Flyer paper weight guide

Most flyers are printed on paper between 115 and 170 gsm. Use 115 to 130 gsm for large letterbox drops where cost per copy matters, 150 gsm for a standard A5, DL or A4 flyer, and 170 gsm when the flyer sits on a counter and should feel like the business took care over it. Go heavier, 250 gsm and up, only for pieces handled again and again, such as a menu or a postcard. Choose the finish as a separate decision: gloss for photographs, matte for text and bright rooms, uncoated if people will write on it.

The table under this article lists the common weights with how each feels, what it is used for, the approximate US equivalent and what one A4 sheet weighs.

What GSM means

GSM stands for grams per square metre, the weight of one sheet of that paper cut to a metre by a metre. You never print on a sheet that size, but the number lets you compare any two stocks. Paperlust’s paper weight guide gives three reference points that make every other number intuitive: office copy paper is 80 gsm, a takeaway menu that folds without creasing badly is around 130 to 150 gsm, and a business card that snaps when bent is 350 to 400 gsm.

GSM is weight, not thickness. Two papers of the same GSM can feel different depending on whether they are coated and how much they were pressed during manufacture. If the feel matters, ask the printer for a sample sheet rather than trusting the number alone.

If you are ordering from a US supplier, weights are given in pounds and split into text and cover grades. PrintingCenterUSA’s guide converts them: 20 to 24 lb bond is about 75 to 90 gsm, 100 lb text is 148 gsm, and 80 to 100 lb cover is 216 to 270 gsm. It suggests 70 to 100 lb text for flyers, which lands in the same range Australian printers recommend.

Weight by use

The right weight depends on what happens to the flyer after it is printed.

Letterbox drops and inserts: 115 to 130 gsm. Paperlust describes 115 gsm as a cost effective entry option for high volume drops. The flyer is read once, often at the letterbox, and the saving across thousands of copies is real.

Handouts and noticeboards: 150 gsm. The standard weight. It holds itself upright on a pin and survives a day in a bag. The workshop flyer is the kind of A4 noticeboard piece this suits.

Counters and waiting rooms: 170 gsm. A premium step that customers feel in the hand. The open house flyer is handed to buyers at an inspection and taken home to compare against other properties, which is exactly where a heavier sheet earns its cost.

Windows and repeated handling: 200 to 250 gsm. Paperlust suggests 200 to 250 gsm for an outward facing window poster or a piece handled repeatedly, and 250 gsm for anything that needs to stand up briefly without bending.

Menus, postcards and invitations: 300 to 400 gsm. Card stock, for pieces that get picked up, passed around and put back.

Double sided flyers: add a step. A flyer printed on both sides needs a heavier or more opaque sheet than a single sided one, because a dark photograph on the back shows through thin paper and muddies the text on the front. If a 130 gsm single sided flyer is right, print the double sided version on 150 or 170 gsm, and ask the printer whether the stock is opaque enough for solid colour on both sides.

The cafe menu, three ways

The cafe menu flyer is three designs for one fictional cafe, and each wants a different stock.

The full menu prints on A4 for the door and lists every dish and price in one table, from seeded toast at 7 dollars to green shakshuka at 19. Taped inside a glass door, 170 gsm is enough; as a menu handed to every table, it should be 300 gsm card or laminated, because it will be handled all day.

The photo specials board pulls four dishes onto a photo grid for the week. Because it changes weekly, and a board like that usually goes in a window, a 170 gsm gloss stock suits the photographs without the cost of card for something replaced in seven days.

The set menu sheet prices three packages for groups of eight or more, at 32, 55 and 28 dollars a head. It is handed to someone organising an event, who may annotate it, so 150 gsm matte or uncoated is the practical choice.

Gloss, matte or uncoated

Finish is independent of weight: you can buy 150 gsm in gloss or matte. Paperlust’s guide sets out the trade off. Gloss gives sharper colour and a brighter white, which suits photography and vivid graphics. Matte avoids fingerprints, reads better under harsh retail or office lighting and tends to feel more understated.

Uncoated paper is the third option and the right one whenever someone will write on the flyer: a coupon, a sign up slip or an entry form. Ballpoint and pencil sit badly on coated stock.

If you are printing at home rather than at a shop, the choice is narrower, since many home printers have a maximum paper weight. How to print a flyer at home covers that side.

Recycled and certified paper

Recycled and certified papers come in the usual flyer weights. The Forest Stewardship Council certifies forests and the paper made from them, and its labels let a business make a checkable environmental claim on the flyer itself rather than a vague one. Ask the printer which certified stocks they carry, and ask for a sample: some recycled papers have a warmer, less bright white, which slightly mutes vivid colours.

Cost and posting weight

Heavier paper costs more to print and more to distribute, but the weights involved are small. An A4 sheet has an area of about 0.0624 square metres, so at 150 gsm it weighs about 9.4 grams, and at 350 gsm about 22 grams. A DL flyer at 150 gsm is about 3 grams.

That matters for letterbox distribution. Australia Post’s Unaddressed Mail service accepts small items up to 130 by 240 mm and large items up to 260 by 360 mm, both up to 100 grams, so an A4 flyer on any sensible stock fits the large category by size and is nowhere near the weight limit. Print shops such as Officeworks list flyers in A6, A5, DL and A4 with a range of paper types, so compare the price of two weights on the same order before deciding.

Common mistakes

• 80 gsm for a customer facing flyer. It creases, shows through and looks disposable.
• Heavy card for a one off letterbox drop. The extra cost rarely changes the response.
• Gloss for a form people must fill in.
• Choosing by number without a sample. The same GSM can feel very different.
• Forgetting the finish is a separate choice.

Build it

An A4 flyer here is designed on a 1240 by 1754 pixel canvas and exports at 2480 by 3508 pixels, which is 300 DPI at A4. A4 portrait and A4 landscape are the print presets; the other six canvas sizes are for social media. The export is RGB with no bleed, no crop marks and no CMYK conversion, so tell the printer that when you order your stock. The A4 flyer maker page covers the print size, what DPI a flyer needs explains the resolution, and the guide to choosing your flyer’s template, theme and size shows where the format is set. For everything else that changes between a printed flyer and a social post, see print flyer vs digital flyer.