How to Choose a Magnetic Dry Erase Board That Holds Magnets and Fits the Wall
Materials, sizes and printed layouts compared, with the one detail that decides whether magnets stay on the board or slide down it.
Choose the writing surface for how the board is mounted and how long it must last, then check there is steel in the stack, because that is the only thing a magnet responds to. Two builds hold magnets: printed dry erase film over a steel sheet from $29, or a printed magnet sheet from $33.99 that goes onto steel you already have. Coroplast at $31.99, PVC at $33.99, aluminum panels at $39 and foamcore at $45 all write and erase well and none of them will ever hold a magnet.
Quick answer
Pick the surface for the wall, then check for steel
A magnetic dry erase board is two materials doing two jobs. The coating on top is what the marker sits on and wipes off, and every substrate we print takes it equally well. The layer underneath is what a magnet grabs, and only steel or iron qualifies. That leaves two workable builds, printed film over a steel backer or a printed magnet on steel you already own, and a longer list of excellent boards that simply do not hold magnets. Choose the substrate on rigidity, mounting and lifespan, and choose the magnetic layer separately.
There Are Only Two Boards That Write and Hold
Start here, because it decides everything after it. A dry erase coating can go on almost any material. Magnets only stay on steel and iron. Buy a board for its writing surface alone and you can end up with a beautiful panel that drops every magnet you press against it.
Build one, printed film over steel. Dry Erase Graphics start at $29 and go onto a steel door, a locker bank, the flat side of a filing cabinet or a galvanized sheet you mount first. Magnets pull through the film to the metal underneath, a little weaker than on bare steel because the film, ink and adhesive add distance. This is the build for a permanent wall that has to do both jobs at full size. The magnetic marker board build guide walks the install step by step.
Build two, a printed magnet. Dry Erase Magnets at $33.99 are a writable face on a flexible magnetic sheet. They go straight onto steel that is already in the room, come off without a mark, and move to a different wall next quarter. The catch is the opposite one: the sheet is the magnet, so nothing stacks on top of its face.
Everything else in the range is a writing surface with no holding power, and that is not a fault. Most boards never need magnets at all. Decide which of the two you are before you compare prices, because the rigid panels win almost every other contest.
What Each Dry Erase Material Is Actually Good At
Every surface below takes the same marker and erases the same way. The core underneath is what decides how it hangs, how long it lasts, and whether a magnet cares.
| Material | What it is | How it behaves | Magnets | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry Erase Graphics | Adhesive film with no core of its own | Takes the shape of whatever it goes on, ships rolled, any size | Yes, over steel | $29 |
| Dry Erase Magnets | Writable face on a flexible magnet sheet | Repositions with no adhesive and no holes, limited in size | It is the magnet | $33.99 |
| Dry Erase Coroplast | Fluted polypropylene, hollow inside | Lightest rigid option, flexes across a long span, flutes catch raking light | No | $31.99 |
| Dry Erase PVC Board | Expanded PVC, solid through | Stiff and smooth, cleans well, dents rather than cracks | No | $33.99 |
| Dry Erase Aluminum Panels | Aluminum composite with a plastic core | Stays dead flat on a screw or standoff mount, survives knocks for years | No | $39 |
| Dry Erase Foamcore | Foam between two paper faces | Very light for tape or easel use, corners crush the first time it falls | No | $45 |
The honest ranking for a board that lives on a wall is aluminum first, PVC second, coroplast third, foamcore last, and price does not follow that order. Foamcore costs more than coroplast because of how it is made, not because it lasts longer, and it is the one substrate to keep off a busy corridor. If you want the substrates compared outside the dry erase context, aluminum signs vs coroplast vs PVC and foam core vs PVC signs go deeper on how each one ages.
One more split worth knowing. Rigid panels ship flat and boxed, which caps the practical single piece size and makes a stairwell or a lift a real constraint. Film ships rolled, so a wall sized board arrives in a tube and gets its final size from the steel behind it. On anything past about 4 by 8 ft, film is usually the only sane answer.
Sizing the Board for the Room and the People at It
Two measurements matter and neither of them is the width of the empty wall. The first is how far away the furthest person sits. The second is how far the person writing can comfortably reach.
For reading distance, signage uses about one inch of letter height per ten feet of viewing distance. Ordinary marker handwriting runs close to two inches tall, which reads across roughly twenty feet, so a standard meeting room is covered by a 36 by 48 in board and a long training room is not. If the back row has to squint, the answer is not a bigger board, it is bigger writing and fewer lines.
For reach, hang the board so the top edge sits around 78 in from the floor, which is about as high as most adults write without stretching. A 48 in tall board then reaches down to 30 in, and that lower edge is the practical floor of the board. Anything below 30 in gets used once during the install and never again. In a room where people sit rather than stand, drop the whole board and accept a shorter panel.
Width is the one people underspecify. A single writer works fine at 36 to 48 in. The moment two people share the board, or a week of columns has to fit, 72 in and up stops the elbowing. On a scheduling wall the cleanest approach is to size the printed grid cells to the magnets you plan to move around, then set the overall board size from the grid. Standard magnets start at $19.68, and ordering them alongside the board keeps the tolerances matched. Start from a correctly proportioned layout in the blank template library so the artwork lands at the finished size with bleed.
What Custom Printing Adds That a Store Board Cannot
A blank board makes every user redraw the same grid every week. A printed board puts the structure under the coating, where a marker and an eraser cannot touch it.
What belongs in the print is anything that has not changed in a year: day and shift columns, station or bay numbers, department headings, safety fields, production lanes, the calendar frame, the logo. What belongs to the marker is the content that moves. Get that split right and the board stops looking untidy within a month.
Keep the printed layer light. Marker ink is semi transparent, so black writing over a mid tone fill reads as mud from across the room. Print grids and headings at a light tint, leave the writing zones close to white, and put brand color in a header band or a border instead of behind the text. Keep printed rules at half a point or heavier, because a hairline that looks crisp in the file disappears under a satin coating at arm length.
Two practical checks before you approve. Confirm the mounting method first, since drilled holes and standoffs need artwork kept clear of the corners, and a panel is far easier to specify with holes than to drill afterwards. Then order one small piece and write on it with the markers your team already owns, leave it a day, and erase it. Coatings differ and marker brands differ, and testing that combination for $29 beats discovering it across a whole wall. The dry erase printing collection lists every substrate we print, and Dry Erase Posters at $29 make a cheap test piece before you commit to the full board.
Wally explains magnetic dry erase boards
Test the wall with a fridge magnet before you spend a dollar
Wally presses a cheap magnet against the wall, the door and the cabinet before he orders anything. Where it grips, printed dry erase film turns that steel into a board that writes and holds. Where it drops, he either mounts a steel sheet first or sends a printed magnet instead. The rigid panels, aluminum, PVC, coroplast and foamcore, are the boards he picks when the job is writing and mounting rather than magnets.
Order dry erase aluminum panels →Specs and pricing
Sizes, options and starting prices side by side
Compare the rigid panel, the light rigid board and the printed magnet with live configuration choices and starting prices from the 4OVER4.COM configurator.
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Dry erase boards among the printed panels we make
Common Questions
Your dry erase board questions, answered
What size magnetic dry erase board do I need?
Work from the far side of the room, then from the arm of the person writing. A rule of thumb in signage is roughly one inch of letter height per ten feet of viewing distance, so ordinary two inch marker writing reads across about twenty feet. That covers most meeting rooms at 36 by 48 in. A shared production or scheduling wall that four people stand at wants 48 by 72 in or wider, because two people cannot write at once on a narrow board. Then check the height: a 48 in tall board with its top at 78 in puts the bottom edge at 30 in, which is the lowest line most adults will write on without crouching.
Which dry erase board should I buy if magnets are the whole point?
Either printed film over a steel backer, or a printed magnet. Dry Erase Graphics and Dry Erase Vinyl start at $29 and turn a steel door, a locker bank, a filing cabinet side or a galvanized sheet you mount yourself into a board that both writes and holds. If steel is already on the wall, Dry Erase Magnets at $33.99 skip the construction completely, though nothing stacks on their printed face. The rigid panels, whatever they are made of, are not the answer to this question.
Is a printed grid worth it over a blank board?
It is the only reason to have one printed rather than bought off a shelf. The artwork goes down first and the dry erase coating goes over it, so day columns, shift rows, lane dividers, department labels and your logo sit under the writing layer and survive every clean. The trade off is that the layout is fixed for the life of the board, so print only the structure that has not changed in a year and leave everything seasonal to the marker.
Can a dry erase board go outdoors?
The substrate can, the writing experience degrades. Dry Erase Aluminum Signs at $47.22 sit on aluminum composite, which handles rain, sun and temperature swings on a wall or a fence for years. What suffers is the erasing: grit blows onto the surface and gets ground into the coating by the eraser, and ink left through a hot week is harder to lift than ink left overnight indoors. Wipe the surface clean before writing, keep a bottle of isopropyl alcohol nearby, and expect an outdoor board to need more care than the one in the hallway.
How do I mount a rigid dry erase panel without wrecking the print?
Decide the mounting method before you pick the size. A screw or standoff mount needs drilled holes, so keep the artwork clear of the corners by an inch and specify the hole positions with the order rather than drilling a finished panel yourself. Z clips and French cleats hang a panel with nothing showing on the face, which suits aluminum and PVC. Coroplast and foamcore are light enough for heavy duty adhesive strips on a smooth painted wall, and that is usually the right call for a temporary board.
Do printed boards need special markers?
Standard dry erase markers only, and check the barrel rather than the cap, because permanent markers are packaged almost identically. Permanent ink and solvent based paint pens bond into the coating and will not lift. Wipe the board down at the end of the week instead of leaving writing on it for a month, since old ink settles into the surface texture and ghosts. Isopropyl alcohol on a soft cloth clears a ghosted board. Abrasive pads dull the coating for good.
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