CD Duplication companies that do under 50 copies?

[GalacticDeath]

Most companies I've checked out like DiscMakers have a 50 minimum order. The only company I'm aware of that will do under 50 is Kunaki, however their quality has been a little dodgy recently. Also, I'm hoping to find a company that will print inserts and backtray as well.

If anybody has any recommendations, I'd really appreciate it.

 

[LostTheTone]

An immediate question is "How much less than 50? And how much can you afford to pay?"

The lower the order number the higher the overhead, and that's true just about everywhere. You'll find somewhere that will print you 10, but they'll charge you almost as much as 50.

In general, printing improves the longer the print run is. Small runs tend to be done on different machines or even with some processes by hand, so the big expensive machines can do the big orders. Which sounds fine, but it's actually quite hard to get a booklet to fold just right, and that may explain why you haven't had awesome results with short orders.

If it were me, I'd be thinking about cutting back on the bells and whistles to make a 50 order feasible.

 

[Merrekof]

The lower the order number the higher the overhead, and that's true just about everywhere. You'll find somewhere that will print you 10, but they'll charge you almost as much as 50.

This.
Back in the day we had 500 cd's made. It was too much for us but the price difference between 500 and 250 was incredibly small.

I'd just take the 50 copies and call it a day.

 

[LostTheTone]

This.
Back in the day we had 500 cd's made. It was too much for us but the price difference between 500 and 250 was incredibly small.

I'd just take the 50 copies and call it a day.

Yeah - I had a poke at the DiscMakers tool and it spat out about $310 for 50 or $330 for 100. At shorter order sizes you may well end up paying $8 or $10 a disc. If you only want 5 as a kinda "we finished an album" trophy (not a lot of gigs to sell CDs after right now anyway) then that's cool, and I respect that, but if you are looking at either selling them or even giving them as swag, then 20 copies really is going to run you almost the same and you'll have less stuff to hand out.

Yeah, it's not wonderful to have a box of CDs you don't have a particular use for, but you never know when they'll come in handy. And, you know, on the bright side you'll never be short of coasters again.

 

[GalacticDeath]

An immediate question is "How much less than 50? And how much can you afford to pay?"

The lower the order number the higher the overhead, and that's true just about everywhere. You'll find somewhere that will print you 10, but they'll charge you almost as much as 50.

In general, printing improves the longer the print run is. Small runs tend to be done on different machines or even with some processes by hand, so the big expensive machines can do the big orders. Which sounds fine, but it's actually quite hard to get a booklet to fold just right, and that may explain why you haven't had awesome results with short orders.

If it were me, I'd be thinking about cutting back on the bells and whistles to make a 50 order feasible.

I hear what you're saying.

I'm looking to print about 25. I've thought about getting the 50 and just calling it a day, but just seems kinda silly to get more than I know I will need. The price isn't really an issue and I'm aware that the lower the amount order, the higher the price will be per CD.

Knowing my audience size, I'm fairly certain I won't be selling 50 copies, especially since this will be an EP and not a full album release. I've also considered not printing any CD's at all, but feel there's enough interest from some of my listeners to at least get some copies printed. Not to mention I want a couple copies for myself too lol.
If I were playing live, the 50 copies would seem like a easy choice, but all my current bands are just online collaborations. So all the CD's will be sold online.

We'll see, I've gotten decent prices on smaller orders when I've ordered individual components from certain companies, like just CD's or just booklets.
So maybe I can get one of those companies to do the full CD package.

 

[Drew]

Another vote for specing out a few larger orders and maybe ordering more than you expect to need, simply to get the unit price dowh, which drops exponentially as you increase your order size.

At $310 for 50, you're paying $6.20 a CD, so if you sell for $10, your profit is $3.80 a CD, assuming no other overhead like postage. You break even after 31 CDs, and have a maximum profit of $190.

At $330 for 100, you're paying $3.30 a CD, so if you sell for $10, your profit is $6.70 a CD. You break even after 33 CDs, not 31... but by 36 CDs, you're made more of a profit with an order of 100 and a profit per CD of $6.70 than you have with an order of 50 and a profit per CD of $3.80. Worth thinking about.

 

[LostTheTone]

I hear what you're saying.

I'm looking to print about 25. I've thought about getting the 50 and just calling it a day, but just seems kinda silly to get more than I know I will need. The price isn't really an issue and I'm aware that the lower the amount order, the higher the price will be per CD.

Knowing my audience size, I'm fairly certain I won't be selling 50 copies, especially since this will be an EP and not a full album release. I've also considered not printing any CD's at all, but feel there's enough interest from some of my listeners to at least get some copies printed. Not to mention I want a couple copies for myself too lol.
If I were playing live, the 50 copies would seem like a easy choice, but all my current bands are just online collaborations. So all the CD's will be sold online.

We'll see, I've gotten decent prices on smaller orders when I've ordered individual components from certain companies, like just CD's or just booklets.
So maybe I can get one of those companies to do the full CD package.

I wouldn't be too bearish on how many you need. It's dumb stuff, but having a nice, professional album to hand to a venue promoter or even to another band who you might play with makes you look professional AF.

It'd be nice to sell every CD, and sell them at a profit too, but for me having some number that you can hand out like business cards is worth it.

 

[CanserDYI]

If you do print them, count me in for a purchase! Always down to support a local act here in the music graveyard 419.

 

[Adieu]

Pretty sure you're expected to DIY with some CD-R's for really small batches

Remember they have expenses and taxes. Don't expect any business to spend more than 2 minutes of their time (to tell you "no") for anything less than $75 / person / hour spent (+ materials).

There are $50-ish types for really simple stuff, but that's for repeat customer paperwork services performed by work-at-home freelance contractors.

Real businesses need to clear like 500 bucks per person per day just to stay afloat. Probably more.

 

[jack_cat]

About ten years ago we used to sell CDs like hot dogs at every gig but they are almost completely obsolete now, and we have quit making them and just hand out cards with the link to the playlist on Spotify. Spotify is bringing us in about $50 USD / month, and other musicians do much better if they promote more systematically. The invention of CDs created a boom market for DIY musicians' recordings and while it lasted we made good money. We still have a duplicator gathering dust, and we used to have the paper covers printed by a local printer and shrink wrap them ourselves.

For such a small run, which reading between the lines of your post, I take it is intended for a specific audience at a specific event, I have two suggestions:

(1) Copy your 25 CDs direct from the computer, and put paper labels on them from the paper supply store, if these are still available. Print the paper labels yourself if you ahem still have a printer, or print them at a copy store. (We have in the past made many, many small runs of CDs in this way.)

(1a) What the hell, don't put any labels on them except hand-written with a sharpie, put them in
paper envelopes and give them away!

(2) put the music on thumb drives and sell them that way.

(3) If you for vanity MUST HAVE a full package with shrink wrap and a bar code etc, then bite the bullet, get a hundred copies, and give the damned things away to everybody at the show. You will make more on the PR value than you will ever make in cash, because the markup on a small CD order is going to be so small that it is hardly going to be worth your while to sell them in today's economy where Spotify has taken over the market.

(4) to make money on any commercial CD run you have to order a thousand to have any markup. Anything under that is a vanity project, and if it has to be beautiful, then spend the money and don't expect to get it back. If it doesn't have to be beautiful, much more cost effective to give out burned CDs labeled with a sharpie in paper envelopes.

regards
jack

 

[bostjan]

There are printers you can buy in a store that can print on a white blank CD. https://www.videolane.com/printers-with-direct-cd-dvd-disc-printing/

You might want to treat them after they dry, because if they get wet, the ink will run, like this: Amazon product ASIN B000LTZW7G
But, after a $50 ink cartidge, $20 coating, $30 black CDs, and a $200 printer, you might as well just get the CDs done by a company like Atomic Disk (whom I've used tons of times).

 

[CanserDYI]

Even i fell for this semi necrobump. I don't think OP is watching this thread.