Full-colour flyer printing in Melbourne

Most flyer printing decisions get made in the wrong order. People pick a size and a stock first, then work out where the flyer is going afterwards, and end up with 5,000 copies of something built for the wrong destination. A 120gsm flyer is perfectly good in a letterbox and gets binned at a reception desk before lunch. This page covers the specs, and the reasoning behind which ones to pick.

Print and distribute in one order

Skip the print-shop pickup and the courier drop-off. When you book printing with Melbourne Flyers, your artwork goes straight from the press to the walker's bag.

The reason to book both together isn't only convenience. Using a separate printer and distributor gives you two timelines that neither company is responsible for reconciling. Your printer quotes five business days, your distributor has a slot in six, and if the print run goes a day over, that slot is gone. Neither party has much incentive to solve it for you. Running both through one provider removes the seam entirely.

How fast can you print flyers?

Standard turnaround is 3-5 business days from approved artwork to printed flyers. If distribution is bundled, allow 5-7 business days from booking to the first flyer landing.

The print clock starts once artwork is approved, not when you upload it. That distinction is worth holding onto when you compare printers, because a quote measured from upload and a quote measured from approval aren't the same number, and the gap is exactly as long as it takes to fix a file that failed a check. If your artwork needs a correction, the count starts again once the corrected file is approved.

If that's too slow, same-day printing is available for orders confirmed before 1:30pm Melbourne time. The cutoff isn't arbitrary: it's the point past which there isn't enough of the working day left to print, finish, and dispatch.

Sizes

Size is mostly a question of how much you need to say and where the flyer has to fit.

• DL (99 × 210mm). The classic letterbox size. Fits a standard slot without folding, which matters more than it sounds: a flyer that has to be bent to fit arrives creased. Best for takeaway menus and single-offer flyers.
• A6 (105 × 148mm). Compact and cheap per unit, with a postcard feel that reads as more deliberate than its cost suggests. Works when the message is short and the volume is high.
• A5 (148 × 210mm). The most popular size, and the default for good reason. Large enough to carry a real message, small enough to slide into a bag or a desk drawer without becoming a nuisance. The standard choice for hand-to-hand and reception drops.
• A4 (210 × 297mm). Premium presence for property listings, events, and hero campaigns. It costs more and it won't fit every letterbox unfolded, so use it when the extra size is doing real work rather than by default.

Paper stocks

• 120gsm Bond. Light, matte, cost-efficient. Fine for a residential letterbox drop, where the flyer only has to survive a walk to the kitchen bench.
• 150gsm Gloss or Satin. Vibrant photo reproduction at a sensible price. Our most popular stock, and the right default for most campaigns.
• 250gsm Gloss. Premium card feel. The point at which a flyer stops reading as disposable, which is why it's the usual starting point for anything going through an office reception.
• 300gsm Gloss. Heaviest premium stock, near-postcard weight. For high-value offers where the physical object is part of the pitch.

Let the destination pick the stock

This is the single decision people get wrong most often, and it's the one that costs the most to fix, because you only find out after the run is printed.

For a residential letterbox, lighter stock is genuinely fine. The flyer has one job and a short journey. Paying for 250gsm across a 20,000-piece letterbox campaign is money spent on a quality nobody registers.

For an office drop, paper weight is doing real work. Reception desks see a constant stream of flyers and menus, and most of it is binned before lunch. A 115gsm flyer reads as disposable and gets treated that way. A 250gsm or 300gsm stock reads as something somebody bothered to make properly, and that changes whether reception passes it on. The extra cost per piece buys you the only thing that matters in that channel: getting past the desk. See business drops for how that distribution actually runs.

For hand-to-hand, sit in the middle. 150gsm is usually right. The flyer is going straight into a palm, so it doesn't need to survive a gatekeeper, but it does need to not feel like a receipt.

Single sided or double sided

Both are available on every size and stock. Double-sided adds roughly 30-50% to the print cost, and buys you room for a map, terms, a secondary offer, or longer-form detail.

The honest test is whether anyone will turn it over. Single-sided works better for anything meant to be read in under five seconds, which covers most street handouts and reception drops. Double-sided earns its cost when there's a real offer plus supporting detail worth reading: pricing on one side, terms or a location map on the other.

Double-sided flyers, any size, anywhere in Melbourne

Double-sided printing is available on every size, from a DL letterbox flyer to an A4 hero piece, and it costs the same whether the finished flyers are heading to a CBD reception desk, a South Melbourne shopfront, or a suburban letterbox run. The size and stock decisions above apply the same way regardless of destination. What changes by location is the distribution method, not the print job itself.

Artwork requirements

• Print-ready PDF, CMYK colour mode, 300dpi at final size
• 3mm bleed on all sides, crop marks recommended
• Keep type at least 5mm from the trim edge
• Convert fonts to outlines, or embed them

The two that catch people out are colour mode and bleed. A file set up in RGB prints differently to CMYK, and a vivid blue on screen can come out noticeably duller once converted. And if your background or image runs to the edge of the page, it needs to extend past the trim line in the file, or you'll get a thin white border you didn't ask for.

Build these in before you design rather than after. Retrofitting bleed into a finished layout is far more annoying than allowing for it from the start.

How much does flyer printing cost?

Quantity moves the price more than anything else, with per-piece cost dropping meaningfully at higher volumes. After that, in rough order of impact: paper stock, size, and single versus double sided. Bundling distribution with printing is typically more cost-effective than sourcing them separately, since you're not paying two margins and two sets of logistics overhead.

Print pricing is fully transparent and updates live in the quote builder as you change each variable. Volume tiers are on the pricing page.

Which printing service do you need?

This page covers standard flyer printing. A few campaigns need something more specific:

• Same-day printing if your deadline is today. Orders confirmed before 1:30pm go to print the same day.
• Flyer printing for the CBD if your campaign targets Melbourne's city centre. Office buildings have no letterboxes, distribution windows are narrow, and the stock and timing decisions work differently.
• Ordering online if you want the whole process handled from a browser, with the price visible before you upload anything.
• Brochure printing if your content needs folding into panels rather than living on one flat sheet.

And once the flyers are printed, they need to go somewhere: letterbox distribution for residential drops across metro Melbourne, hand-to-hand for street and station handouts, or business drops for offices and reception desks.