Substrate Options —‘Paper or Plastic?’

The Expense Hurdle

Another reason the market for printing on plastic isn't that big, relatively speaking, is that it's breathtakingly expensive, he contends. "Even the cheaper plastics are more expensive than paper." For example, "If you're doing a direct mail piece, and you want to send a lenticular plastic postcard, that postcard is going to cost you 10 or 20 cents vs. doing it on paper, which will cost you a penny. I can print 100,000 sheets of plastic, but who can afford to buy them? So you end up getting a lot of small jobs."