How custom physical cards work
You can design custom cards with Stripe that showcase your brand to your end users.
You can choose from various options, but before designing your card, it’s important to understand how they’re created and what key elements make up a card. This helps inform the choices available and requirements that need to be followed. Reach out to your account representative to learn more about custom card pricing.
How to create custom physical cards
The following table describes the different stages needed to get a card from the design file to live and in your hands. This is what you should expect at every step of the process:
Step | Timeline | What to expect |
---|---|---|
1: Design | 2 weeks | Upload artwork on the card design template and choose desired features. Stripe reviews and provides feedback as needed. |
2: Proofing | 1 week | The card printer generates a proof with the card artwork, colors, quantity, and material details that are provided for your approval prior to finalizing the order. Simultaneously, the printer submits the card artwork to Visa or MasterCard to make sure it meets compliance requirements. |
3: Manufacturing | 12+ weeks | Cards are manufactured using specialized machinery at the card printer. The artwork is printed on plastic, collated with all required card layers, laminated with desired finish, and cut into cards. Due to material supply challenges, card lead times are currently a few months longer compared to the standard timeline. |
4: Testing | 2 weeks | After cards are manufactured, they’re shipped to the personalization site to conduct testing to ensure that the cards are functional and set up correctly. |
5: Go live | 2 business days after testing completes | Cards are made live in your Stripe account. At this point, they’re ready to start issuing. |
Use your custom bundle to create a personalization design
After your custom bundle is ready for use, Stripe creates a physical bundle object on your behalf. You can also list all of your physical bundles.
A personalization design is how you control the appearance of your physical cards in the API. It consists of a physical bundle, and a logo and carrier text if your bundle supports it.
We also provide a number of features to help manage personalization designs, including:
- Setting default designs to use when you issue a card
- Using lookup keys to use many designs without having to change code
- Using Connect to manage personalization designs across many accounts
See managing personalization designs to learn more.
Create a card
After you have a personalization design, you can start creating physical cards with that design. Include the ID of the personalization_design
you want to use when creating the card. If the design has already been approved, cards you create with it are fulfilled right away. If the design is in review, the cards are fulfilled when the design is approved.
If you have any design set as default, any card you create without specifying a design uses that default. See default personalization designs to learn more.