When you are considering purchasing a printer to generate a large number of membership cards, whether it is for your gym members, school or college students, or buyers club members, then the question is what kind of printer? of identification cards you must obtain. The two main possibilities are an ID card laminator and a plastic ID card printer. How are they different and which one would be better for you?

In this article we will examine the following properties and decide on the pros and cons of each type of printer: quality of the finished product, speed of generation, manual labor required, versatility, and price.

Finished ID Card Quality: Plastic Card Printer vs. ID Card Laminator: 1:0

There is no doubt that since a plastic ID card is made from a single resin and there is no need for thermal or pressure lamination, the final product will look more professional and clean. The difference could depend on the quality of the laminator. When the laminator does a good job, there are no wrinkles or bubbles between the paper card and the plastic bag, so the final result looks good. But there is no guarantee. Also, laminated cards will always show a clear plastic border needed to seal the plastic covers. There are no such blemishes with a plastic nameplate.

Generation speed: plastic card printer vs card laminator: 2:0

Especially with the help of the blank plastic id card feeder that can hold 100, 200 or more blank plastic cards, there is no doubt that the plastic id card printer will finish a great job much faster than the laminator. With the laminator, you must first manually place the paper cards in plastic bags. Then you need to turn on the laminator, wait until it warms up. So regardless of whether you have hundreds of ID cards to make or just one, plastic card printer will always be faster.

Labor required to generate an ID card: plastic card printer vs. ID card laminator: 3:0

As you can imagine, there is quite a bit of manual labor required when laminating. You must first print the paper cards, place them in bags, and then laminate only one card at a time. By contrast, a plastic card printer can print a single card or a stack of cards in a single run, even without you being around. There’s no manual labor involved after you’ve designed your cards and submitted the print job.

Versatility: plastic card printer vs laminator: 3:1

Versatility is where a laminator wins big. You can choose the size, thickness and color of the laminating pouches and consequently the sizes of your finished ID cards. The size of the laminated product is only limited by the width of the laminating machine and the width of the paper printer. In addition to small ID cards, you can laminate letter-size pages such as restaurant menus, reminder pages, your affirmation pages, and make them strong and durable. With the plastic card printer, you are usually very limited to a single-sided ID card. The credit card size happens to be the most popular. While there are some plastic card printers that will print cards of different sizes, they are not common. So your plastic card printer investment will only be good for ID card printing and same size card printing.

Price: plastic card printer vs laminator 3:2

There is also no question about this item. A laminator is a clear winner. You can get plastic card laminators for as low as $50 and as high as $200 depending on features, while plastic ID card printers start at around $1,000 and go many thousands of dollars, even over $10,000 depending of the accessories. So if your budget is tight, a laminator is clearly a price leader.

ID Card Laminator vs. Plastic ID Card Printer – Pros and Cons

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