Folding Carton / Retail Carton
A cardstock carton printed and die-cut for retail: straight or reverse tuck, a window, a hang tab, or a sleeve.
- MOQ500 pcs
- Indicative @500 pcs$0.05 – 0.65
Beauty & cosmetics packaging · MOQ 500 pcs on folding cartons
Shelf, shelf, and margin
A unit carton runs $0.05 – 0.65 per piece at 1,000 pcs and a rigid gift set runs $1.20 – 2.30 at 500 pcs, and those two numbers describe two different jobs: the everyday shelf unit and the gifting or PR box. The lever that moves a beauty quote most is not the board or the finish — it is the number of print colours.
Range
The four boxes a beauty brand actually buys
A unit carton for the shelf, a rigid set for gifting and PR, a subscription box for repeat drops, and a carrier for the counter. They are bought at different volumes and priced on different logic, so they are worth quoting in one pass rather than one at a time.
Cream Rigid Gift Box with Gold Edge Trim
Our own cream box, built as a friction-fit lid and base rather than a magnetic shell — which is why it sits on the lower published band, indicative $1.20–1.80/pc at 500 pcs.
- MOQ100 pcs
- Indicative @500 pcs$1.20 – 1.80
Navy Rigid Gift Box with Brushed Metal Edge
This is not a customer's box.
- MOQ100 pcs
- Indicative @500 pcs$1.50 – 2.30
Subscription Box with Printed Interior
A litho-laminated corrugated box with full-colour artwork on the exterior and the interior, sized to the assortment you actually ship.
- MOQ1,000 pcs
- Indicative @1,000 pcs$0.42 – 0.68
Luxury Ribbon-Handle Paper Bag
Printed art paper with a matte or soft-touch lamination, a folded and glued top edge, a board base and a ribbon handle threaded through a reinforced panel.
- MOQ300 pcs
- Indicative @500 pcs$0.43 – 0.73
Laminated Art Paper Bag
Printed art paper under a matte, gloss or soft-touch film, with a folded and glued top edge and a board base option.
- MOQ300 pcs
- Indicative @500 pcs$0.10 – 0.50
Kraft Paper Box
An unbleached kraft folding box with no film, no laminate and nothing on it that has to be separated before the box can be recycled.
- MOQ500 pcs
- Indicative @500 pcs$0.05 – 0.65
What this industry actually needs
Shelf, shelf, and margin
Beauty packaging is bought twice: once by the brand for the shelf, and once again by the customer at the shelf. The second decision happens in about four seconds and is made almost entirely on the front face, which is why the front face is worth spending on and the other five panels usually are not.
1. One face earns the money
A carton gives you four panels and two flaps. On a crowded shelf the customer reads the front and maybe the side, so that is where the foil, the emboss and the heavier finish belong. Putting the same treatment on all six faces raises the cost without raising the chance of being picked up.
2. Declarations take structure, not print
Ingredients, net content, warnings and barcodes consume real area, and where they go is decided by your regulatory team. What matters here is that a carton has more usable flat area than a rigid box of the same footprint, so if the declaration block is long, the carton is the cheaper container for it. Raise it before the die is cut, not after.
3. Repeat drops want a reusable die
Subscription and refill programmes live or die on being cheap to reorder. A self-locking mailer at $0.42–0.68 per piece at 1,000 pcs takes a new artwork per drop without a new die, which is why the box and the print are quoted as separate lines rather than one unit price.
| What moves the unit price | How much it matters | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Number of print colours | The largest single lever | Each colour is a separate pass. Moving a design from four colours to two is the fastest way to cut carton cost without changing the board or the size. |
| Board grade | Second lever | 300–400gsm SBS is the everyday choice. Heavier grades are for structure, not for looking expensive — the finish does that more cheaply. |
| Finish | Third lever | Matte or gloss lamination, then foil, emboss or spot UV. Each adds a production step, so each is quoted as its own line rather than folded into the unit price. |
| Quantity tier | Where the tiers actually land | The carton band spans $0.05 – 0.65 per piece at 1,000 pcs. Volume matters more on cartons than on rigid boxes, because the die and the plate cost are amortised the same way but the unit material cost is far smaller. |
Pricing
Indicative pricing for this range
The ranges below show what each specification lands in at each quantity tier. Your quote will be itemised against your own size, board or fabric, finishes and insert.
| Line | Quantity | Indicative ex-works | Assumed specification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Folding carton | 1,000 pcs | $0.05 – 0.65 @1,000 pcs | 300–400gsm SBS, straight-tuck or reverse-tuck, one or two colours |
| Rigid gift set, cream with gold trim | 100 pcs | $1.20 – 1.80 @500 pcs | Wrapped greyboard lid and base, gold edge trim; the gifting and PR box |
| Rigid gift set, brushed metal edge | 100 pcs | $1.50 – 2.30 @500 pcs | Magnetic closure set with a brushed metal edge band; hero SKU and press mailers |
| Subscription box | 1,000 pcs | $0.42 – 0.68 @1,000 pcs | Self-locking mailer with a printed interior; new artwork per drop, same die |
| Kraft paper box, refill | 500 pcs | $0.05 – 0.65 @1,000 pcs | Unbleached recycled board, minimal print; refill and travel sizes |
| Ribbon-handle paper bag | 300 pcs | $0.43 – 0.73 @500 pcs | Load-tested base, soft ribbon handle; counter hand-over |
| Laminated art paper bag | 300 pcs | $0.10 – 0.50 @1,000 pcs | Dense photographic print, matte or gloss lamination; campaign and gift-with-purchase |
| Foil, emboss or spot UV | 1,000 pcs | Quoted as its own line | Priced by stamped area. On a carton this is usually the largest finishing line |
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Quoted line by line, not as a lump sum
- ✓Structural dieline (PDF) and a 3D mockup with your artwork
- ✓Board or fabric, printing, each finish and the insert priced separately
- ✓A physical sample before any bulk run, credited on your order
- ✓Photo and video updates every two days through production
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Beauty packaging FAQ
Before you brief a beauty box
Panel space, print-colour economics and the rigid-versus-carton question that decides most beauty packaging orders.
How much panel space do the mandatory declarations take?
That is a question for your regulatory team rather than for us, and we would rather you ask them than take our word for it. What we can do is tell you what it costs in structure. A straight-tuck carton gives you four printable panels plus two flaps; a rigid magnetic box gives you a wrapped lid and a base, with the inside of the lid usually the only large flat face left. If the declaration text is long, a carton is the cheaper container for it, and the decision is usually made early rather than late.
At what quantity does a rigid gift set stop making sense?
It does not stop — the structure and the job differ. A rigid set at $1.20–2.30 per piece at 100–500 pcs is for gifting, PR seeding and hero SKUs, where the box is part of the price. A folding carton at $0.05–0.65 at 1,000 pcs is for the everyday shelf unit, where a tenth of a dollar multiplied by a print run is the difference between a workable and an unworkable margin. Most brands run both, and it is worth quoting them together so the cost difference is visible.
Can a subscription box carry a different print each drop?
Yes, and that is the point of the structure. A self-locking mailer can take a new artwork per drop without a new die, because the die is the box shape and the print is separate. That is why we quote the box band separately from the print lines. It also means the box can be ordered in one run and the drops handled as print variations, which is usually cheaper than reordering the whole pack every month.
We want to claim recycled or plastic-free packaging. What changes?
The board changes, and usually the print gets simpler, because uncoated and recycled sheets do not hold fine reversed-out detail the way a laminated sheet does. Lamination itself is usually what has to go first. Send the artwork before we quote and we will say plainly which parts survive the change and which do not, rather than printing it and finding out on the sample. Claims about the finished pack are yours to make with your supplier documentation; what we control is what the board and the finish actually are.
Keep reading
Related guides and products
Folding cartons
The everyday retail box: straight-tuck and reverse-tuck from 300–400gsm SBS.
Rigid gift boxes
Magnetic, drawer and lid & base structures for gift sets and PR seeding.
Paper gift bags
Ribbon-handle and laminated carriers for the counter and the hand-over.
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- ✓Physical sample before any bulk run
- ✓Photo and video updates through production
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