If you're considering making pin badges for your charity, business, or shop but are worried about the seemingly high cost of producing them, you're probably wondering "why are enamel pins so expensive?"

Read on to learn what goes into producing pins, why you might be wrong about how expensive enamel pins are, and what you can do to reduce the unit price further. 

The Process of Making Enamel Pins

Design Creation

The first step in creating an enamel badge is designing the pin itself, which involves creating a digital or hand-drawn design that will be used to make the mould for the pin. 

Your design must be carefully planned and executed to ensure that it will translate well into a physical pin.

Fortunately for you, we offer a FREE design service with every order to remove the extra cost of hiring a designer or using up your free time to learn the intricacies of the limitations of what you can do with pins.

Making the Mould

Once you've approved your design, we'll send the file to our factory, where they'll craft the master mould that we'll use to make every badge for your order. 

Using the mould, our expert team will stamp your design into a metal strip to create the indentations of your badges.

��Making pin badges! pic.twitter.com/4FlKSPvyez

— Made by Cooper (@madebycooper) January 29, 2024

Enamel Filling

After the mould is created, the next step is to fill the recessed areas with enamel. Enamel is a glass ground into a fine powder mixed with water to form a paste and applied to the recessed areas of the pin. 

We'll fire the pins in a kiln at high temperatures for a smooth, durable finish.

The enamel filling process is delicate and requires precision to ensure that the enamel is evenly distributed and does not overflow onto the raised metal areas of the pin. This step is crucial in creating a high-quality enamel pin and can be time-consuming and labour-intensive.

�� Hand-filling enamel.#PinBadges pic.twitter.com/KkGElYlk0Q

— Made by Cooper (@madebycooper) January 30, 2024

Plating and Finishing

Once the enamel is filled, the pin is plated with a metal finish. This can be done in various finishes, such as gold, silver, or black nickel. The plating process involves dipping the pin into an electroplating solution and applying an electric current to deposit a thin layer of metal onto the pin.

After plating, the pin is polished, and any excess metal is removed to create a smooth, shiny finish. This step adds to the cost of enamel pins as it requires specialised equipment and skilled craftspeople.

Quality Control

Before the pins are packaged and shipped, they undergo a thorough quality control process, which involves inspecting each pin for defects or imperfections and making necessary adjustments. 

What You Can Do To Reduce The Cost of Enamel Pins

Order From Made by Cooper: Our complimentary design service significantly reduces the time you have to spend creating a production-ready design, and unlike other companies, we don't charge for the service as long as you go through with your order.

Order More Units: The more units you order from us per order, the more affordable each one becomes. Check out our price breaks for soft enamel pins.

Repeat Order: If you've made pin badges with us before (or quickly sell out of your initial run), we offer an "Encore" discount to loyal customers who come back to place the same order again.

Create the "Perfect Design": If you're a talented designer and can meet the criteria for our perfect design scheme (so our in-house team don't have to alter your design), you can save 15% off your order.

Be Proud to be Made by Cooper: Save 10% off your order if you agree to have our logo back stamped onto the rear of your enamel pins.

Key Takeaways

As you can see, a lot of work goes into producing your enamel pins, but when you consider the skills, materials and services we offer to go from idea to physical product, pin badges aren't that expensive at all.

The low cost and minimal time constraints you'll face in creating your own enamel pins make them an excellent product to make significant profits from or use as cost-effective marketing tools and brand awareness badges.

Contact us today, and let us help you bring your ideas to life.