10–20 working days
design included
shipping across Poland
“I already have a logo and I know what I want to pack, but I have no idea where to start or how long it will take” — we get an email like this at Sabona regularly. And that’s a good first move, because ordering printed packaging isn’t hard — it just has its own order of steps. What you prepare at the start decides whether you pick up your run in two weeks or wait a month for it.
We are a packaging manufacturer from Warsaw: we design and print in-house, and we ship the finished runs across Poland. Instead of writing yet another piece about “why packaging matters”, we’ll show you the process from the inside. What to have on hand, what the order looks like step by step, roughly how much it costs, and what — quite unnecessarily — most often stretches the lead time.
Before you even write — what’s worth having on hand
You don’t need a print-ready file, and you don’t need to be an expert on cardboard. Three things are enough for us to work out a quote and get going:
- What you’re packing. The product and its dimensions, or at least a rough size. A box for macarons and a box for a scented candle are two different worlds — the sooner we know, the more accurately we’ll pick the construction.
- Roughly how many units. The run size moves the unit price more than anything else. 500 units is one calculation, 5,000 is another — and it’s perfectly normal to only know a range at the start.
- A logo or a design in any form. Got vectors? Great. Only have artwork from a business card or a signboard? We’ll handle that too.
The rest — the type of cardboard, the construction, the print finishing, food-contact materials — that’s our job. That’s what we’re here for.
Step by step: what ordering looks like
The whole process comes together in five stages. None of it requires any technical knowledge from you:
- Quote and conversation. You write to us with what you need — we reply with an initial quote and ask about anything that’s missing. If you’d rather have a figure even before you get in touch, work it out in the calculator: you enter the dimensions and the run, and a 3D preview of the box changes alongside. It takes a minute.
- Design and visualisation. We prepare the construction and apply your print to it. You get a visualisation — you see how the packaging will actually look before anything goes on the machine.
- Approval. You review it, request changes, approve. This moment matters more than it seems — we’ll come back to it in a moment.
- Production. Printing, die-cutting, gluing. All of it in-house, on site, so we control the quality and the deadline ourselves rather than through three subcontractors.
- Packing and shipping. We bundle up the run and send it to the address you give us — whether that’s halfway across Warsaw or to the other end of Poland.
What most often stretches the lead time (and how to avoid it)
I’ll say it plainly, because it’s useful: production itself is rarely the bottleneck. Most often the time is eaten up by what happens before it.
- A drawn-out approval. The design waits a few days for “let me just show my business partner first”. That’s completely human — but this is exactly where the most days disappear.
- A last-minute logo change. A new version of the artwork after approval means going back a stage. Better to bundle all your comments in one go.
- No decision on the construction. “Lid, or lid-and-base?” can hang for a week. If you don’t know — write to us, we’ll suggest what works better for your product.
- Food contact flagged too late. If food goes into the packaging, food-safe materials have to be settled from the start, not added on at the end.
Got a firm deadline — the holidays, a launch, a trade fair? Tell us about it right away. We’ll organise the work around that date, and production itself is predictable; it’s the little things before it that most often decide whether you’ll make it.
How to read a quote — what really moves the price
Two quotes “per box” can differ twofold and both be honest — because different things hide behind the word “box”. It’s worth knowing what you’re paying for, so you compare apples with apples. What really affects the per-unit price:
- The run. The more units, the cheaper per one — the cost of setting up the print is spread across the whole run. Jumping from 500 to 1,000 can bring the unit price down sharply.
- The construction. A simple lid is one thing, but a lid-and-base with a magnet, or a drawer with an insert, is a completely different amount of work.
- The cardboard. The weight and type (solid, microflute, kraft) change both the price and how the packaging “holds” the product.
- The print. A logo alone in one colour costs differently from full, colour coverage of the entire surface.
- Finishing. Matt/gloss film, spot varnish, embossing, a window — they look great, but each of these extras raises the price. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s an unnecessary cost; it’s good to make that decision consciously.
From how many units, and how much it costs
We produce from 500 units, so we’re a good fit both for a first, cautious run and for large B2B orders. We do the construction design and print preparation as part of the job — we don’t charge for them separately.
A quote in a minute
Work out the cost of your packaging
Enter the dimensions and the run — you’ll see an initial price and a 3D preview of the box.
What to ask a manufacturer before you order
A short cheat sheet that saves misunderstandings — whether you order from us or anywhere else:
- Are the design and print included in the price, or charged separately?
- Will I see a visualisation to approve before production starts?
- What materials are used for food contact?
- From which moment is the lead time counted — from the order or from approval of the design?
- What about a reprint in six months — will the next run be colour-matched to the first?
Who we’ve already produced for
Packaging we’ve produced is carried by, among others, Milk Bar, Maya Cake and Takava. Each of these brands had a different product and a different idea of itself — and that’s the point: good packaging should look like that brand, not like a template. Take a look at solutions for your industry: food service, patisseries and bakeries, sushi.
If you’re still looking for a direction, the categories are a good starting point too: printed packaging and cardboard boxes.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. A logo in any form is enough — we’ll prepare the construction and the print layout, and you approve the finished visualisation.
500 units. That’s enough to test the packaging on the market without going straight into the thousands.
We count the lead time from approval of the design and payment of the deposit — that’s usually 10 to 20 working days, around 15 on average. Paper bags take a little longer, 20–25 working days (usually around 23). The exact time depends on the construction and the type of print, so we confirm it with the quote.
First you get a visualisation to approve, so you see the final look before production. We can also show physical samples of our finished work in the same or a similar size, and if needed prepare a plotter-cut mock-up — with one caveat: its quality differs from the final piece printed on offset. We usually don’t make a single sample of your exact design, because offset requires running the whole batch (about 100–200 sheets are added to the print just to set up the machine). So one such piece would cost as much as a smaller batch — if you still need it, it can be done, just with that in mind.
Wherever the packaging is in contact with food, we use food-safe materials. Just flag it at the start.
Yes, we ship our work across Poland. Warsaw is where we produce, not the limit of our orders.
Got a product and a rough idea of how many units you need? Send a quote request — we’ll prepare a proposal for your product, not for a generic price list.