Which plastic pen suits your job
Plastic pens are what most promotional orders are actually built on. They are the cheapest cost per impression of anything we carry, which makes them the default for trade show handouts, conference bags, counter bowls and mailers — anywhere you are buying reach rather than making a gesture.
The range splits roughly three ways. Retractables like the RiteLine Hurst Prime and the Sprite ABS are the cheapest per unit and the most familiar in the hand. Grip
pens such as the Grip Write Wide Body and the Mardi Gras Hexagonal add a rubber section that makes them noticeably better to write with, which matters if you want the pen kept rather than dropped in a drawer. Branded models — Sharpie, Paper Mate Flair — cost more per unit but carry a name people already trust, so they get used.
If you want a metal barrel or an engraved finish instead, those live in our metal pens and engraved pens ranges. For smoother writing at a similar price, see gel pens.
Barrel colour and where your logo lands
Most models here come in a spread of barrel colours, and matching one to your brand is the cheapest way to make a low-cost pen look deliberate rather than generic. The trade-off is contrast: a dark logo on a dark barrel disappears at arm's length. If your brand colour is deep, it is usually better to put a white or light imprint on the coloured barrel than to try to match the barrel to the logo.
The imprint area on a pen barrel is a narrow strip — usually a few millimetres tall. Logos that work on a banner often close up completely at that size. Drop the tagline, thicken hairline strokes, and send a single-colour version if you have one. Our anatomy of a custom pen guide shows where decoration actually lands on each part of a pen.
Ordering for an event versus ordering for stock
These two jobs pull in opposite directions and it is worth being clear which you are doing.
For a dated event, work backwards from the in-hands date and give yourself slack. Pick a model in a stock barrel colour rather than an unusual one, keep the imprint to a single colour, and get your artwork approved early — the proof stage is where most timelines actually slip, not production.
For ongoing stock, order deeper than feels comfortable. The price breaks are steep at the bottom of this range, and a pen you reorder three times in a year at the minimum costs materially more per unit than one order at three times the quantity. Pens do not expire.
Where these sit against the rest of the range
Plastic pens are the volume end of our promotional pen range. If your recipients are clients rather than passers-by, a metal pen does a different job — it stays on a desk and reads as a gift rather than a handout. If sustainability matters to your brand, our eco-friendly range covers recycled and bamboo barrels, and several models here already use recycled ABS.
Not sure which model fits your budget and quantity? Tell us roughly what
you need and we will point you at the two or three worth comparing rather than making you work through all of them.
