Free design proof on every custom order: no templates, no stock SKUs
Custom letterhead is built around a size, layout or stock that doesn't fit the standard 8.5 x 11 sheet. An unusual dimension, a folded format, or a heavier cotton or linen paper meant to signal a firm's standing before a word is read. Set your size, weight and print colors, and we'll build the layout around how the letter will actually be produced, printed and mailed. A practical option for firms with a distinct paper standard already in place.
Most letterhead follows one of two familiar formats. A standard 8.5 by 11 inch sheet for everyday US correspondence, or an 8.5 by 14 inch legal sheet for firms that need the extra length. Custom letterhead exists for the situations that fall outside either of those defaults: a firm with an established paper standard tied to a specific size, a layout built around a non-standard margin or fold, or correspondence meant to be printed on a distinctive stock that a standard order wouldn't accommodate. It's less about a dramatically different shape and more about precision. Getting the size, weight and printed layout to match exactly what a firm has already decided its correspondence should look like.
Paper choice does more work on letterhead than on almost any other printed piece, because it's often the first physical thing a client or partner touches from a company. A 24 lb bond is the common baseline for everyday internal and external correspondence. Smooth enough to print and write on cleanly, substantial enough not to feel flimsy. Moving up to a 28 lb or 32 lb stock, or to a cotton or linen-textured paper, adds a tactile weight that reads as more established. The kind of stock typically reserved for law firms, financial services, and client-facing correspondence where the paper itself is part of the impression. Watermarked or laid-texture stock is a further step up, often chosen by firms that want their letterhead to be recognizable by feel alone.
Layout on custom letterhead usually centers on a header block (logo, firm name, address and contact details) positioned to leave enough clear space for a standard business letter format, plus a lighter-weight footer for licensing numbers, additional office locations, or legal disclaimers where required. Because letterhead gets reproduced constantly, whether on a laser printer for one-off letters or via offset printing for a bulk supply, it's worth confirming early whether the design needs to print well in both black-and-white and full color, since not every layout translates cleanly to a single-color office printer.
Before ordering, it helps to settle the finished size and orientation, the paper weight and finish, and how the letterhead will actually be used day to day. A small firm printing a handful of letters a week has very different needs than an office running a shared printer through hundreds of sheets a month. Matching the order quantity and print method to actual usage, rather than defaulting to the largest run available, keeps the letterhead both cost-effective and current if contact details or branding change down the line.
Letterhead has a constraint no other stationery has: it must feed through an office printer without jamming, and take toner or ink without the printed letterhead lifting. That rules out heavy coated stocks entirely. Uncoated bond and text weights around 90 to 120gsm are the working range: heavy enough to feel substantial, light enough to feed reliably.
Why can I not use a coated stock? Toner does not bond reliably to a coated surface, and the sheets slip in the feed tray. Uncoated is not a compromise here, it is the requirement.
Letterhead is a background that something else prints on top of, which makes the empty space as designed as the printed part. The pre-printed elements have to leave a clear, generous area for correspondence, and anything sitting where an office printer cannot reach (most printers have an unprintable margin) will be clipped when the letter itself is printed.
How much space should I leave? More than looks right on screen. A letter runs longer than a mockup, and a cramped letterhead forces awkward layouts every time it is used.
Most letterhead is deliberately unfinished, because a coating would stop it accepting toner and pen. Where a premium impression matters, the finishes that work are the ones that do not coat the writing area. A blind emboss, a foil logo at the head, or a textured or cotton stock whose surface does the work without adding a film.
Can letterhead be laminated? No. It has to accept toner and pen. Use stock texture, foil or embossing instead, all of which leave the writing surface usable.
Letterhead rarely exists alone. Envelopes, compliment slips, second sheets and business cards are normally ordered against it so the stock, color and printing match across the whole set. Ordering them separately is where mismatches appear, and a slightly different white between a letter and its envelope is more noticeable than most people expect.
Should I order the set together? Yes. Paper whites vary between batches and suppliers, and a mismatched envelope undermines the letterhead it carries.
For stationery that does not fit the standard sheets. An unusual dimension, an A4 sheet for international correspondence, a folded format, or a heavier presentation stock for letters that are hand-delivered rather than printed on. The constraint that still applies is feeding: if it goes through an office printer, the stock and size have to suit that.
Can custom letterhead be heavier? If it is hand-written or hand-delivered rather than machine printed, yes. If it feeds a printer, weight is still constrained.
Ask for samples and test-feed them through your own printer before committing. How a stock behaves in your machine is the one thing we cannot test for you.
The stock pressed into relief with no ink. It is the classic letterhead finish because it adds a tactile premium signal without laying anything on the surface that would stop toner bonding or pen writing.
A metallic logo or rule at the head of the sheet. Kept to the letterhead area it leaves the correspondence space entirely clear, which is why it works here where a coating would not.
Laid, linen or cotton surfaces. The texture does the work a coating would do elsewhere, signalling quality through touch while remaining fully printable and writable.
Envelopes, compliment slips and second sheets produced alongside on the same stock from the same batch, which is the only reliable way to guarantee the whites actually match.
Same family, genuinely different jobs. Your current selection is highlighted.
| Letterhead | From | Sheet | Order it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Letterhead | $170 | 8.5″ × 11″ | Everyday correspondence and invoices |
| Legal Letterhead | $180 | 8.5″ × 14″ | Contracts, filings and agreements |
| Custom Letterhead | $170 | Your sheet and format | A4, folded or presentation weight |
If it is hand-written or hand-delivered rather than machine printed, yes, and a heavier sheet makes a real difference on a letter that is meant to be an object. If it feeds an office printer, the weight constraint still applies.
Yes. If you correspond outside North America regularly it is worth having, since A4 fits the folders, envelopes and filing used everywhere that does not use letter size.
It can, though bear in mind it still has to fit an envelope and, usually, a printer. Unusual formats work best where the letter is produced by us rather than printed in your office.
Usually. Send a physical sample. Stock weight, texture and white point are all far easier to match from the sheet than from a description, and the white point in particular is nearly impossible to specify in words.
Pricing for custom letterhead starts at $170 and moves with quantity, size, material and finish rather than sitting on a fixed list. Setup is shared across the run, so the per-unit price drops steeply as the quantity rises: the gap between a few hundred and a few thousand is usually the significant one. Send the size, quantity and what it has to do and you get a firm figure back, not a range.
There is a practical minimum rather than a hard one. Every run carries artwork checks, a proof and a press setup, so a very small quantity of custom letterhead prices poorly per unit even though we will still make it. If you are ordering a small batch, ask for pricing at two or three quantities at once: the curve usually shows that a modest increase costs very little more in total.
The clock starts when you approve the proof, not when the order is placed, which is the part most people are surprised by. You get a proof first: a digital proof with the printable area and fold positions marked. If you send a typical letter we will overlay it, which is the quickest way to see whether the layout works in practice rather than in principle. Turnaround after approval depends on the finish: anything laminated, foiled or die-cut adds a stage that cannot be compressed without causing problems later. Tell us the date you actually need them and we will work backwards from it rather than quoting a generic lead time.
Print-ready artwork with bleed and a safe margin, supplied as a PDF, AI or EPS. Photographic elements should be supplied at the resolution the finished size needs, not the resolution that looks sharp on screen. If your file is not print-ready, say so when you order. We would rather fix it before the proof than after the run.
Yes. Your sheet and format is the standard build, and the dimensions around it are yours to set. A size that sits efficiently on the press sheet often costs no more than a standard one, while an awkward proportion that wastes half the sheet does. Ask before you commit and we will tell you whether a small change to the dimensions saves a disproportionate amount.
In most cases they are the same product under a different name: the trade uses several terms for it depending on the region and the supplier. What actually defines this one is the build: your sheet and format. Order it when a4, folded or presentation weight. If you have seen it called custom letterhead printing elsewhere, describe what it has to do rather than which name you found, and we will match the specification.
Yes. We provide free samples, and on custom letterhead it is worth asking for one, because the difference between bond and bond / text is obvious in the hand and invisible on a screen. Most orders run on bond / text, but ask for whichever you are weighing up. You also get a free design proof before anything goes to press, so nothing is printed that you have not seen.
The usual choices are blind embossing, foil stamping, textured stock. Finish is not decoration on this product so much as a decision about how long it survives and how it reads in the hand, so it is worth choosing against the job rather than the budget. Tell us where the finished piece ends up and we will say which finish is doing real work and which is only adding cost.
Yes, and that is what almost every order here is. Nothing in this catalogue is a stock item: custom letterhead are manufactured to the specification you give us, with your artwork on them. Send your logo as vector artwork where you have it, since that scales to any size without softening. If all you have is a low-resolution file, tell us and we will say what it needs before it reaches the press.
Yes, and a repeat run is simpler than the first one. We keep your approved specification on file, so a reorder skips the setup decisions and goes straight to production. If nothing about the artwork or the specification has changed, there is nothing to re-approve. Tell us the previous order and we will match it rather than starting the specification again.
Yes. Regalo Print has been producing custom commercial print for businesses across the USA and Canada since 2008, and every order ships tracked. The tracking number reaches you the day the job leaves, not the day it arrives. If you are working to a fixed date, say so when you order so the production schedule is built around the delivery date rather than the other way round.
