Small and mid-sized
Yes, if you can hire ten badges for two days at a published total and skip a workplace operating system. A twenty-person firm should not need per-user licences to stop using thermal stickers. Large firms can buy the same hardware; the compiler does not change.
Visitor software priced per user and per connected display is a reasonable model for a campus. It is a poor model for a twelve-person studio that hosts clients twice a month. The studio needed names on chests, not a hybrid-work platform.
Hire is instrumentation. Try the physics on real dates. If the greeter workflow holds, buy a smaller owned set for weekly meetings and hire extras when visitors flood the room.
As of September 2026, ten badges for two days is £140 including postage under qty × days × £6 plus £20 out and back. One badge exists as a kit size if you only need to prove the hardware.
Public shop pages for workplace ePaper badges have listed a five-piece minimum around ninety-nine dollars ex tax, with a visitor-management subscription required for wireless sync — as of September 2026 on Joan’s badge product page. Their 30-day hardware refund and software trial are real. The motion is still demo and licence.
We do not mock that stack. A facilities manager rolling out door displays and visitor kiosks is not our greeter. We publish GBP totals and ship from Cleckheaton. Different purchase orders.
If you already decided you want photo ID, four-colour e-ink, and BLE from a tablet, buy that. If you needed a name at handshake distance this Thursday, hire.
Chapters, breakfast clubs, clinics, showrooms, agencies, project offices, chambers. Anyone whose visitor problem is a list and a morning, not a global admin console.
BNI is featured because we sit in a UK chapter. Not a partnership. Other referral groups upload their own mark.
Mid-market offices with a real reception can still start on hire, then buy. The designer does not fork.
If legal requires NDA capture at the glass and a live muster feed, we are the wrong cart. If you need SSO into a workplace OS, look at those vendors. If you already staff a print desk for a 3,000-person expo, paper may still win on disposable branding.
Worth is calendar math. If the next wear date is in three months, hire. If it is every Tuesday, read buy versus hire after one successful window.
A two-hundred-badge buy uses the same 250×122 three-ink compiler as a ten-badge hire. Volume is email and lead time, not a different product name. We will not invent a fake “enterprise SKU” to look bigger.
Enterprise buyers still get UK fulfilment, director-reviewed copy, and Companies House on the about page. They do not get a fake G2 widget.
Hire as a trial is the commercial twin of this answer. Why companies use visitor software reframes the category toward devices. Pricing shows live totals as you change quantity and dates.
One badge, one day: six pounds hire plus twenty pounds postage. That is a proof, not a meeting. Ten badges, one day: eighty pounds plus postage. Ten badges, two days: one hundred and twenty pounds plus postage, which is the one hundred and forty pound example we print everywhere because it is the chapter-table size we actually use.
Twenty-five badges, one visitor morning: one hundred and fifty pounds plus postage. Fifty badges, one conference day: three hundred and twenty pounds plus postage. Multi-day multiplies calendar days, not hours in the room. A three-hour breakfast and a ten-hour expo both count as the dates on the invoice.
Buy-to-keep: eighty pounds times quantity plus twenty pounds postage once. Five owned badges are four hundred pounds plus postage, with year one of platform included. Compare that to repeating hire every Tuesday for a year — the buy-versus-hire guide exists for that spreadsheet.
Deposits on kits are holds, not a discount theatre. If a number on a third-party blog disagrees with /pricing/, the live page wins. We date comparisons because workplace shops change MOQ and licence copy.
Joan’s SMB FAQ says small teams benefit without complex setups, then still points at a platform trial. Our version of simple is: account or guest checkout, designer, dates, box. No tenant isolation for coworking, no SSO workshop, no device-licence spreadsheet.
You still need to spell names. You still need to count people. You still need a greeter with hands. Simple is not magical. Simple is fewer moving radios.
Mid-sized firms (forty to two hundred people) often have a receptionist and a printer they resent. Hire a visitor-day kit before you capitalise a tray. If the receptionist prefers a kiosk after that, you learned something cheap. If they prefer the crate, buy.
We ship UK-wide. We do not run a thirty-city landing-page farm. If you are outside the United Kingdom, email before you assume postage. The published twenty pounds is the UK hire out-and-back figure.
Eight people still receive visitors. A supplier. A candidate. A chapter guest. Stickers still curl. A ten-badge hire for those mornings is the smallest kit that feels like a meeting rather than a proof. One-badge hire exists if you only need to see the film on a real chest in your light.
You do not need a facilities manager. You do not need an IT ticket for a tenant. You need dates, a list, and a card or an invoice. That is the SMB wedge Joan’s FAQ also claims, then routes into a platform trial. We route into a crate.
Account optional at first: guest checkout and the designer can start a layout without a ceremony. Team invites exist when two people share the list. Billing exists when you buy. None of that is SSO.
If your eight people are a clinic, a workshop, or a farm shop, the same 250×122 grid still applies. We will not write thirty city pages that pretend we have a Manchester warehouse. The van still leaves Cleckheaton.
If every arrival is a surprise courier and you need a legal signature every time, a kiosk product is closer to the job. Hire will frustrate you because the list was never knowable.
If you need a door display that shows room status, we do not have a public SKU. Do not use this answer as a display quote. The displays pillar is a later phase, and it will not take payment until the object exists.
If you need NFC lead-scan for an expo, this is a name badge, not a scanner gun. QR can point at a URL. That is not a CRM capture suite.
If you need us to be cheaper than a sheet of A4 in a supermarket, we will lose. The film is a device. The hire formula is the honest price of not printing. Pay it or print.
SMEs without a front desk still greet. The person who opens the door is the greeter. They need a named bezel in a box, not a kiosk training session. That is the worth-it test: can that person open a crate and clip a chest before coffee.
If the answer is no because nobody will unpack a box, stickers will also fail because nobody will load a printer. The constraint is staffing, not pixels. We cannot hire you a human.
If the answer is yes, the published hire total is the cost of stopping thermal for that morning. Compare it to the print shop quote including reprints. Then decide. The small-business FAQ on a workplace site that routes you into a 30-day OS trial is answering a different test.
Account signup is optional at the start. Guest checkout exists. You will want an account if you buy, or if two people share the list. You do not need it to see the 250×122 preview in the designer.
Forty to two hundred people is where receptionists appear and printers are resented. Hire a twenty-five kit for the next visitor day. If that morning works, buy a core tray. If it does not, you spent a published number instead of a rollout.
We will not sell you coworking isolation, floor-plan occupancy, or a parking module because a competitor’s SMB page mentioned them. Those pages are a different company. This page is a crate.
Procurement at this size still wants a supplier on Companies House. We are 17265335. The pin is on About. Email is hire@inkbadgehire.com. That is the whole vendor pack besides the terms.
If your mid-market IT team asks for SSO next, the answer is not yet. Do not write it into this FAQ as if a SAML box were hiding in checkout. The calendar-integrations answer is the same honesty for OAuth.
A sole trader hiring one badge to see the film in a shop window is still in scope. The compiler does not have a minimum company size. It has a minimum of one chest and a date. Postage is still twenty pounds. That is the honest awkwardness of a one-badge proof, and it is why we print it: you can buy the physics without a tenant.