How many flyers should you actually print?
Run-size maths for Sydney businesses — honest response rates, what 1,000 and 5,000 runs cost, and how to size a letterbox drop that pays for itself.
It is the first question on almost every flyer quote: how many? The honest answer depends on where the flyers are going — a counter pad of 100 and a 2,000-home letterbox drop are doing completely different jobs. Here is the maths we walk customers through at the Moorebank studio before they order: honest response rates, what the common run sizes cost, and the point where printing 5,000 starts beating 1,000 on price per flyer.
Where your flyers actually go
The volume play. A 2,000-home drop across a suburb like Liverpool or Casula puts your name in the area whether people are looking or not. Response runs 0.5–2% — plan on 10–40 enquiries, not a phone running hot.
Every customer, every quote, every coffee order. Runs of 100–500 do the job, and the flyer doubles as a referral piece — hand it over with the words “give this to a mate who needs one”.
A stall at Casula Mall or a school fête burns through 300–500 in a day. The upside: event flyers get a genuine second look, because the person took one on purpose.
500 flyers on the streets around your last three jobs beats 5,000 scattered blind. The neighbours of a finished roof are the warmest letterbox leads you will ever meet.
The honest response-rate maths
Industry response rates for unaddressed letterbox mail sit around 0.5–2% — and that range is honest, not hedged. Do the 2,000-home maths: at 0.5% that is 10 enquiries; at 2% it is 40. For a trade business where one job is worth $500 or more, a 2,000-flyer run pays for itself by the second or third booking. For a café, one new regular a week covers the print several times over a year. What moves you up the range: a specific offer with a deadline, a suburb that matches your customer, and a design readable in the two seconds between letterbox and bin. What pins you to the bottom: a generic “call us for all your needs” flyer with no offer and no reason to act this week. Treat 0.5–2% as a planning range, not a promise — and judge the run on booked jobs, not flyers printed.
What the common run sizes cost
| Run size | Suits | How it prices |
|---|---|---|
| 100–250 | Counter pads, event leftovers, a single trade day | Highest cost per flyer — small runs pay for the setup, not the paper |
| 500 | Targeted tradie runs, one small suburb or shopping strip | The step where the quote starts making sense per flyer |
| 1,000 | The usual starting run — one solid drop plus counter spares | Flyers start from $167; the exact quote depends on size, stock and finish |
| 5,000 | Multi-suburb campaigns, offers that will not date, businesses with storage | Per-unit price drops hard — a 5,000 run often costs little more than two 1,000 runs |
One printed figure we will put in writing: flyers start from $167. Everything past that depends on size (DL or A5), stock weight and finishes, so treat the quote as the exact number — it is free, same-week, and it never surprises you at pickup.
When 5,000 beats 1,000
Volume pricing means the 5,000th flyer costs a fraction of the first. Whether that is a bargain comes down to three things. One — will you actually distribute it? A 5,000 run spread across three monthly drops in three suburbs works; a 5,000 run riding in the van for a year does not. Two — will the offer still be true? Seasonal promos and dated prices make big runs a gamble; “family business, free quotes” does not expire. Three — has the design proven itself? The smart sequence is 1,000 flyers to test the offer and suburbs, then 5,000 to scale whichever version booked jobs. Reprint cadence matters too: the same letterboxes need two or three touches before people act, so re-drop the same area four to six weeks later instead of moving on forever. Your artwork stays on file at CRINO — one setup, reprints whenever stock runs low.
Design that survives the bin test
Every letterboxed flyer gets a two-second audition on the way from letterbox to bin. The ones that survive share the same bones: one offer, not five — a flyer with three offers has none; a headline readable at arm’s length instead of a clever pun; a real photo of your work or your team, because stock clipart reads as generic at a glance; and a phone number big enough to dial from across the kitchen, plus a QR code for the half who will scan instead. On size: DL slips straight under the door rubber or into the letterbox slot without folding; A5 gives room for a menu or price list, which is why cafés lean A5 and tradies lean DL. The layout rules that make menus work — hierarchy, one hero item, readable prices — are the same rules that make flyers work, and we have put them in plain English in our menu design guide.
FAQs
Technically a handful — digital presses do not force big minimums. Practically, the setup cost makes tiny runs expensive per flyer, so most businesses start at 500. Counter pads and event runs at 100–250 are fine when the flyer has a short working life.
Yes, when they are targeted. Letterbox response runs 0.5–2%, which sounds small until you do the maths: 2,000 homes returns roughly 10–40 enquiries, and at an average trade job value one or two bookings can cover the whole run. The best-performing tradie drops are 500 flyers on the streets immediately around a recent job — the neighbours who saw the ute and the scaffolding.
Count the homes in the suburbs you want — a 2,000-home drop is a common starting block — then size the run to your capacity to answer the phone. A drop that books you out for two months is a success that arrived too fast; 1,000 flyers, worked properly, then a re-drop of the same area four to six weeks later is the steadier play.
DL (99×210mm) slides into a letterbox without folding and carries a single offer plus a phone number — the tradie and service-business default. A5 gives room for a menu, price list or before-and-after photos, which suits cafés, salons and retailers. At volume the two cost similar per flyer, so choose on content, not price.
Sizing the run is step one; step two is a flyer that survives the two-second read. The menu design guide covers the layout psychology, the hospitality printing page shows the full café and takeaway kit, and flyer sizes, stocks and from-prices live on the print services page.
Print the right number, not the biggest one.
Tell us the suburb or the counter — we will size the run, quote it same-week from Moorebank, and deliver Sydney-wide.