I’m going to be comparing Cricut Smart vinyl, Ritrama permanent vinyl, Oracal 651, Teckwrap and Siser Easy PSV Starling. Somehow I’ve managed to collect all five in similar shades of pink, so I’m going to compare the same color of each one to try and make it fair.
Ease of cutting and weeding
So let’s see how they cut and weed.
To test them out I created one larger design using a thin font and one smaller design using block letters for each of the five vinyls being tested.
I cut each piece of vinyl down so all five designs could be cut at the same time on the same mat, and used the standard Vinyl setting on my Cricut.
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The Siser PSV was easy to cut down (I only had one sheet of this).
The Cricut smart vinyl is a bit thicker and can be cut on a Cricut without a mat.
The Oracal 651 roll is a bit wider than others, which makes it slightly harder to cut on a trimmer. It was also very tightly wound so that it curled itself up and was a bit harder to stick down, so that is something to be aware of.
The Ritrama is the perfect size for my trimmer, and is on a bigger roll so is easier to flatten out.
Finally, the Teckwrap.Bear in mind this one has a thin plastic cover over the vinyl which needs to be removed before you use it. It was only at this point that I realised it was a much darker pink, so that is again, something to note if you’re using Teckwrap. It’s also a bit wasteful having to get rid of that cover, but it does keep the vinyl free of marks and dust, which my other rolls sometimes have problems with.
Once prepared, I cut the test designs on my Cricut with a standard fine point blade, using the vinyl setting as mentioned.
You can just about see here that the thin t lines on the Siser vinyl, and also the Ritrama vinyl have shifted slightly.
But let’s see how they weed…
Siser Easy PSV Starling
The thin ‘Ts’ were a little bit tricky to weed and the number 1 lifted up as well. It looked fine, but not the quickest to weed.
The ‘T in the Test 2 design pulled up a bit, but otherwise, this was very easy to weed. And I also really like the colour of this one.
Cricut Smart Vinyl
The backing on this is so much less flexible than the others, which is good if you don’t want to use a mat, but I just find it so much harder to weed. The ‘t’s’ on this did cut well, but again, pulled up quite a bit when weeding. Overall, it looked fine.
And Test 2 was pretty easy to weed as well.
Oracal
As the vinyl was tightly rolled, this one was trickier to deal with. But of course, if you got this in sheets or on larger rolls you wouldn’t have that issue.
That said, this one was the easiest to weed so far. The ‘ts’ look great as well.
Ritrama
Ritrama is the vinyl I mostly use for my decal business. However, it was a bit tricky to get those ‘ts’ weeded and the second one came out dodgy.
Test 2 pulled up a bit too. I was a bit disappointed by this, as Ritrama is usually so reliable, and it did make me slightly reconsider what I should be using for my business.
Teckwrap
Teckwrap is also a bit less flexible than other brands because it’s a more plasticky backing rather than paper, so it can sometimes make it slightly trickier to weed. However, it was still fairly smooth and cut well. The Test 2 was ok too.
The in-betweens on all the vinyls were really easy to weed - the only one I had slight issues with was the Ritrama.
Overall they all look pretty similar and have cut fairly well in both thin and block fonts.
Ease of applying
I added the decals to a notebook which is fairly easy to apply to, using a medium tack transfer tape. I only added the thin font designs as all of the Test 2s should stick the same.
Siser
The backing paper came away super easily and stuck really well too. Can’t complain at all.
Oracal
Again, it was really easy to take the backing off this one which was equally as easy to apply.
Cricut Smart vinyl
Cricut Smart Vinyl is always really tricky to get off the backing and I’ve tried it with Cricut transfer tape too. Because the backing paper is so inflexible it’s hard to push the vinyl onto the tape and it just takes forever. So, if you do want to use this, I recommend you try a much higher tack tape to deal with it. It does stick well once it’s on the tape though.
Teckwrap
With Teckwrap, you can see the backing grid through the front, so it’s really easy to line up with gridded tape.
However, the backing isn’t as flexible as the Oracal or Siser so didn’t come off very quickly, and does take some cajoling. I also had to restick some bits of the lettering which I would usually try and avoid at all costs because it’s so sticky and can come off on your fingers.
That said, you can get Teckwrap transfer tape which may work better. And it also sticks well on the item.
Ritrama
I had used the same piece of transfer tape a few times so it did take a bit of pushing down as I went, but was pretty easy to take off. It was also easy to apply.
Overall, they all stuck down well, and are of similar thicknesses on the notebook.
Price
Now let’s take a quick look at the cost of each one. I’ll compare them both in US dollars ($) and British pounds (£) where I can. They do all come in different sizes, but I’m going to try and work out the price for a 5ft roll for each one to make it easier to compare.
This doesn’t take into account deals you can get from some suppliers, so do always look out for those.
Oracal
This by far one of the easiest brands to find, especially in the US. So we can see here you can get a roll of that for $5.62, although it is currently on deal for $4.89 from Expressions Vinyl.
Here in the UK, you can get the same size for £3.50 from Sparkle Craft Vinyl.
Easy PSV is another easy brand to find suppliers for in the US, not so much in the UK. I could actually only find 3ft rolls though, which are $3.25 from Expressions Vinyl, so similar-ish price to the full price Oracal. And if you buy in bulk from somewhere like US Cutter, then you can get an even better price.
I couldn’t actually find a price in pounds. I could have sworn I had seen it in Hobbycraft before, but they only had prices for Siser’s Iron on vinyl, which is good too - perhaps I’ll do an HTV comparison at some point!
Ritrama
This is what I use for my business because I can get such good prices for buying in bulk. I pay £4 for a 5 metre roll, so I think that is about £1.20 for 5 feet. I couldn’t find prices for Ritrama in dollars - I really should have thought a bit more about this before I chose which ones to compare, but never mind.
I would say that Avery Dennison or 3M found at My Craft Source are similar types of brands, if you can find those in bulk as well. These rolls work out as essentially $2.30 for 5ft.
Teckwrap
Teckwrap only seems to come in 10ft rolls, which are $10.90. So again, around $5.45 for 5ft. They do, however, have their economical series from $8.90, and their Color Changing is a bit more at $12.90. In the UK, for a 5ft roll it is £7 from Sparkle Craft, so double the price of Oracal.
However, Teckwrap have such good speciality vinyl like glitter and holographic so they are the brand I would recommend for those types of things, rather than just standard matte vinyl.
Cricut Smart Vinyl
Finally onto Cricut Smart Vinyl - you can often get this on deals, but at the moment on Cricut US it is $9 for 3ft, so $15 for 5ft. You can of course just get Premium Vinyl, or their newer Value Vinyl, but I do think the main reason you would want to get Cricut vinyl would be for the Smart feature if you have a compatible machine.
In the UK, Smart Vinyl is £7.49 for 3ft usually, but even on deal at £5.24, that’s still £8.70 for 5ft.
Personally, I wouldn’t buy Cricut vinyl, but if you see a good deal or want to use one of their more speciality materials, then it is worth keeping an eye out for deals.
Durability
Obviously, one other important factor is the durability of these brands. This is a much harder thing to test, however, as it needs to be done over a longer period of time, and under multiple different conditions.
I can say though that we’ve had a Teckwrap decal on our car now for over two years and it hasn’t budged. I’ve also had Ritrama decals on signs, mirrors and cups that have stayed put for years as well. I would imagine the other three brands would be very similar as they’re all permanent vinyl.
If you’re thinking about selling outdoor decals, or ones you do need to last a long time, it is worth looking into brands that specialise in very permanent vinyl and carry out some testing yourself.
Conclusion
I think for me, Oracal was the best for cutting, weeding and applying. However, I love Teckwrap’s speciality vinyl selection.
The price of Ritrama is just so good, and I never get any complaints from customers about it. I would probably use Cricut smart vinyl more if I had one of the newer machines, and while the Siser PSV didn’t come out on top, my favourite cutting machine is my Siser Juliet. And I really love Siser Easyweed HTV, so they are also definitely a brand to consider.
Of course, these are only five of the Vinyl brands available - there are tonnes of others out there.
If you want to know the best places to find them I have lists of suppliers in Cutting Machine Confident, and also in both of my business bundles if you’re looking for suppliers for a decal business.
Which one is your favourite? Or do you have another recommendation for me to try?
Let me know in the comments.