Standard Magnet Sizes and Thickness for Custom Printed Magnets

Pick the size by the job, not by the price. Every flat magnet we print shares one five-step ladder, and each step exists because a different kind of message needs a different amount of room.

Two things in that table catch people out. The first is that the business card magnet is smaller than it feels in the hand, so a card that already looks busy on paper becomes unreadable once you add the magnet border. The second is that 4" x 6" is the smallest size a photograph survives at arm's length. Below that, a face on a save the date turns into a smudge on a fridge across a room.

Everything on the ladder prints full color on the face with the back left as the magnetic side, finished with a UV coating that keeps the ink from scuffing through months of hands and sleeves. Compare the full lineup on magnet printing, and if you want the fridge-specific breakdown, the refrigerator magnet size guide goes size by size.

Magnet signs use the same 18-size range and the same 30mil stock as car magnets, plus a custom size, and they start at $47.50 for a 9" x 9". The difference is the order rule rather than the material: car magnets are sold in pairs because a vehicle has two sides, while magnet signs can be ordered in any quantity from 2 to 100 in one run.

That matters for anyone signing something that is not a vehicle. A steel roll-down storefront gate, a filing cabinet bank in a lobby, a shop floor equipment rack, a metal door on a rented unit: all of them take a magnet sign that comes off clean when the lease ends or the promotion does. A 12" x 24" reads across a shop floor. An 18" x 24" reads across a parking lot.

Where a magnet sign is the wrong answer is any surface that is not flat ferrous steel. Painted plywood, brick, glass, aluminum roll gates and vinyl-wrapped panels hold nothing at all. For those, a rigid or printed alternative is the honest route, and the sizing logic is the same one covered in our banners versus signs guide.

Most size regret is really artwork regret. The magnet arrived exactly as ordered, but the layout needed another inch, so the phone number came back at 6 point and nobody can read it from the fridge.

Work backwards from the reading distance. A fridge magnet is read from roughly two feet away, so 8 to 10 point contact type is fine and a logo can be small. A magnet sign on a shop floor is read from fifteen or twenty feet, which pushes the phone number toward two inches tall and leaves room for very little else. A car magnet is read from a moving car, so it gets one message, one phone number, and a lot of empty space around both. Count the elements before you pick the size: a logo, a name, a service line, a number and a web address is five things, and five things do not fit on a 2" x 3.5".

• Overloaded 2" x 3.5"? Step to 3" x 4" rather than shrinking the type. The cost difference on a run of 250 is smaller than the cost of a magnet nobody can read.
• Photo on the magnet? Start at 4" x 6". A face below that size stops being recognizable from across a kitchen.
• Between two sizes? Use the Any Size option on save the date magnets, from 2" x 2" to 11" x 17", priced by the square inch.
• Vehicle work? Measure the flat panel first, then choose from the 18 sizes, and leave a clear inch of magnet around the artwork edge.

Build the file at full size with the fonts converted to outlines, the same way you would for any print job. Start from a correctly sized layout in the blank template library, and if you are still weighing the format itself, magnets versus stickers settles whether removable and reusable is worth the price over permanent and cheap. The rest of our sizing work sits in the dimensions and templates guides.