How Much Does It Cost To Start A Vinyl Business?
(In £ and US $)
So although costs can differ, the main reason I promote starting a vinyl business if you have a Cricut, a Cameo or another cutting machine is that there is less of an upfront cost associated with it, in comparison to selling finished products like tshirts or cups.
If you need some more convincing on why it’s the best choice though, read my post…
There are still some costs involved obviously, but I don’t know if it is more or less than people think, so I thought I would just go through all the different aspects you have to consider, and then do an estimated figure at the end, both in American dollars and English pounds, as that’s where most of my watchers are from.
Hopefully if you live elsewhere it will still give you an idea of the different things you need to think about though. This will also very much be an estimate as well - some things might go up or down in price, you might choose to buy more or less. Just think of it as a ballpark figure basically.
Also, this is assuming you already have a Smartphone, Tablet or Computer that you can download cutting software on. If you’re using a phone, you might want to upgrade to a tablet, laptop or computer at some point to make it easier to create new designs and manage everything, but it is totally possible to start with just a smartphone, considering it basically has everything you need on it. So I’m not going to include that in the total.
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
So you can either watch the video here (it is a bit less up to date than the written post)…
The below content contains affiliate links and we may earn a commission if you shop through them, however this won't cost you anything, it just helps us to keep the site running for free. For more information on affiliate links, see the disclosure here.
I also cannot be held responsible for any circumstances resulting from the below information - I am not qualified to advise anyone on starting a business and this should be used as reference information only.
Or read below…
Before I get started though, do check out my How To Start A Vinyl Business course on Skillshare, which is currently free for 1 month for all new members!
CUTTING MACHINE
So if you don’t have one already (if you do you can skip to the next section!), there are lots of different cutting machines out there to choose from. You could also potentially look into buying a second-hand one, which means your costs would be even lower, but I’m just going to factor in buying new for the purposes of this post.
I’m also only going to be talking about starting a vinyl business with a Cricut or Silhouette machine as that’s what I know - so this is perfect if you already have one of those and want to start making some money! If you already have a business and want to expand it into vinyls however, or if you have enough funds or investments to open a shop with staff then you might want to look into larger, more professional machines. But if it’s just you, and/or maybe a spouse or friend and you want to start from scratch at home with limited space, then the Cricut and Silhouette machines are great for this.
So in terms of machines, with Cricut you have the Joy, the Explore 2&3 and the Maker & Maker 3, watch my comparison video here…
…if you want more details on the difference between the three. But basically there is a hierarchy of price and what you can achieve with all of them.
Then with Silhouette, you have the Portrait 3 and then the Cameo, which comes in 3 different sizes. If you want to know the difference between those then I also have a video on that too…
It seems as if most people who make vinyl decals and then also stickers, iron on decals, card and paper projects, go with either the Air 2/3 or the Cameo 4, and that’s what I personally have. So I’m going to use those in my pricing.
US Costs
In the US at the moment, you can get an Air 2 for $179.99
Price as of 1/12/22.
Or with Cricut Access it is $171.98…
They are also often on sale or part of bundle deals elsewhere too so it is worth keeping an eye on different places for machines, although always be careful that wherever you are buying them is legitimate.
You may want to pay a bit more for the Air 3, but as I discuss in this post here…
I’m not sure it is quite worth it when it comes to selling vinyl specifically.
You could also consider the Joy as they are $150 but you will then limit yourself on the size of vinyl you could make, and it does also make it difficult to create stickers and other items if you want to expand your business further. So to save $30 that doesn’t seem that worth it to me personally unless you are very limited on space.
Price as of 1/12/22.
As well as your machine, you do need to then get a few standard grip mats in order to cut vinyl, as it looks like the air currently only comes with a light grip mat in the US for some reason which is better for paper and card projects. The extra mats are $15 for 2 12x12 mats and $21 for 2 12x24 mats so I would estimate that into the cost too.
But once you have those, save my video…
for how to clean them so you don’t have to keep buying new ones as they will lose their stick eventually.
And then the Cameo comes in 3 different sizes now, but if you were to stick with the standard 12 inch Cameo 4 so it’s comparable to Cricut, then that is $299.
Bear in mind that this has a roll feeder so you can make more decals at a time and don’t need to buy extra mats, it has better software, and you can cut slightly thicker things than the Air 2, hence the difference in price.
So to make things simple I’m just going to assume the total is from someone choosing either the Cameo or the Cricut Air 2 plus one set of mats, and that will be an average of…
$300
UK Costs
In the UK at the moment, the Air 2 is about £260…
Price as of 12/1/22
although they are also often on deal on Amazon, or have a look for discount codes for Hobbycraft or Hochanda too.
And for extra mats they are about £15 for the small ones or £25 for the large ones, although it does come with a standard mat so you may not need to buy those straight away.
Then for the Cameo 4, the best price I can find at the moment is £350 from Hexis Crafts but do look out for deals on those too - GM Crafts also has a great price on the machines and often has discount codes available!
As mentioned above, you can create bigger vinyls with the Cameo, you don’t necessarily need mats, and the software is better, hence the difference in price.
Price as of 12/1/22
And so it’s not perfect, but to average out the total in the UK for either the Cameo 4 or the Cricut + mats, that is…
£317.50
So you really want to do your research on which machine will work best for the type of vinyls you want to make (and if you’re not sure yet, then do be sure to take my course How To Start A Vinyl Decal Business as that will walk you through the process of figuring out your niche) before you jump in.
Also, try out the software for both first and see which one you feel more comfortable with. And actually, if you are creating on an iPad or an iPhone then you will want to go with a Cricut as currently, you can’t get the Silhouette software on the app store.
TOOLS
So you don’t really need that many tools to begin with. I would say some good scissors, a weeding tool and a scraper is what you need as the bare minimum!
So good scissors you can just get from any local shop or craft place, just make sure they are sharp enough to cut through vinyl.
But for weeding tools they do have lots of sets online that include weeding tools, scrapers and a bunch of other stuff that you may or may not end up using. This one on US amazon contains loads of tools for just $10.99 and seems to get good reviews…
And then in the UK there is this one for £10 on amazon that gets lots of good reviews too.
There are some other tools I recommend getting to help you, check out the post below for those, but to begin with those tool sets and some good scissors should do the job just fine.
So if we say about $5 or £5 for scissors, in total that is…
US Costs
$16
UK Costs
£15
Business Expenses
Registering as a business
The costs for becoming a business are going to vary whether you become a sole trader or set yourself up as an incorporation or form a limited company. I have no expertise or authority in this area so wouldn’t be able to advise either way. The best thing to do would probably be to ring your local tax office to check what you should do and if there are any expenses involved with doing so.
I did have a look into it briefly and it appears that in the US you have to register if you’re making over $400 in sales. You can either be self-employed or if you want to register as a limited company or corporation then you need to file articles of incorporation in your state and the fee can range, but is usually under $300.
In the UK it is £12 to set up as a limited company, but if you want to go down this route you may want to pay more for someone to help you do that like a business advisor or accountant. Or if you set up as self-employed that is free. And you must do this if you’re making over £1000.
So I’m going to assume if you’re just starting out and making a little bit then you will stick with being self employed, and I’ll not add any costs to the list for that. But again, please do your own research as this could differ depending on where you’re based.
Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
Business Insurance
As well as setting yourself up as a business, you will probably want to look into getting some sort of insurance to cover you in case anything goes wrong with your products, or causes harm to a customer. Costs for this can vary dramatically depending on what kind of cover you want, and there are various different types of cover, so please do your own research on this, ask around, and decide what you need to pay to be covered and how much.
For the purposes of a fee for this, it’s actually quite a hard thing to research as almost all companies make you fill in a quote to get prices, so I did that and ticking almost all of the cover available other than employee related ones, it ended up as around £40 per month in the UK (I think I misquoted this in the video!) and about $50 per month in the US, although that is possibly a bit more comprehensive than what you need when you’re starting out. So again this is just a very general ball park figure to go off, it could be way higher or lower depending on your circumstances and what you want to cover.
So I will just add that to the total as a monthly fee because this post is what you need to start a business, but do bear that in mind you will need to pay more throughout the year and will need to factor that into your costs.
US Costs
$50
UK Costs
£40
Materials
So to sell vinyl decals, you obviously need vinyl. And also transfer tape.
You could actually technically start with no supplies and just create mock-ups of your designs, then buy supplies when you sell. Take a look at my video here on how to do that…
But I think it is better to try buying some vinyl and to test it out first, even if it’s just some samples, and make sure you’re getting the right quality of materials before you sell it. It also means you can work out exactly how much you need to charge as well.
US Costs
So if you start off really simply, with perhaps 4 different colour choices to begin with and transfer tape, in the US you could go to Expressions Vinyl and get that for $3.25 for 5ft rolls, then a roll of gridded transfer tape which will last you quite a while is $13.99. Then Expressions Vinyl shipping is $8.50, although if you spend over $49 it’s free. So once you start making sales and buying in bulk it will make things cheaper per roll.
Total
$35.49
(The above aren’t recommendations on products to buy, I’ve never bought these myself, it’s just giving a general idea of prices)
UK Costs
For UK costs I am just going to use GM Crafts as the example supplier as they offer free postage, and I’m going to choose the same vinyl as above, although slightly smaller rolls. So for 4 305x610mm Oracal 651 rolls, the multibuy price means they are £2.55 each. Then for a 305mm x 30M roll of transfer tape (the clear gridded medium tack tape is my favourite and will last you SO long!), that is £17.46.
Total
£27.66
Do check out my full list of Vinyl Suppliers for the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany & Switzerland however to make sure you’re getting the best deals…
Packaging
Then you obviously need some envelopes to send your order in - it really depends what you’re sending as to what size you need, but the majority of my orders go out in document sized envelopes, and you won’t need too many to start with. And then obviously postage costs will be part of your sale cost so you don’t need to think about that yet.
US Costs
On Amazon, you can get 25 US Letter size cardboard backed envelopes for…
$9.99
Other Costs
Then other costs could include a website or hosting fee, or paying to add listings on Etsy, although I do have 40 free listings available below…
…so you can basically set that up for free or use Facebook or Ebay or Amazon or another marketplace to sell. Check out my post on where to sell below if you need more information…
And then also you might want to think about paying for marketing and advertising, but you should have enough time to try and do that organically to start off with.
And then there could also be fees for an accountant, some bookkeeping software, design software etc - but all of this stuff you can decide not to pay for or find for free so I’m not going to include that.
The Total Cost
Just remember, this is the estimated total. Obviously as I’ve said, this could wildly differ depending on what machine you buy, your insurance and also what type of vinyl you decide to start with. But hopefully it just gives you an idea whether it is realistic for you, or if you need to cut your costs in a certain area…
US (Estimated) Grand Total
$411.48
UK (Estimated) Grand Total
£408.65
If this has tempted you though, and you think you’re ready to start a Vinyl Decal business, don’t forget to check out my Skillshare Course (free for 1 month for all new members!)
I hope that was helpful, let me know if I’ve missed anything or if you have any questions in the comments section.