Corporate Christmas cards: what to send in 2026 with your logo, without it looking cheap

A corporate Christmas card is a strange object. It is a greeting and a piece of marketing at the same time, and the moment the marketing wins, the greeting is lost. We supply a lot of them from our Glasgow studio in November and December, and the ones that get kept on the desk into January share a few habits. This is a guide to those habits, with honest prices. 25 cards printed with your logo and message are £45, 50 are £75, 100 are £125 and 250 are £220, all inclusive of VAT and all with white C6 envelopes included. The full table is on the corporate Christmas cards page.

Start with the stock, because people feel it before they read it

The biggest single difference between a card that looks cheap and one that does not is weight. Our standard is 350gsm silk, a proper greetings card board rather than a flyer stock. It has a firm snap when you open it and it stands up on a mantelpiece without curling. Thin card is the giveaway that a batch was ordered from a self-service site at 11pm, and recipients notice even if they cannot say why.

Size matters less than people think. We print A6 folded from A5, which is 148 by 105mm closed. It fits a standard C6 envelope, which is why we include white ones in the price. If you would rather have kraft envelopes, the brown recycled-looking ones, add £5 on 25, £8 on 50, £12 on 100 or £25 on 250. Kraft suits an illustrated or hand-lettered design; white suits anything with a photograph or a clean typographic front.

Where the logo goes

On the back, small, with the company name and website underneath. That is it. The front of the card is for the design: an illustration, a photograph of Glasgow in the snow, a single line of festive type, whatever fits your brand. The inside carries the message and the signatures. When the logo is the biggest thing on the front, the card becomes a flyer, and flyers go in the recycling on Boxing Day.

The exception is a wordmark that is genuinely part of the design, where the brand colours or the letterforms are the illustration. That can work, but it takes a designer to do it well. Our card design service is £49 flat for custom artwork with two rounds of changes, and it is free on orders of 100 or more, so on a run of 100 the design costs nothing and the cards are still £125.

Foil, and when it is worth the extra

A foil-blocked front, where the design or a single motif is stamped in metallic gold, silver or copper, is the one finish that makes a card feel like a gift in itself. Like every card we supply this year it goes to our trade partner, so it takes 5 working days and has the same last order date as the printed card: Friday 11 December, 12 noon, no exceptions. Prices are £149 for 50, £249 for 100 and £449 for 250. There is no 25 option, because the set-up cost does not make sense at that quantity.

Is it worth it? For a professional services firm sending 100 cards to clients who bill five figures a year, yes, and the £124 difference is not the point. For an internal card to staff, or a card to suppliers, the printed version at 350gsm does the job with dignity. Do not foil a design with fine text; foil likes solid shapes and bold type.

What to write inside

Print a short message and leave room to write. Something like "With thanks for your support this year, and best wishes for 2027 from everyone at" and then the company name, printed in a typeface that matches the front. Then every card gets a handwritten name and a signature. That is non-negotiable in my view. A printed card with a printed signature is a mailshot. A printed card with a scrawled "Thanks for a great year, Chris" is a card.

Avoid "Season's Greetings" unless you have a reason to. It reads as a hedge. If you send Christmas cards, say Merry Christmas. If your client list is mixed and you would rather be neutral, "Best wishes for the New Year" is warmer than the hedge and lets you post in the first week of January if you miss December entirely.

The timeline, counting back from the post

Cards need to be printed, signed, stuffed and posted, and the last two steps take longer than anyone budgets for. Royal Mail publishes its Christmas last posting dates in October, and the recent pattern has 2nd Class around 18 December and 1st Class around 20 December. Every card, printed or foil, is 5 working days from approval. So an order placed in the last week of November, with the proof approved that week, gives you the first ten days of December to sign and post with no panic. Our own date: every Christmas card must be ordered by Friday 11 December at 12 noon. The full deadlines post has everything in one place, and the Christmas printing hub has every seasonal product.

The alternative: a 2027 calendar that stays on the wall

A card lasts until the decorations come down. A calendar with your brand on it lasts until next December, in a client's kitchen or above a workshop bench, which is why a lot of trades and B2B firms send one instead of, or as well as, a card. An A4 wiro wall calendar with 12 months plus a cover on 170gsm silk is £14 each from 10, £12 each from 25 and £10 each from 50. An A5 desk tent calendar is £9 each from 25 and £7.50 each from 50. If you want the months laid out from your own photographs or logo, calendar design is £99 flat.

Calendars are outsourced, so the same rule as foil applies: order by 4 December for comfort and by Friday 11 December at the latest. There is more on sizes and planners on the calendar printing page.

A quick checklist before you order

Count your list properly, then add 10% for the people you forgot and the cards that get smudged at signing. Check the logo file is a vector, not a screenshot. Decide white or kraft envelopes. Decide who signs, and book a lunchtime for it. Confirm the address list is current, because a card to a contact who left in March does more harm than no card. Then send us the artwork, or a brief, and we will send a proof back.

Cards cannot be rushed this year, printed or foil, because they are produced by our trade partner. If you are up against it with menus, vouchers or posters, which we print in-house, phone 0141 345 5841 for same-day or next-day and we confirm the timeline and the price on the call.