Matte, gloss, holo or chrome?

There are seven finishes in our builder and, honestly, most jobs should be matte. That's not the answer a print shop is supposed to give, because the upgrades cost more — but picking a finish because it looked good on a screen is how people end up with 500 stickers that glare under every light in the room.

Here's what each one actually does.

Matte

Flat, no glare, slightly muted colour. It takes pen and pencil, it photographs well because nothing reflects back at the lens, and it hides fingerprints. It's also the cheapest.

Pick it for: packaging seals, price and ingredient labels, anything that gets photographed, anything indoors under downlights, and any design that's mostly type. Skip it if: your artwork lives or dies on colour saturation.

Gloss

Sharper contrast, deeper blacks, more saturated colour. Wipes clean, and hides scuffs slightly better than matte on surfaces that get knocked about.

Pick it for: photographic artwork, bumper and vehicle stickers, toolboxes and equipment, anything outdoors where you want it to read from a distance. Skip it if: it'll be photographed for a product listing — the glare is a nuisance.

Satin

Between the two: a soft sheen with most of gloss's colour and much less of its reflection. Under-ordered, mostly because people don't know it exists.

Pick it for: the job where you want gloss but the stickers are going on something you'll be shooting for a website.

Holographic

A rainbow shift that moves as the light does. This is the most-ordered upgrade we sell and, for merch, the one that actually earns its cost — a holographic sticker gets kept and stuck somewhere visible far more often than a matte one does.

The catch: the effect sits under your ink, so it reads strongest where your artwork is light or transparent and barely at all under solid dark fills. A design that's 90% black on holographic looks like a design that's 90% black.

Pick it for: band and label merch, breweries, anything sold or given away to people who collect stickers. Design for it: leave open space, use outlines and lighter fills.

Glitter

Textured sparkle suspended in the laminate — physically rough to the touch, not a printed pattern. Sits somewhere between charming and loud depending on the artwork.

Pick it for: craft, kids', event and seasonal work. Watch out: the texture slightly softens fine detail, so it's a poor match for small type.

Chrome

Mirror-metallic, the premium option. Genuinely striking in person and genuinely hard to photograph, because a mirror reflects whatever is in front of it. Chrome and gold always come laminated: the clear layer is what keeps the mirror surface from marking, so the builder switches it on and locks it for both.

Pick it for: a small run where each sticker is doing real work — a limited drop, a launch, a premium product seal. Skip it for: a giveaway pile of a thousand. The cost per unit doesn't earn back at that volume.

Clear

Transparent vinyl with no white border, so your artwork appears to sit directly on the glass. The specialist option, and the one people most often pick by mistake.

White is a printed ink, and on clear stock anything white in your design either vanishes into the background or needs a white underbase printed behind it. Dark artwork on light glass is fine; light artwork on a dark shopfront needs planning.

Pick it for: shopfront windows, opening hours, delivery-app badges, jars and bottles. Ask us first if: your artwork has white in it.

Does the finish change how long it lasts?

Barely. All seven are the same laminated vinyl underneath, rated five-plus years outdoors, waterproof, UV-resistant and dishwasher-safe. The laminate does the durability work and it's the same laminate. Chrome and gold always come laminated — the mirror surface marks without it, so there is no unlaminated option for those two. Gloss and chrome shrug off surface scuffing slightly better; that's the whole difference.

So durability isn't the deciding factor. Where it's going, how it'll be lit, and whether you'll be photographing it — those are.

If you want one rule

Matte for anything functional. Holographic for anything you want people to keep. Everything else is a specific answer to a specific problem.

You can compare all seven rendered side by side on the finishes section, and switch between them in the builder to see what each does to the price before you commit.