Custom Lanyards & Badge Reels With Your Logo

How to choose

Start with how the credential actually gets used, not with how it looks. If it is worn and read — a conference badge, a name card, a visitor pass — a printed lanyard on its own does the job, and it is the cheapest way to get your logo at chest height in front of a room. If it is worn and used — scanned through a door, tapped on a reader, held up to a terminal thirty times a shift — you want a retractable badge reel. The difference is not cosmetic. On a fixed lanyard every scan means a tug on the badge, and within a few months the punch hole tears and the credential ends up in a pocket.

Then decide whether the card itself needs protecting. Paper and thin stock will not survive a three-day event being handled, pocketed and rained on, and an employee ID will not survive a year of it. A badge holder solves that: rigid plastic for anything worn daily, cheaper vinyl for a single event, zip-closed where the badge doubles as a room key or a transit pass. If your badges are printed on card stock and people are keeping them, budget for holders from the start rather than replacing badges halfway through.

If you are outfitting a team from nothing, order the pieces together rather than separately. Our lanyard and badge reel sets arrive with the reel already fitted, which means one purchase order, one proof to approve and one delivery — instead of two of each and somebody clipping several hundred reels on by hand. It is also the only way to guarantee the hardware finish matches, since the two parts are assembled together at production.

Two specifications get forgotten and both are cheap to add at order time. A breakaway safety release lets the lanyard separate under load instead of pulling on the wearer — most school districts, hospitals and sites with machinery require it in writing, so check your own policy before you order. And metal hardware at the crimp and the badge end is the single most worthwhile upgrade on any credential worn daily: the webbing almost never fails first, the plastic connector does.

Still not sure? Send us your artwork and tell us how the credential will be used. We will come back with a recommendation and a free digital proof before you commit to anything — call 800-927-2630 or email info@brandedlanyards.com.