Plastic Discount Cards

The features you build in decide what the discount does. A magnetic stripe, a barcode, a scratch-off PIN, embossed numbering, a signature panel, and sequential variable data all let one card carry a loyalty program, a gift balance, or a one-time promo code. To compare it with the rest of the range, browse every style on business cards printing, or build yours from the choices below.

A cafe testing a loyalty discount can print 250 for $226.11, about 90 cents each, and a school fundraiser selling cards to every family can climb toward 10,000, near 25 cents a card. Tap any tier below to see its total and what the step up saves.

What Are Plastic Discount Cards

Plastic discount cards are durable PVC cards printed full color on a single 30mil white plastic stock at 2.125" x 3.375", the same thickness and size as a credit card. People reach for them when a paper coupon would not survive: loyalty and VIP cards, gift and prepaid cards, promo and coupon cards, membership cards, and referral cards. The white plastic base makes color artwork read clean and bright, whether you print the offer on the front and leave the back blank or run full color on both sides. If you want an everyday plastic card without the discount hardware, the Plastic Business Cards cover that, and this card sits beside it as the version built to carry a program.

Discount card specs

Discount Cards for Fundraising, Membership and Rewards

Fundraising cards are the volume use. A school, a team or a booster club sells the card at a fixed price, and the back lists the participating merchants and what each one gives, so the buyer keeps the card in their wallet for a season and the organisation keeps the whole sale price. Print the year on the face, keep the merchant list to the back, and order the run against the number of sellers rather than the number of supporters.

Membership cards carry a standing percentage rather than a list. The holder shows the card and gets the same discount every visit, which makes the card itself the record, so the design usually pairs the member name space or a printed number with the terms on the reverse.

Rewards cards are tied to the till. A barcode or a magnetic stripe on the card matches the customer to an account in your point of sale system, so the discount is applied by the software and the visit is logged at the same time. That is the version where numbering and encoding stop being decoration and start doing the work.

What Finishes and Ink Options Can You Choose

UV Gloss gives the offer and any photo a hard shine at the register, the finish for a bright promo card. Silk Laminated Matte has a smooth, low-glare face that takes a signature or a stamp without beading, the finish for a punch card the front desk marks by hand. Print 4/0 to keep the back blank for a signature panel or the fine print, or 4/4 so the back carries terms, a barcode, or the redemption steps. The specs panel below lists every finish, ink and card feature.

What Features Can You Add to a Discount Card

Each feature below adds one job to the card: a swipe, a scan, a scratch or a signature. You pay only for the ones you turn on.

Encode it with a magnetic stripe

A LoCo or HiCo magnetic stripe lets the card swipe through a gift, loyalty, or point-of-sale reader. Pick LoCo for a promo run that turns over in a season and HiCo for a member card carried and swiped for years. A signature panel on the back gives the holder a white strip to sign, like a bank card.

Number every card differently

Code 128 or Code 39 barcoding, or sequential variable data, gives each card in the run its own number or code, so the till can tell one discount from the next. Embossed numbering raises the digits like a classic credit card, plain or tipped in gold or silver foil.

Hide the code and finish it for the job

A scratch-off panel covers a one-time PIN or promo code until the holder redeems it, the setup for prepaid and coupon runs. Foil stamping adds a metallic accent to the front or back, and a punched lanyard slot on the short or long edge lets the same card hang from a reel or a lanyard as a VIP or event badge.

Design it without a designer

Start from a layout in our business card design templates, part of the 10,000+ designs 4OVER4 offers across its catalog, and change the colors, copy, and logo in the online editor. Put the offer in large type on the front and the terms on the back.

For your own artwork, download the blank plastic card template. It marks the trim, the 1/8" bleed, the safe margin and the rounded-corner, stripe, and signature zones, so your offer and fine print stay clear of each. Drop your art in and upload.

How Much Do Plastic Discount Cards Cost

A set of 250 plastic discount cards costs $226.11, about 90 cents a card, and 10,000 bring it near 25 cents. In between, 1,000 cards run $377.68, 3,000 run $1,009.25, and 7,500 land at $2,019.75, with 12 quantity tiers in all. Set the slider below to the number of cards your sellers or members will hand out to see the run total and the per-card cost.

Those are four of the 12 quantity tiers, and they show where the money actually moves: the jump from 250 to 1,000 cards more than halves the cost of a card, while the steps above 3,000 shave cents. At 10,000 the per card figure sits at roughly 25 cents. A fundraising organizer can price a programme straight off that table, since the card cost per seller is the number that decides the sale price.

Can You Number or Encode Each Card

Yes. Variable data prints a unique number, serial, or one-off code on every card in the run. Add a Code 128 or Code 39 barcode and a magnetic stripe for a numbered membership card, a loyalty card the till scans, or a prepaid card where every code is different, and a scratch-off PIN keeps a one-time redemption code hidden until use.

Will a discount card scan at my POS

Start from the reader, not from the card. Find out which symbology your point of sale system reads, then order that one, because a scanner set for Code 128 will not resolve an EAN-13 and a system expecting a UPC-A will reject a number that is not the right length. Code 128 and Code 39 cover most loyalty setups, UPC-A and EAN-13 are there when the card has to behave like a retail product code.

Leave the quiet zone clear. A barcode needs blank space either side of it, so keep artwork, borders and text out of that margin, and do not place the barcode hard against the trimmed edge of the card or the rounded corner. Keep the printed digits under the bars as well, so the cashier can key the number when a card gets scratched.

Supply the number range rather than a single number: the first number, the last number and any prefix that has to stay fixed, so the variable data run matches the accounts you have already created. Then scan a sample card on your own hardware before the full quantity goes to press. A 250 card minimum is a small mistake, 7,500 cards with a barcode your till cannot read is not.

How Long Should a Discount Card Stay Valid

Print the end date on the face if the offer stops on a date, or a season code such as a year if the programme reprints annually, so an expired card is obvious without a lookup. For a card that is meant to be used once, a scratch-off pin is the answer: the code is hidden until the customer redeems it, and once it is exposed the card cannot quietly be reused. A sequential range does the same job in software, since you can close a block of numbers at the till.

Discount key tags and combo cards

Not every discount belongs in a wallet. A key tag rides on a keyring and comes out at the till without anyone hunting for it, which is why loyalty programmes hand them out alongside the card. Plastic key tags run on the same plastic and take the same barcode, key tags cover the wider range of shapes and stocks, and plastic card with key tag is the combo: one printed card with tags attached, so the member gets a wallet card and a keyring tag from a single piece with a single number on both.

How Do They Compare to the Other Plastic Cards

The same stock without the discount angle, a see-through card and an everyday plastic card each start at their own price. The chart below lines these up against their closest siblings, the 30mil White Plastic Cards and the 30mil Clear Plastic Cards, so you can compare the starting price on each before you choose.

See How a Finished Discount Card Lands

The gallery below shows 30mil cards we printed in-house for customers across different finishes and features, so you can compare gloss and matte at credit-card size before you order. Tap any print to see it larger.

How Fast Can You Get Plastic Discount Cards

Plan the order around your promotion date: plastic discount cards take 15 business days in standard production, because encoding, embossing, scratch-off panels, and lamination each add a step on the line. Before anything prints you choose how to handle proofing: send it Straight To Production when your file is final, or request a Free Online Proof and approve a digital preview of the exact card first. The proof is the safer path when you have variable numbering, a barcode, or a scratch-off code that has to be right on every card.

See the Rest of Our Cards

If a plain plastic card, a see-through card or an everyday plastic business card suits your program better, each one lists its own starting price on its product page. Scan the full print product range for everything else we print.

Print Your Plastic Discount Cards Today

At 4OVER4.COM, quality comes first, and it is backed by a satisfaction guarantee and 25+ years of printing since 1999. Whatever finish, ink, and card features you pick, the card swipes, scans, and scratches off at the same size as a bank card. Choose your quantity, add the features your program needs, and print your plastic discount cards today.

Write On It, Stamp It or Sign It

A custom discount card often has to take a mark after it is printed. A cafe stamps a square per visit, a salon writes the client name on the back, a gym asks the member to sign the card before it is valid. On this product the finish decides whether that works. The Silk Laminated Matte surface takes a signature or a rubber stamp without the ink beading, so it is the finish for a punch style loyalty card or any card the front desk fills in by hand. UV Gloss gives the card a hard shiny face that makes color pop, and it is the finish to pick when nothing gets written on the card after it leaves the press.

If only one area needs to take a pen, keep UV Gloss and add the printed signature panel, a white strip on the back that accepts a signature the way a bank card does. Print the visit grid, the name line or the terms in 4/4 so the back carries the working part of the card and the front stays clean for the offer.