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Discover Pouch Me's processes, product specifications, applications, and key details.
ASK US ANYTHINGFrequently Asked Questions
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Most Popular FAQs
Yes, you can certainly repurpose and reuse your label artwork. A simple re-layout of art elements will help you utilize the entire printing real estate of your new custom printed pouch. While labels limit you to specific areas for container placement, with custom bags you can print on most of the surface area.
Simply email your artwork to service@pouch.me so our Prepress specialists and print artists can check if we need to adjust certain elements to Spot Color instead of CMYK for you to make sure they print perfectly on flexible plastics. Using Spot Color creates more crisp and even prints on bag stock versus paper or foil label stocks because a single ink is used as opposed to CMYK process plates.
We currently have a sister company, Inkable Label Co., who specializes in all kinds of custom labels and stickers. We are under the same roof, and work well together to fulfill many custom packaging projects that require more steps for customization.
We guarantee a shelf life of as long as 30 years for all our custom pouch and bag materials.
We’re an online print packaging company specializing in creating custom pouches and custom bag packaging. Our most utilized types of printing are Rotogravure/Gravure Printing and Digital Printing.
Gravure printing is the current Gold Standard for flexible packaging. This process works particularly well for film materials. We guarantee our presses produce crisp photographic quality pouch prints, enabling much more sophisticated color nuances. Inks are more hardy against UV, and print in a beautifully even, solid opaque layer.
With digital printing, we are able process your order fast, with lower minimums than standard print processes since no plates are required. There are no plate costs or setup expenses, and we can produce your order swiftly with lower minimums than conventional print processes.
Tolerance values give you an idea of the allowable variation of any part of your packaging (size, shape, position) from a base point so it can function properly. Tolerances are denoted by standard deviations, or plus minus values.
Everything manufactured in the market is prone to some imperfection, and all printing machines have an acceptable wiggle room for variance. While this doesn’t sound great, tolerances follow industry standards and are accepted by manufacturers worldwide.
With regard to packaging, having set industry tolerances allows for quick production and cost-effective pricing, since packaging typically doesn’t need very tight tolerances to be able to function at its best in the market.
A bag with a smaller boundary of deviation will obviously cost a lot more to produce.For example, if you don’t need such a precise hang hole size, you will be paying a lot more for a pouch add-on that isn’t even that important, since pegs for retail display can accommodate a large range (or large deviation) of hang hole sizes.
What is important here is how strict the tolerances should be.
SAMPLE TECHNICAL TOLERANCE: Specifically, for degassing valves, these have an allowable positioning tolerance of +/- ⅛ inches based on the artwork file. This means that when you receive your custom bag, you can be certain that the valve is positioned on the area as specified on your file, give or take an eighth of an inch. Because packaging isn’t as technical as
Please contact us if you have specific technical concerns about your custom pouch dimensions.
When we refer to a “project” in our conversations with you, we are talking about configurations or specifications of your custom pouches per order or per transaction. We can also say, “custom pouch order” instead of “project.”
A custom pouch or custom bag project details specific information such as bag size, what kind of printing process is needed to produce those specific bags, and how many bags or pouches are required to complete that specific custom pouch project.
You have the power to upload as many design files as you want to any custom pouch project. When you upload a design file to your order, this file should match your custom pouch project's specifications.
If you have many design files and they all have the same specifications, it’s always a best practice to upload all of them to the same project or same order. By doing this, you also get better price breaks with higher quantities.
Still confused? Talk to us and we’ll get everything sorted out for you.
No. We do our best to be very transparent with pricing. When you pay for your order using the invoice link from our service team, you can rest assured that is the final price, without any hidden fees.
The total cost at checkout is the only amount you need to pay. With Pouch ME, you get the full deluxe Prepress service for free. Shipping throughout the USA is also free, unless you expressly request for expedited shipping.
*ARE THERE ADDED BANK TRANSACTIONAL FEES WE SHOULD MENTION?
Your choices matter, and making sure you are 100% sure about your order is the most important commitment that we want to secure.
All orders always have soft proofs attached. Soft proofs are digital files. These are electronic .PDF files viewed on your monitor to check for layout, spelling, and grammar issues. Our Prepress designers will include a Prepress report to help you understand what changes were made to your file and why. This is always free of charge.
If you need an actual sample print, we can provide what is called a “hard proof.” A hard proof is a physical print of your bag utilizing the same inks, printing process, and material or film stock that will be used to make your pouch. This is meant to show you actual quality and thickness. Hard proofs can be paid with the order, or separately if you need to double check before ordering the total quantity of your custom pouches.
Please send us a message if this is your first time to print your pouch or bag artwork and need help sorting specifications and build. We consult for free and want you to be totally sure before ordering.
We work best with layered .PDF files, but also accept .AI, .TIFF, .EPS, and .PSD files.
To make sure the file checking process is quick and revisions are easy to do, please make sure you:
1) Proofread your artwork for typos and grammatical errors. Creative work is fun, and we know sometimes you need to have certain misspelled words that are intentional, or skewed phrases meant to be your own kind of jargon, so we never touch any text.
2) Check your color mode and set everything to CMYK for gravure and digital printing. RGB colors are the language of monitors that printers don’t understand. If you’re working with digital artists, make sure to tell them to use CMYK so we don’t need to convert anything on our end. This step guarantees you get precise color, as long as you keep using the same pouch materials and print process.
3) Add a 3mm bleed all around your pouch artwork. This simple addition guarantees we don’t get any weird unprinted areas on the peripheries of your pouch anywhere.
4) Check your raster art elements. If your custom pouch art is created with raster images, please make sure these are at least 350dpi. We want you to receive the best, most crisp prints, so a high resolution raster image is a must.
5) Check your lines and make sure these are at least at .57pt or 0.2mm line thickness. If you insist on using lines that are thinner than that, we can’t really guarantee that those lines will print evenly because of the tolerances of any printing machines.
6) Double check your pouch specifications and match those up with your artwork dimensions. This simple step saves a ton of time on proofing. If they don’t match up, please go back to your designer and let them know that they need to create your file in the right size, otherwise our print designers will spend more time than usual on your files.
7) Remove marks. We have no use for printer’s crop marks or registration marks, so please don’t trouble yourself to include them in your PDF export.
8) Create outlines for all your fonts. If we don’t have your specific fonts in our library, we can take a lot longer proofing your artwork.
If you need help creating your bag artwork or need help finalizing your design and layout, please send us a message. We can help you polish your pouch artwork.
Pouch Build and Specifications FAQs
Creating custom pouches with see through pouch windows:
We take a clear pouch base material and print a layer of white ink on areas where we want the bag to be opaque and have solid printing. Once we’ve completed the white ink layer, we print your artwork on top of that white layer. Anything that hasn’t been passed over with white ink and colored ink will create space for the clear window.
Sure, we can add clear windows on your pouches for you. Adding a see through part creates an interesting visual where your actual products can also be part of your pouch design and presentation. See-through windows can be added to stand up pouches and lay flat/flat pouches.
If you want additional windows, make sure your design shows where the window should be correctly positioned. Make the shape and size of the window to scale on your current pouch or bag design. Choosing to add Gloss laminate develops extremely clear pouch windows; choosing Matte creates a frosted glass effect.
Dry Products:
For 1 ounce (30 grams) consider a 3 x 5 x 2 Stand Up Pouch
For 2 ounces (60 grams) consider a 4 x 6.5 x 2.25 Stand Up Pouch
For 4 ounces (140 grams) consider a 5 x 8 x 3 Stand Up Pouch
For 8 ounces (250 grams) consider a 6 x 9.5 x 3.25 Stand Up Pouch
For 12 ounces (375 grams) consider a 7 x 11 x 3.5 Stand Up Pouch
For 16 ounces (500 grams) consider a 8.5 x 11.5 x 3.5 Stand Up Pouch
For 5 pounds (2267 grams) consider a 9.25 x 14 x 4 Stand Up Pouch
Liquid/Wet Products:
For 3 ounces consider a 3 x 5 x 2 Stand Up Pouch
For 5 ounces consider a 4 x 6.5 x 2.25 Stand Up Pouch
For 16 ounces consider a 5 x 8 x 3 Stand Up Pouch
For 24 ounces consider a 6 x 9.5 x 3.25 Stand Up Pouch
For 32 ounces consider a 7 x 11 x 3.5 Stand Up Pouch
For 48 ounces consider a 8.5 x 11.5 x 3.5 Stand Up Pouch
For 144 ounces consider a 9.25 x 14 x 4 Stand Up Pouch
To start, you must be aware that when talking about listed pouch sizes, these are the outer dimensions of the finished pouch from edge-to-edge.
To know what pouch size is best for the amount of product you need to package, make a more accurate estimation for best fit by looking at the "fillable” dimensions of the pouch. By looking at the inner dimensions, you can deduct the non-fillable areas such as where the zipper starts, and up to where the edges are heat sealed, and so on.
Go to our main resource for bag sizing to get more helpful information before you decide on your final bag size. If you have a hard time making sense of everything, we’re always here to help.
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Solid products, liquid products, ground and whole products—these all behave differently inside a pouch. Some mold to the walls of your pouch, some products can be compressed, and some contents need a bigger allowance so they keep their best quality for the end consumer.
We know that every product is different and has different physical and chemical qualities. Because of this, we recommend you to do a free consultation with us so we can give you the best fit you deserve.
Stand-up pouches have a bottom gusset which makes them an excellent choice for bulkier items that need to stand up on a store shelf. These types of pouches can include a reclosable zipper and a hang hole to hang on a retailer’s peg hook for better display.
Flat bottom pouches, the custom bags that have side gussets and sit with a flat bottom on the shelf, are great for bigger volumes and are the pouches that have the most shelf stability.
Flat pouches or pillow pouches are exactly what they sound like: they lay flat and don't have a bottom gusset. They might be an excellent alternative for items that are small or thin. You can add functional details like a hang hole and a resealable zipper. These are great for smaller product portions, such as for sampling campaigns or for products that are intended to be used per single serve.
Those are our favorites! We love creating new packaging pouch concepts and can certainly help. The more bespoke the pouch is, usually the fit is also a lot better.
Send us a message detailing what you want to create and we’ll do a consultation with our press and Production team, free of charge.
Pouch Design FAQs
Yes, you can certainly repurpose and reuse your label artwork. A simple re-layout of art elements will help you utilize the entire printing real estate of your new custom printed pouch. While labels limit you to specific areas for container placement, with custom bags you can print on most of the surface area.
Simply email your artwork to service@pouch.me so our Prepress specialists and print artists can check if we need to adjust certain elements to Spot Color instead of CMYK for you to make sure they print perfectly on flexible plastics. Using Spot Color creates more crisp and even prints on bag stock versus paper or foil label stocks because a single ink is used as opposed to CMYK process plates.
To make sure the entire area of your custom pouch or custom bag is printed correctly, any art elements that need to print from edge to edge need to “bleed” outward, beyond the trim line/where we cut to the final, finished size of your custom prints.
Adding a bleed makes sure we don’t get unwanted unprinted areas or slivers at the peripheries of your custom pouches. A bleed guarantees that the entire surface that needs to have full printing, does.
If you need help setting up the bleed for your custom pouch artwork, simply send us a message and attach your artwork, so we can help set it up correctly for you, free of charge.
Low resolution files create low-quality custom pouch prints.
We want to make sure you are happy with all the choices you make with us, and one of the most crucial choices is to go with design files that will produce the best printed results.
To guarantee you receive crisp prints, your files must be at least 300dpi (native or original resolution, not resampled). Anything lower and we can already tell you it’s going to print looking blurry or pixelated.
If for any reason you still want to move forward using a low-resolution file, for an intended aesthetic or just because, let us know and we will print your file if that is what you really want.
CMYK (Cyan - Magenta - Yellow - Key/Black) is the color language all traditional printers understand. These correspond to the four colored inks routinely used in the printing process, which is why we need your artwork files to be set up with the CMYK color profile. This is different from RGB (Red - Green - Blue) which is the color language that our digital screens use, and is not readable by our printing machines. To achieve the printed colors you are keen on reproducing, please make sure your files are already built using CMYK. If we receive RGB files, we can convert them to CMYK, but colors won’t be as precise.
Simple Adobe InDesign Instructions:
Open the program. Select “Process” in the Color Type dropdown. In your Swatch Options menu, select “CMYK” in the Color Mode dropdown. This will help you set up any color swatches in CMYK.
Simple Adobe Illustrator Instructions:
Open the program and go to the “File” menu. Click on “Document Color Mode” and choose CMYK Color.
Simple Adobe Photoshop Instructions:
Open the program and go to the “Image” menu. Click on “Mode” and choose CMYK Color.
Reminder: All Spot colors need to be converted to Process colors (CMYK colors)
A “Spot color” is specific premixed ink, usually created through an ink printing system such as PMS (Pantone Matching System). This is totally separate from the process colors (CMYK) used in each press run. If you don’t need a very precise color match and your specifications don’t say you are adding a fee for Spot color, we need you or your designer to convert your Spot color/s to process colors before you send your files to us.
You can easily convert any Spot color to Process color by choosing “Process” in the Color Type dropdown of all the graphics editing software specified above.
Press-ready simply means “print ready.” Press ready artwork is equivalent to a pouch design file that is built to spec and doesn’t need any further adjustments so it can be printed.
If you are printing your custom pouches for the first time, please send us your file and custom pouch specifications so we can double check that everything is set up correctly and is ready for printing.
Metallic effects open cost-effective design capabilities by maximizing the base foil film material of your pouches. Since the base mylar material of a pouch is naturally shiny silver, printing artwork on the silver material delivers an effect similar to using metallic ink.
If you need areas on your pouch to not have that metallic look, we print a layer of solid white ink underneath to cancel the metallic effect.
How to set up your artwork for metallic effects:
Show us where you want your metallic effects to be on your design. The right way to do this is to create a separate artboard or separate file apart from your original design file that contains all the art elements to be printed. Specify the areas that should print directly on your pouch material on this separate artboard. Anything you specify on this artboard will appear metallic on your final printed pouches.
If you can’t do this yourself, simply send us your file and instructions and we’ll create this for you.
Fonts are programmed font files that are built from codes. Since these are very specific, if our library doesn’t have your fonts, we will not be able to access them. When opening a file that has missing fonts, we will only see an error message. This prevents us from being able to accomplish Prepress work and proofing your files.
Creating outlines or outlining text (same as outlining fonts) transforms your text into easily identifiable shapes. Outlines are exactly that—they are bounding lines traced from the shapes of how your fonts appear. Converting text into outlines removes coded font information from your file. This means that the text can’t be edited anymore, but it also guarantees that we are able to check and print your text exactly the way you want.
We can help you build out your design on a pouch template and can also recommend how to set up your design elements, but we do not currently accept design work from scratch.
If you need help finalizing your design and layout, we can certainly help. Simply email us your draft/working file so we can check the status of your design.
Yes, we can. While press-ready artwork is the best type of file to receive, we know everybody can’t get to that level right away. We’re here to help!
Simply send us your artwork at service@pouch.me. Our certified Prepress designers will check your file for you and report any issues. If you need help with layout revisions, we can do these for you, free of charge.
For logo design and other branding elements, we highly recommend that you partner with a strategic creative designer who specializes in print branding. Getting your brand set up and finalizing your brand color palette, fonts and imagery is an entirely different step.
Pouch Finishing and Performance FAQs
In some rare instances, zipper "delamination" can happen. This is when zippers pull off the pouch. The most common culprit is putting too much pulling pressure into opening the bag, forcing it to come away. Zippers are built snugly into the pouch material using a pressing machine, and so upon initial hand loading, these zippers can feel very tight. When opening your bags for the first time, make sure to push the zipper instead of pulling it open.
The rate of oxygen and/or moisture allowed to enter through the material during a 24-hour period is referred to as the barrier. All of the materials used in our pouches are regarded as high barrier.
OTR (oxygen transfer rate) ranges from.06 to.065 for high barrier materials. OTR (oxygen transfer rate) of low barrier material is 645.20.
If you need help finalizing your custom pouch or custom bag packaging material specifications, simply send us a message.
Extensive testing is required to determine the shelf life of your particular product and product composition, which should be performed by a competent testing firm. Specialized tools and methods will correctly gauge what the correct span is. At this time, we do not provide shelf-life testing.
Making sure you seal your pouches properly is one of the most important steps to keep your products secure. You'll want to use heat-sealing equipment to seal your pouches effectively.
There are many different sorts of sealers, but an impulse sealer is one of the most common and affordable. You can get one from a variety of outlets, including Amazon.com and Uline.com.
Shipping FAQs
Shipping time is the length of time a third-party courier (such as FedEx) takes to get your package to your doorstep, or whatever location is specified by you on your order details.
The order date is different and needs production time (printing) to be added from the time you order and pay for your pouches.
The moment you approve of your soft proof and give us the go signal for printing is the time production starts working on your artwork file. This covers production and quality control time.
The day your order is ready to ship is not the same as your package’s ETA.
For most pouch orders, our standard shipping time is 3-4 days. If you need more specific information, please email service@pouch.me.
Contact us to check if we can ship to where you are, and if there are any special instructions and additional steps that you need to be aware of.
Ground shipment is calculated depending on your order's weight and where it should go.
There is an option for expedited shipment. The cost is determined by the order weight and destination. Each order's local taxes and tariffs are your responsibility.
* Pouch ME is not liable for late deliveries caused by carriers (FedEx, UPS, etc.) failing to fulfill their delivery deadlines.
We pride ourselves in fulfilling customized pouch orders in just 22 days to a month.
Please be guided that digital printing is a bit quicker to complete than gravure.
For digital printing, our general turnaround time is usually 20-22 days (17-19 days for printing and assembly plus quality control + 3-4 shipping days) from the moment you approve your soft proof, after the order is placed and paid.
For gravure printing, our general turnaround time is usually a month (1 week for cylinder creation and 28 days for printing and assembly plus quality control + 3-4 shipping days) from the moment you approve your soft proof, after the order is placed and paid.
As with any custom project, turnaround can still vary, depending on the complexity of your pouch build, specific printing process, quantity, or if your production dates overlap certain holidays of the year.
Send us a message if you have specific concerns about printing/production and shipping schedules.
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