Create custom stickers

For professional sticker printing, you need an industrial wide-format printer that can print on self-adhesive materials like vinyl and label material. Standard home or office printers aren't made for this.
This printer is usually paired with a cutting plotter, so each sticker is cut precisely to its finished shape. That cutting stage can work in two ways:

• An integrated system: printer and cutter combined in one machine (known as print & cut)
• Two separate devices: a printer paired with a standalone cutting plotter

There are also two main printer technologies, defined by the ink they use:

• Eco-solvent printers: vibrant colours and strong outdoor durability.
• UV-LED printers: cure the ink instantly, so same-day delivery.

The choice between these two printers comes down to your typical order volume, how much delivery speed matters to you, and the materials you plan to print on.

Technically, yes, a home or office inkjet or laser printer can print on basic sticker paper or pre-cut label sheets, and that's fine for occasional use, like printing a single design at home. But it comes with real limits: the ink isn't weatherproof, colours can fade or smudge quickly, and you're restricted to whatever pre-cut shapes or sheet sizes the paper comes in, since a regular printer has no cutting function of its own.

For a business selling or distributing stickers, these limits become a real problem. Customers expect consistent colour across orders, durability that holds up indoors or outdoors, and clean edges cut to the exact shape of the design, none of which a regular printer is built to deliver at scale. That's where dedicated print & cut equipment comes in: it prints on proper self-adhesive vinyl or label film and cuts each sticker to shape in the same workflow, so quality stays consistent whether you're producing five stickers or five thousand.

Yes, sticker printing is one of the more accessible ways to add revenue in the sign and graphics industry. Here's why:

Low cost, good margin: Material costs per sticker are small compared to what customers pay, especially for custom or branded designs.

Repeat business: Many orders are seasonal, tied to campaigns, or linked to product launches, so the same customers come back for re-prints instead of ordering once.

Fast turnaround times: Jobs are usually quick to produce, so you can fit more orders into the same production time.

The real profit driver, however, is production efficiency. Wasted ink, material lost through imprecise cutting, and machine downtime all quietly reduce profit margins. A reliable print & cut setup is one that cuts accurately and doesn't need constant manual adjustment to keep the waste low, job after job. Businesses that treat sticker printing as steady, repeatable work, rather than an occasional side job, tend to see the best returns.

In everyday use, the two terms are often used interchangeably, and much of the confusion is fair, both are adhesive vinyl pieces applied to a surface. But there's a distinction rooted in how each is traditionally made.

A decal originally referred to cut vinyl graphics, shapes or lettering cut directly from coloured vinyl film, without any printing involved, then transferred onto a surface using transfer tape. Think of plain-colour car lettering or simple logo cutouts. A vinyl sticker, by contrast, is printed first (full colour, photos, gradients, detailed artwork) and then cut to shape, giving it far more design flexibility than a cut-only decal.

That said, modern print & cut production has blurred this line considerably, many "decals" sold today are actually printed and cut the same way stickers are, since printing allows for far more detail than cutting vinyl alone. In practice, most sign and graphics businesses now use "decal" and "vinyl sticker" to describe the same printed, cut-to-shape product, and the terms are chosen based on customer expectation more than any strict technical difference.

Beyond the printer and cutter already covered by your equipment choice, a few other pieces complete the workflow:

-RIP software to prepare artwork, manage colour, and send cutting instructions to the machine. Mimaki RasterLink software also includes automated features like ID Cut, which reads a printed barcode to align and cut jobs without manual adjustment, useful when running several designs back to back.

-Application tape, used to lift cut stickers off their backing and transfer them cleanly onto the final surface without stretching or misalignment.

-Lamination, if stickers need extra scratch- or weather- resistancy beyond what the ink alone provides, common for outdoor or high-handling applications.

None of this needs to be expensive or complicated to start. Many sign and graphics businesses begin with just the essentials, printer, cutter, and RIP software, and add lamination or specialised finishing tools only once demand justifies it.