On this page 10 sections
Which gsm paper you need comes down to what the piece has to do. Letterheads that get fed through an office printer want to be light, around 90 to 120gsm. Flyers sit somewhere from 130 to 250gsm, depending on how long people will hang on to them. Business cards begin at 350gsm. Go heavier than the job needs and you pay for stiffness nobody notices, or worse, a leaflet that splits along its fold.
The number, decoded #
gsm is short for grams per square metre. Take a sheet one metre by one metre, weigh it, and that’s the figure. A bigger number generally means a thicker, stiffer sheet. For a sense of scale: your office printer paper is roughly 80 to 90gsm, a decent flyer is 170gsm, a normal business card is 350gsm, and our thickest card, a layered one, hits 810gsm.
It’s a weight, though, not a thickness. Coated papers are dense and smooth, so they come out thinner than a fluffy uncoated sheet of the same gsm. That’s why a 300gsm uncoated card can feel every bit as chunky as a heavier silk one, and why textured, cotton or hemp stocks feel thicker still. Compare gsm between papers of the same kind. To choose the character of the thing in your hand, look at the finish.
Which gsm paper for each job #
| If you’re printing | Go for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Letterheads you’ll put through your own printer | 90 or 120gsm | Feeds without fuss; 170gsm won’t suit every office machine |
| Letters printed once and sent by hand | 170gsm | Feels premium, and there’s no printer to jam |
| A big door-to-door leaflet drop | 130gsm | Lowest cost for each copy |
| An everyday flyer | 170gsm | Enough body that it doesn’t feel throwaway |
| Menus and price lists handled for weeks | 250gsm | Survives being picked up again and again |
| Event or premium-offer flyers | 350 to 450gsm silk | More like a card than a sheet of paper |
| Business cards | 350gsm, or 450gsm for extra thick | Proper card weight |
| Cards that get a reaction | 810gsm triplex | Three bonded layers and a coloured core |
Where heavy goes wrong #
Thick card hates being folded. Fold a four-page leaflet made from heavy stock and the crease can crack, showing white through the ink. So our standard folded leaflets go no higher than 250gsm. If you want something heavier that folds, our creased leaflets reach 350gsm silk card, and they get a crease pressed in first so the fold stays clean.
Your printer at work has limits too. Anything you’ll feed through it, letterheads especially, should stay on the lighter side. Heavy sheets also bulk up an envelope quickly and can push the postage up.
Finish: shiny, soft sheen or natural #
- Gloss. Shiny, so photographs and bold colours really jump. The catch: it picks up fingerprints, reflects light and is a pain to write on.
- Silk. Smooth, with only a slight sheen. You keep rich colour without the glare, and words stay readable under bright shop lights. Most of our flyers and cards are printed on silk.
- Uncoated. Nothing on the surface, so it feels like proper paper and a biro or pencil works on it. Colours come out a touch gentler. The natural pick for letterheads, comp slips, forms and anything that gets filled in.
Lamination isn’t a paper; it’s a thin plastic film added on top after printing to protect cards and covers from scuffing. You can have it gloss, matt or soft touch. There’s more on that, plus foil and spot UV, in our business card finishes guide.
Office stationery #
Three paper weights cover our letterheads: 90, 120 and 170gsm, all smooth white, and you can print one side or two. Compliment slips and A4 continuation sheets are offered on those same three, which means the whole set matches when someone picks it up. Envelopes are white self seal at 90 or 100gsm.
Flyers, leaflets and menus #
On our flyers you choose between gloss and silk at 130, 170 or 250gsm, and there are two silk card options at 350 and 450gsm. For a softer, natural look, the uncoated flyers start with a 120gsm smooth white and go all the way to a 375gsm woven bamboo. Can’t decide between a flyer and a folded leaflet? Flyer vs leaflet sorts that out.
Worked example: a takeaway menu
A takeaway wants a menu for the counter and for delivery bags. It’ll live in kitchen drawers for months and get handled with greasy fingers. At 130gsm it would flop and crumple in a week. At 250gsm silk it’s stiff enough to survive the drawer and still thin enough to slip into a bag with the order.
Worked example: a charity quiz night
A local charity is dropping 2,000 flyers through doors to advertise a quiz night three weeks away. Nobody keeps these for months, and cost per copy matters. 130gsm does the job perfectly well.
Cards of every kind #
Postcards are offered on 250gsm (gloss or silk) or on 300 to 350gsm cards, kraft and uncoated among them. Our business cards begin on 350gsm silk, and a 450gsm silk is there if you want them noticeably thicker. Right at the top sit triplex business cards at 810gsm, made by bonding three sheets together; the middle one is coloured, so you see a thin stripe round the edge.
Plastic cards don’t use gsm at all. They’re white PVC, measured in microns, at 570 or 760.
Posters and booklets #
Posters use lighter paper than people guess, since they’re stuck flat to a wall or held in a frame and don’t need to stand up on their own. Indoors we use 150gsm satin. For pasting up billboard-style there’s 120gsm blueback, whose blue reverse hides whatever poster it’s pasted over. Posters for outside step up to 400gsm PVC-free or 440gsm PVC, which aren’t paper but banner materials; our banner material page covers them.
Inside a saddle stitched booklet the pages are 130 or 170gsm, and you can add a cover on 250gsm silk or 350gsm silk card. A thick cover makes a slim booklet feel weighty for far less than heavy pages throughout.
Which gsm paper recycles easily? #
Weight makes little difference to recycling; coating and film do. Silk and uncoated paper go in most household paper collections. Once a plastic laminate is bonded to the card, it’s a much harder job. So if the bin matters to you, leave off the lamination and go for uncoated or recycled stock. Check what your council accepts through Recycle Now.
Still stuck? #
Let us know what you’re printing, how it gets to people and whether they’ll need to write on it. We’ll come back with which gsm paper and finish makes sense. Use the contact form.