Ask a print shop how many business cards you should order and the answer usually starts at 500. That isn't a lie. It isn't neutral advice either, because the price list is built so that the box you need looks expensive next to the box twice its size.
So how many business cards should you order? Fewer than the printer suggests, for most people: enough for six months of real use, plus your events and a small buffer, and never so many that a new job title turns half the box into scrap paper. The printer's number assumes you will hand out every card before anything on it changes. Most people won't.
Why printers recommend 500 or more
Online printers tend to recommend somewhere between 250 and 1,000 cards. Freelancers get pointed at 100 to 250, small business owners at 250 to 500, and corporate staff or busy networkers at 500 to 1,000 or more.
Those ranges are fair for someone who hands out cards every week. They also sit exactly where printing makes the most money. Plates and press setup are a fixed cost, which is why offset is the cheapest way to print only at commercial quantities. Once the press is running, another 500 cards cost the shop very little, so the price list rewards you for going big.
One large US online printer lists 100 standard cards at $17.57 and 1,000 at $65.91. Ten times the cards for less than four times the money. The saving per card is real, but you only collect it if you hand out all 1,000 before something on them goes out of date.
How to calculate how many business cards you need
Start from how many cards you actually give away, not how many you would like to. Look back over the last three months of meetings, client visits and events, and count the times you handed a card over or would have if you'd had one on you.
Then build the number up in four steps:
- Cards per month in an ordinary month: meetings, site visits, people who walk into the shop or office
- Multiply that by six for a six-month run
- Add the events in the same period, counting the conversations you can realistically have at each, plus a few spare
- Add 10 to 15 percent for cards that get bent, lost or forgotten in a jacket
Six months is the right horizon for most people. It is short enough that your details are probably still correct when you reach the last card. Twelve months is the outer limit, and anything beyond that is a bet that nothing about your job will change for a year.
A worked example: a consultant who hands out about 15 cards a month and has two conferences coming up needs 90 for ordinary months, around 60 for the conferences and 20 spare. That is 170 cards. The sensible order is 250, the nearest standard box, not 1,000 because the unit price looked good.
Decide on the reorder point at the same time. When you are down to about a month's supply, order the next box, and use the gap to fix whatever on the card has changed since the last run. A reorder is the cheapest moment to correct a title or swap an old email address, because you are paying for the print run anyway.
How many business cards you need by role
These are rough working figures from the calculation above, not survey data. Your own last three months will beat any table, but the shape is useful.
| Role | Cards handed out per month | Sensible order |
|---|---|---|
| Freelancer or solo consultant | 10–30 | 100–250 |
| Small business owner | 30–80 | 250–500 |
| Sales, real estate, recruiting | 80–150 | 500, reordered often |
| Office or corporate employee | 5–20 | 100–250 |
| Student or job seeker | Mostly at events | 50–100 |
The people who really need 500 are the ones handing cards out every working day. They reach the bottom of the box long before it dates. An office employee who orders 500 and gives out ten a month will still have a few hundred left when a promotion two years later makes them all wrong.
How many business cards to bring to an event
For a networking evening, 15 to 20 is plenty. You will have proper conversations with far fewer people than that in two hours, and handing a card to everyone in the room is how cards end up abandoned on the bar.
For a trade show or a full-day conference, think in conversations per hour. If you staff a stand and talk to six or eight people an hour over an eight-hour day, bring 60 to 80 cards and keep a second stack in your bag. As a visitor, 25 to 40 is usually enough.
Count events separately from your monthly number. A conference can use up in one day what would otherwise last you two months, and that is the usual reason people run out at the worst moment. Our guide on how to hand out business cards covers when to offer one and when to wait.
Keep the event cards somewhere you can reach without digging. A card holder in a jacket pocket beats a box at the bottom of a bag, and a stack that is easy to reach is easier to ration too. If you notice you are giving one to everyone who stops by, slow down and save them for the conversations that went somewhere.
Why the bigger box only looks cheaper
The price list makes the next box up look like the smart choice. It is, if you finish the box.
Run the numbers on cards you use rather than cards you buy. At the US prices above, 1,000 cards for $65.91 work out at about 6.6 cents each. If you hand out 300 before your title changes, each card that did any work cost you 22 cents. Three boxes of 100 would have covered the same 300 cards for $52.71.
The box you don't finish also has to live somewhere, and it gets thrown away in one go when the details change. We added up the full bill, reprints and design time included, in the hidden cost of paper business cards.
Your details change sooner than a big box runs out
What limits the order is the date something printed on the cards stops being true. For most people that date comes sooner than they expect.
In January 2026 the median US worker had been with their current employer for 4.1 years, and for workers aged 25 to 34 the median was 3.0 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That only counts changes of employer. Promotions, a new phone number, an office move, a rebrand or a new website come on top, and each of them makes a printed card wrong.
A wrong card does more damage than no card. Crossing out the old number with a pen tells the other person you knew it was out of date and handed it over anyway.
If you know a change is coming in the next few months, order the smallest box that gets you there. A hundred cards at a higher unit price cost less than 500 you recycle half full.
How long does a box of 500 business cards last?
It depends entirely on how many you hand out, which is why there is no single answer. At ten cards a month, 500 last more than four years. At 40 a month, about a year. At 100 a month, five months.
For most office jobs the first figure is the honest one, and four years is longer than many people keep the same title. That is why so many 500-card boxes end up half full at the back of a drawer.
Paper also ages in the box. Cards that sit for years pick up bent corners and scuffs, so check the bottom of an old box before you take a handful to a meeting. A soft, curled card says much the same as a crossed-out number.
How many business cards to order for a team
For a team, size each person separately. Give the sales staff a box of 500 and everyone else 100, instead of ordering 500 for everyone so the invoice has one line on it.
Staff turnover is where team orders lose the most. Each leaver walks away from a box of cards nobody can use, and each new hire starts another print run. If you are ordering for more than a handful of people, our team orders give everyone the same card design and their own profile, so a new phone number is an edit instead of a reprint.
With an NFC business card, the answer is one
An NFC card changes the question. You keep the card. The other person taps it with their phone, your digital profile opens, they save your contact, and the card goes back in your pocket.
So the order quantity is one, or two if you want a spare for a second jacket or in case you lose the first. Nothing on it expires when your details change, because the details live on the profile and you edit them there.
It works with almost any recent phone. iPhones from the XS onward read NFC without an app, so do most Android phones, and a QR code on the back covers the rest.
There is a fair objection. Some people like to leave something behind, and an NFC card doesn't do that. If many of your contacts will never tap, keep a small box of paper cards as well, 100 at most, and print the same profile link on them.
Our wood cards start at €39.90 and the metal cards at €44.90. You pay once, the first year of the profile is included, and the profile is €19.90 a year after that. You can try designs in the configurator before you decide.
For paper cards, order six months of real use plus your events and a small buffer. For most people that lands at 100 or 250 cards, not the 500 the print shop nudges you towards, and 1,000 only makes sense if you hand out cards every working day and nothing on them will change this year. If a new role, number or brand is coming within months, order the smallest box that covers the gap. Or skip the box altogether: one NFC card with a profile you can edit covers every meeting you will have, and you never have to work out a reorder again.
One metal or wood NFC card, a profile you can edit, and no box to reorder.
Design your cardHow many business cards should I order the first time?
Start with 100 to 250. Most first designs change after a few weeks of real use, and a small run makes the second version cheap. Move to a bigger box once the design and your details are settled.
How many business cards come in a box?
Most printers sell boxes of 100, 250, 500 or 1,000 cards, and 500 is the usual default. Some go down to 50. The box size is a price step, not a recommendation for how many you need.
Is 500 business cards too many?
For most office workers, yes. At ten cards a month a box of 500 lasts more than four years, longer than many people keep the same title or phone number. It is the right amount for people who hand out cards every day, such as sales or real estate staff.
How many business cards should I bring to a networking event?
Bring 15 to 20 for an evening event and 25 to 40 for a full-day conference as a visitor. If you staff a stand, plan on six to eight conversations an hour and bring enough for the whole day, plus a spare stack.
How often should I reorder business cards?
Reorder when you are down to about a month's supply, so you never arrive at an event empty-handed. If your details are about to change, wait and order the new version instead. With a six-month order, that means reordering roughly twice a year.
How many NFC business cards do I need?
One. You keep the card and the other person taps it to open your profile and save your contact, so it never runs out. Some people order a second one as a spare.
