Cost comparison
Printed badge economics look cheap until names change, walk-ins appear, and someone spends two hours at a foyer desk. Hire totals are boring arithmetic: quantity × days × £6 plus £20 postage out and back from Cleckheaton.
Ten badges for two days is £140 including postage. Fifty badges for one conference day is £320 hire plus £20 postage. Multi-day hire multiplies the per-day rate by calendar days in the window.
The £20 line covers outbound and return courier on hire orders. Bought devices ship once at £80 per badge plus £20 postage, with year one of the platform included.
No monthly fee on hire-only orders — the entire window is in the qty × days × £6 line plus postage from Cleckheaton.
Paper inserts, plastic wallets, lanyards, and a thermal or laser printer on site add up — especially when spelling fixes mean a reprint before lunch. Large one-off events with disposable branding may still choose print; recurring formats pay the reprint tax every edition.
Count staff time at the registration desk. If two people spend three hours troubleshooting exports, that line item rarely appears on the print quote.
Add lanyard waste — inserts printed correctly but flipped backwards, dropped in coffee, or discarded at the end of a one-day pass. E-ink hire returns the same bezel for the next event instead of restocking paper.
Very large single-use events where badges are marketing collateral left behind. Or when you already own a staffed print desk and the workflow is sunk cost.
E-ink hire wins when names change, the same group meets monthly, or you want delegates walking in already wearing the day. The kit returns on a prepaid label and goes out again with new faces programmed here.
Compare ten badges for two days at £140 including postage against your last print vendor quote — remember to add the reprint when spellings fixed on site.
Hire returns the same hardware for the next meeting. A chapter that runs twenty-five badges twice a month compares one hire window against repeated print runs plus waste bins full of misprinted tents.
See the buy versus hire guide if you are pricing a full year of weekly meetings — ownership can beat repeat hire once you know the cadence.
Live totals on the pricing page update as you change quantity and dates. Fifty printed inserts plus a reprint run is a spreadsheet exercise; fifty badges for one day is £320 hire plus £20 postage on ours.