Personalised plastic cups are reusable cups with your name, logo or design printed straight onto them. Simple idea, but the route from artwork to a pallet of finished cups has a few decisions in it that are worth getting right first time.
We are Drinksmate. We make personalised reusable plastic cups out of our factory in Stockton-on-Tees, and we have shipped more than ten million of them in the past three years. Weddings, birthdays, hen and stag dos, corporate events, festivals, stadiums and hospitality venues all order from us. This guide is the same advice we give buyers when they pick up the phone, written down.
What counts as a personalised plastic cup?
Personalised just means the cup carries something specific to you rather than coming plain. That could be a couple's names and a wedding date, a company logo, a festival crest, a team badge or a one-off design for a party. The cup itself is a durable, reusable, food-grade polypropylene cup built to survive hundreds of washes, not a flimsy disposable. Print it once and it does the job all weekend, then goes home in someone's bag as a keepsake.
People use "personalised", "branded" and "custom" more or less interchangeably, and for ordering purposes they land in the same place. If the distinction matters to you, the personalised vs branded vs custom guide breaks it down in plain English.
Print methods: single colour vs full colour IML
There are two ways we put your design on a cup, and the right one depends on how long the cup needs to last and how detailed the artwork is.
Single colour screen print sits on the outside of the cup. Setup is quick, it is the cheaper route at smaller volumes, and it produces clean, bold results for one-colour names, simple logos and crests. It is the right call for a single event where the print does not need to survive years of dishwasher cycles.
Full colour IML (in-mould labelling) is the premium route. The printed label goes into the moulding tool before the cup is formed, and the molten polypropylene fuses around it so the print becomes part of the cup wall. There is no per-colour upcharge, so a full-colour photographic design costs the same to print as a single colour. IML survives hundreds of commercial dishwasher cycles without fading or peeling, which makes it the right call for anything reused across multiple events.
Choosing a cup size
Personalised plastic cups come in a range of sizes, and the format matters as much as the print. Pint to line cups hold 568ml at the fill line and give the perfect head of beer. Pint to brim cups hold 568ml at the rim and suit soft drinks and cocktails where you want maximum volume. Half pints (280ml) are popular for wine, spirits and children's drinks. Two pint cups cut bar queues in half by serving two rounds in one trip, and stackable formats save space behind the bar and in storage.
If you are not sure which to pick, the cup sizes guide walks through which size suits which setup, or just send us the event details and we will recommend one.
Artwork: what to send us
Send a vector file where you can: PDF, AI or EPS all work. Make sure the colours are specified as Pantone references or clear values, the logo is outlined or the fonts are embedded, and any white that needs to print white is flagged. If all you have is a low-resolution PNG or JPG, send it anyway. Our studio team can usually rebuild it cleanly, though it adds a day or two to the artwork stage. Every order gets a free 3D digital proof before production starts, so you see exactly how the cup will look before we commit it to the moulds.
Minimum order, lead times and pricing
The minimum order is 50 cups. Volume tiers kick in at 50, 250, 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 plus, and the unit price drops at each step. Our cheapest personalised cup at high volume is the half pint single colour print on the Eco Saver tier, at 33 pence per cup at 2,000 units. Full colour IML costs more per cup at the entry level but tightens up at scale.
On lead times: standard production is 10 working days from artwork sign-off, Eco Saver is 25 working days at the lowest price, and plain unbranded stock ships in 5 working days. For genuine sub-48-hour emergencies, our sister site Express Cups runs express production from the same factory. The single most common cause of a late order is internal artwork sign-off slipping, not the factory. Get your design approved before you order and the rest moves quickly.
For exact pricing on your cup, print method and quantity, use the quote form below. We come back inside the hour with a price, lead time and free 3D proof, and our price promise means if you find a better like-for-like quote we will beat it by 10%. The deeper cost breakdown lives in the personalised plastic cups cost guide.
Where to start
Browse the personalised plastic cups range, the wider cup range, or for events specifically the personalised festival cups page. When you are ready, send your specifications via the quote form and we will take it from there.