Pad printing vs Laser engraving? NOT for doing promotional products

[Gilligan]

So as you might have figured (because it's been at least 6 months right?) we have a new business we are starting.

My wife started her own makeup line.  With all her connections she is making in the movie industry as well as tax credits for when productions "buy local" it seemed like a good market to start getting white labeled products and resell them.

Now we need to do some branding beyond just stickers on boxes and pallets.  She wants to move into makeup brushes and such.

So pad printing would work for that as well as some of the bottle containers we use for some products or even small boxes that we package stuff in.

Then again, I can see a laser engraver being more versatile for the "t-shirt" business as well.  These white folk down here do love their laser-etched travel mugs and yeti sh!t.  But a pad printer could be used to do t-shirt tags as well.

So we aren't sure which options make the best sense for us.  Looking at a budget of about 5-6k I guess as we don't need anything TOO large.

What do you guys think?

[balloonguy]

I bought a pad printer for tags and it works pretty well. I always thought I would get in to other products but found it too cheap to buy them already printed. I have a 2 color machine (never used more than 1) from AutoTran.
I am in FL if you are interested in checking it out and buying used. That said- I think a laser engraver would be AWESOME for making pad plates.

[Gilligan]

The problem we have is it's such a niche market they want to charge so much for custom printed versions and setups are ridiculously priced.

The pallets are $140 setup and then $2 pet pallet for them to put labels on them.

I can get stickers printed for pennies.

[Zelko-4-EVA]

we use a laser engraver to make our pad print plates.

its the cobalt 2000 by "Ink Cups".  works well....  cant do anything other than plates though.

same thing as balloonguy, we wanted to use it for other things but its cheaper to get it printed elsewhere...  let someone else do the R&D for ink and substrate.

[Gilligan]

We are using stickers now so something's it would be easier/better to use pad printing.

[3Deep]

We bought a pad printing setup from Printa years ago, I just knew I had one up on everyone, thought we could print small amounts but how wrong was I, the cost for raw products was just as high as buying it from them printed.  So we have a nice manual pad printing machine collecting dust, ever so ever we might do a job on it.

[Gilligan]

Again, we aren't looking to do promotional products in house... this is a niche market with high end white-labeled products.

[mooseman]

In full disclosure i do not own one of these but will soon.
These are diode lasers and are excellent for engraving.
There is tons of youtube stuff on the Otour and others possible right what you are looking for price and function wise.

This brand is highly rated is way less complicated than a C02 laser and is less than $550.00
They have several levels under $550.00 also.
You will need to buy LightBurn software @ $80.00.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HJX68QQ?pf_rd_r=B5TWNSTC5XBKF7M5GZKB&pf_rd_p=8fe9b1d0-f378-4356-8bb8-cada7525eadd&pd_rd_r=b5cbc78c-2ba5-4294-b314-13beab54ee60&pd_rd_w=NTXU2&pd_rd_wg=2hqCu&ref_=pd_gw_unk

There are many others here is another
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BQP81BR/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFWVkxXQTM1NEw2NTQmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAzOTI2NjUxUE0wRFVKUk1GS0IwJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAwNzY1MjdPQ1k2VTRMMjhOMEomd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9ocXBfc2hhcmVkJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY
2s9dHJ1ZQ==
 Lastly IMHO I would stay away from Glowforge the price is @ 6x the best Ortour and it is a completely closed system meaning everything has to be Glowforge based even the operating software.
https://glowforge.com/our-products/plus?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=WP-Standard_Shopping-Non_Brand_Buy-US&utm_term&utm_device=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5JSLBhCxARIsAHgO2SfYbId7U6UZq9-PJRa_EnkTMGCbN1VHtyewJ7PB_5gtFAtKXaG4cUoaAiNnEALw_wcB

mooseman
Lastly IMHO I would stay away from Glowforge the price is @ 6x the best Ortour and it is

[Pangea]

Pad printing- printing would be quicker, setup slower. You do have the option of changing up the ink colors which might be something you're looking for.

Laser- your budget probably limits you to C02 which would be slower than something like a fiber laser. Upside to laser is you can set it up to engrave multiple pieces if they're flat- just build a jig and drop the pieces in. You can also setup new designs pretty quick if you're proficient in AI.