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Custom Enamel Lapel Pins: Soft and Imitation Hard Enamel, Made In-House

Two enamel grades, soft and imitation hard, are available across our custom lapel pins range and run on the same production line in our own plant. The two are routinely confused in the trade, and buyers often find it difficult to tell them apart. This page explains the differences, shows the price basis behind each figure, and covers orders starting from 100 pieces.

Soft Enamel vs Imitation Hard Enamel: What Actually Differs

Choosing a grade comes down to one question. Do you want a surface with depth, or a surface so flat that a finger slides across it. The first is soft enamel. The second is imitation hard enamel. Both run on our own line, and both start at 100 pieces.

Table 1. The two grades side by side

Item	Soft enamel	Imitation hard enamel
Surface	Color sits in the recesses, metal lines stand proud	Ground flat and level with the metal lines
Feel	Clear relief, the pattern can be felt	Flat, no resistance under a finger
Wear	Enamel is exposed and dulls with long rubbing	Surface is level with the metal, wears better
Unit cost	Baseline	One step up, two extra operations
Lead time	Baseline	Two extra operations, slightly longer per design, days confirmed by quantity and plating
Minimum color space	0.3 mm	0.5 mm
Metal line width	0.2 mm minimum, identical on both	0.2 mm minimum, identical on both
Suits	Distinct lines, clean color blocks, lettering	Large color areas, simple lines, clean logos
Typical use	Race handouts, clubs, event commemoratives	Uniformed services, daily wear, institutional identity

Pin or badge, the grade works the same way

Both words describe a piece worn on clothing, and both run the two grades described above. What separates a pin from a badge is how it is worn and who wears it, which is set out on custom badges.

What the trade calls these two grades
The phrase hard enamel, used in a production context, almost always means imitation hard enamel, called Epola in the US trade. The piece is filled with color, baked, ground flat and polished. The material is a resin or an enamel paint, not a fired glass. The smooth ground surface most buyers are picturing is this grade. We make it, on our own line, and it is the grade behind every price on this page.
True hard enamel, cloisonné, is a different process. It is fired repeatedly at 750 to 850°C with a natural mineral enamel, filled in several passes, and fired again after each one. The cost is several times higher. We do not make it.

One fact you can check for yourself
In published price tables, the hard enamel or cloisonné grade usually costs only a few percentage points more than soft enamel. That gap matches a two-operation difference. It does not match a firing process that runs at 750°C and above. So the hard enamel you see elsewhere is very likely the grade described above. The difference is whether anyone said so.

About transparent enamel
It is not a third grade. It is a fill method inside soft enamel, and it belongs to the materials and finishes page rather than this one.

namel Lapel Pin Options: Shape, Size, Color, Plating and Backing

Six options, each stated with its boundary. Check your drawing against them and you will know what is possible before you ask.

Shape, size and thickness

Custom shapes can follow your logo, character, crest or lettering. Standard sizes are 19, 25 and 32 mm, with 15 to 60 mm available for most designs. Smaller designs may need an artwork review before quoting.
Standard thickness is 1.2 or 1.5 mm, while imitation hard enamel may require a thicker body. Minimum hole size is 2 mm. Size is measured by the longest side of the finished design and quoted on the same basis.
Color and Pantone matching

Color numbers are confirmed in writing before filling, not agreed over the phone. Grinding removes a hazy surface layer on imitation hard enamel and lifts the color slightly. We flag that shift in advance and it shows on the approval proof.
Plating and surface finish

Plating follows three combination rules: shiny with shiny, antique with antique, plating with color spray. Write the full plating name on the order. Matt silver and silver are two different finishes, and a short name on a purchase order is a remake.
Backing types

Butterfly clutch at 11 mm standard, rubber clutch, safety pin, magnet, and screw-and-nut for high-value badges where removal matters. Choose by how the pin will be worn. A uniform worn daily takes a butterfly clutch or a screw fitting. A garment that must not be pierced takes a magnet.
Back engraving and packaging

The back can carry a name, a number or a year. Backing cards and gift boxes are finishing items and are quoted as separate lines.
Special effects

Three effects are on record: glow in the dark, transparent enamel, and an epoxy dome. Epoxy is optional on soft enamel, and adding it costs you the relief feel. On imitation hard enamel we advise against it, because it covers the flat gloss that the extra grinding step was paid for.

Why Imitation Hard Enamel Costs More: The Grinding and Leveling Process

Imitation hard enamel costs more than soft enamel mainly because it adds a full grinding and leveling stage after the color is filled and baked. The enamel is filled slightly above the metal lines, then ground and polished until the color and metal finish on the same plane.Soft enamel follows a different sequence. The metal is plated first, then the recessed areas are filled with color and baked. Because the enamel stays below the raised metal lines, no full-surface grinding is required.

Table 2. How the two enamel processes differ

Step	Soft Enamel	Imitation Hard Enamel
1. Die casting	Zinc alloy is cast into the finished shape	Zinc alloy is cast into the finished shape
2. Trimming	Flash and excess metal are removed	Flash and excess metal are removed
3. Base polishing	Surface prepared for finishing	Surface prepared for color filling
4. Plating / Color filling	Plating first	Color filling first
5. Color filling / Baking	Color is filled into the plated recesses and baked	Color is filled slightly above the metal lines and baked
6. Grinding and leveling	Not required	Excess enamel is ground and polished level with the metal
7. Final plating	Already completed before coloring	Plating is applied after grinding
8. Final inspection	Checked for color, plating and finish	Checked for flatness, color, plating and finish

The key cost difference is the grinding stage. Imitation hard enamel requires the filled surface to be leveled piece by piece, using abrasive grinding and polishing before the final plating step. This adds labor, handling time and a higher risk of rejection if narrow color areas or fine details are damaged during grinding.Soft enamel skips this full-surface leveling process. Its color remains recessed below the raised metal lines, so once plating, filling and baking are complete, the piece can move directly to inspection.

Soft-to-hard-enamel-pins — Imitation Hard Enamel Pin Sample

In short, imitation hard enamel costs more because it requires an additional grinding and leveling process, not because it uses two plating passes

Will Your Artwork Survive Production?

Whether a drawing can be made has nothing to do with how good it looks. It comes down to four numbers. Run your file against them.

Enamel-Lapel-Pin-Fine-Lines-Fusing-Defect — **Fine lines fusing**

Two lines closer than 0.2 mm come out as one, and the detail becomes a blob.

Enamel-Pin-Color-Loss — **Narrow color areas ground away**

Specific to imitation hard enamel. Anything under 0.5 mm is the first thing lost in the grinding pass, and the piece comes out with missing color.

Enamel-Lapel-Pin-Plugged-Hole-Defect — **Holes plugged with enamel**

Under 2 mm, enamel coats the inside of the hole during filling and cannot be cleaned out afterwards.

Check	Minimum	What happens below it
Metal line width, raised or recessed	0.2 mm	Metal does not fill the cavity. Lines break, blur or fuse together.
Color space, soft enamel	0.3 mm	Enamel will not enter the recess, or will not stay in it.
Color space, imitation hard enamel	0.5 mm	Narrow color areas are ground away and the metal shows through.
Hole size	2 mm	Enamel plugs the hole, or the edge chips during grinding.

Files we need. AI, EPS or an editable vector PDF, with finished size, colors and both faces marked. Add Pantone numbers if you have brand colors. Bitmaps, screenshots and images forwarded through a messaging app cannot be cut into a tool directly. Send them anyway as reference and we will redraw them.

Not sure if your artwork will work ?
Send us your file and we will review it for free.

See Our Artwork Service

Enamel Lapel Pins We Have Produced

These are production runs, grouped by grade. Four fields only, all of them verifiable from the piece: grade, size, plating, material. The back of each piece is photographed separately rather than described.

Grade:Imitation hard enamel
Size:47 × 33 × 5 mm
Plating:Shiny gold

Floral-Architecture-Imitation-Hard-Enamel-Pin

Grade:Imitation hard enamel
Size:40 × 32 × 2 mm
Plating:Shiny gold

Grade:Imitation hard enamel
Size:55 × 42 × 2 mm
Plating:Shiny gold

Grade:
Soft with transparent enamel
Size:45 × 45 × 3 mm
Plating:Shiny gold

Grade:soft enamel
Size:40 × 45 × 2 mm
Plating:Shiny silver

Where Enamel Lapel Pins Are Used

Five buyer groups, ordered by how much of our order book each one makes up. General reference advice on choosing enamel processes for different types of use

Custom-Enamel-Lapel-Pins-Sports-Events — **Sports and events**

47%

Marathons, trail races, youth leagues, bowling tournaments. What this group needs is volume plus legibility at a glance, so nearly all of it is soft enamel. Color contrast holds at small size and the unit price stays down. The pin that goes in the race packet and the companion to a finisher medal are usually this grade.

Custom-Enamel-Lapel-Pins-Firefighter-Uniform — **Police, fire and uniformed services**

19.6%

Worn daily, rubbed constantly, washed with the shirt. Nearly all of it is imitation hard enamel, because a flat surface does not catch on fabric and wears longer. This group also cares about identity accuracy, so color numbers and lettering are confirmed in writing.

Custom-Enamel-Lapel-Pins-Association-Membership — **Associations and membership bodies**

6.9%

Trade associations, alumni groups, clubs. Both grades appear. Annual membership pins lean toward imitation hard because it reads as formal. Event pins lean toward soft because they need color.

Custom-Enamel-Lapel-Pins-School-Uniform — **Schools and clubs**

20.1%

School crests, club badges, graduation years, class commemoratives. Crests lean imitation hard for daily wear. Event pieces lean soft for brighter color and a lower budget.

Custom-Enamel-Lapel-Pins-Corporate-Branding — **Corporate**

5.3%

Service anniversaries, project commemoratives, client gifts. This group weighs presentation and packaging more heavily than grade, and accepts either.

Pins are not the only product on this process. The same casting and plating lines run custom challenge coins, and the process carries over. See custom challenge coins.

What We Check Before Packing

The four checks that apply to every product line, which are outline dimensions, plating appearance, post and fitting, and quantity against packing list, are covered on the quality control process page. This section covers the four that are specific to enamel.

On compliance. Material test reports are issued by the suppliers who make the material, and the zinc alloy and plating materials we buy have passed the relevant tests. Audit ratings are stated as they are, not promoted.

Table 6. Four enamel-specific checks

Check	What we look at	Reject condition	What happens
Missing and bleeding color	Every color area filled, no color across a metal line	Color shows bare metal, or crosses into the neighbouring area	Piece pulled for rework, scrapped and replaced if it cannot be fixed
Bubbles	Pinholes or blisters on the ground surface	Visible bubble or pit	Same as above, and on imitation hard enamel it means re-grinding and re-plating
Grinding flatness	Color level with the metal lines, imitation hard only	A step you can feel, or a height difference under raking light	Re-ground. A piece with color ground through is scrapped.
Second plating adhesion	Even coverage, no misses, no blistering	Bare edge, or plating that lifts under a fingernail	Stripped and re-plated

If there is a dispute at acceptance. You get an answer within 24 hours and a resolution within 48 hours, which is a remake, a credit or a return. It does not roll into the next batch.

What Drives the Price of an Enamel Lapel Pin

Pins are priced on the longest side, but cost does not grow with diameter. It grows with area. Table 7 gives the reference unit price for each standard size.

Three things to read off that table.

The range inside each row is not a negotiating margin. It covers the spread between a plain two-color logo and a detailed multi-color design at the same diameter, on standard plating. A simple mark sits at the bottom of the range and a busy one sits at the top.
The step from 1 to 1.25 inch is the largest in the table. Area grows 56 percent there and the price grows more than that, because 1.25 inch crosses into a heavier blank and a longer plating cycle. If budget is the constraint, 1 inch carries the most value in the range.
The 0.5 inch row is also the size where the artwork limits tighten most, since at 12.7 mm a 0.2 mm line takes a sixth of the width. Send the drawing before ordering at this size and we will confirm what will hold.

Start with the basis, or no price means anything.”All reference prices in this section are quoted on: 1.5 mm thickness · soft enamel · standard gold or nickel plating · tooling and freight excluded”Soft enamel normally runs at 1.2 mm or 1.5 mm, and metal weight differs by 25 percent between the two, which moves the unit price. Published price tables almost never state the thickness they are quoted on, so two tables that both omit it cannot be compared with each other.

Table 7. Reference unit price by size, 100 to 500 pieces

Size	Diameter	Reference unit price	Area against 0.75 inch
0.5 inch	12.7 mm	US$0.22 to 0.28	44 percent
0.75 inch	19 mm	US$0.35 to 0.45	Baseline
1 inch	25 mm	US$0.45 to 0.58	178 percent
1.25 inch	32 mm	US$0.75 to 0.95	278 percent

If there is a dispute at acceptance. You get an answer within 24 hours and a resolution within 48 hours, which is a remake, a credit or a return. It does not roll into the next batch.

Quantity: one price from 100 to 500 pieces

Above 500 pieces the ladder starts and the unit price itself falls. We quote the tiers against your actual number.

Table 8. What tooling adds per piece, on a 1 inch pin

Quantity	Tooling per piece	Landed unit price, 1 inch
100	US$1.00	US$1.45
200	US$0.50	US$0.95
300	US$0.33	US$0.78
500	US$0.20	US$0.65

At 100 pieces, tooling costs more than twice the pin. At 500 pieces it is under a third of it. That is the whole reason a repeat order is cheaper than a first order, and it is also why the 10,000 piece refund exists: by then the tool has been paid for many times over.A 300-piece order of 1 inch pins lands at about US$0.78 per piece with tooling included. That is the figure most of our buyers actually pay

Why the minimum is 100 pieces
It is not a threshold, it is the real order size for one team, one chapter or one event. Below 100 the unit price goes up, because tooling and setup are spread over fewer pieces. The industry works the same way, and some suppliers say so in their own answers, that pricing under 100 pieces is higher than at 100.

Tooling: US$100 per design, and how it spreads

Tooling is US$100 per design and is quoted as a separate line. That figure sits inside the normal market range. It is the one cost whose effect changes with quantity, because the amount does not scale: it is US$100 whether you order 100 pieces or 10,000.

What the reference price does not include:

Tooling, at US$100 per design
Plating upgrades beyond standard gold or nickel
Backing cards, gift boxes and other packaging
Freight
Imitation hard enamel, which adds two operations
Outlines that need a non-standard blank, such as very deep 3D relief or cut-outs

Tooling policy

Tooling is kept for 3 years, stored with us, and reused on repeat orders.
If no repeat order comes within 3 years, the tooling may be scrapped. This is rarely written down in the trade. We write it because it decides whether you need your own archive copy.
When cumulative orders for the same design reach 10,000 pieces, the tooling charge is refunded.
The count is per design, repeat orders are included, and it does not reset at year end.

Read together, those four lines say one thing. The tooling charge on a first order is not a sunk cost. It is a cost that repeat orders can pay back.

MOQ, Lead Time and Tooling

Four steps from drawing to delivery, with the clock starting point stated for each one.

Quote

Quote. You give size, quantity, grade, plating and fitting.

1 to 2 business days

Artwork approval

Free digital proof, revised until you can sign it off.

1 to 3 business days

Sampling

Pre-production sample, physical approval of color and surface.

7 to 10 days

Bulk production

Counted from written approval of the pre-production sample.

15 to 18 days

Frequently Asked Questions

Fourteen questions, grouped by what they are about. The answers are the same ones our sales desk gives.More answers on ordering, shipping and payment are on our FAQ page.

Process and materials

The surface. Soft enamel has color sitting in the recesses with the metal lines standing proud, so the pattern can be felt. Imitation hard is ground flat and level with the metal lines, so it feels smooth. Two extra operations get it there, grinding and a second plating pass.

No. True hard enamel is fired repeatedly at 750 to 850°C with a natural mineral enamel, and it costs several times more. Very few of the buyers who ask for it end up ordering it. The smooth ground surface you want is what imitation hard enamel gives you, at a fraction of that price.

No, but it does remove narrow color areas. Grinding levels the height difference at the surface, and the color itself sits in the recess. What fails is a color area narrower than 0.5 mm, which can be ground through. That is why our minimum color space for imitation hard enamel is 0.5 mm.

Zinc alloy die casting, Zamak 3, is the main route, and it handles irregular shapes, 3D relief and cut-outs. Struck work uses brass, iron, stainless steel or aluminum. Etched fine detail uses brass or iron

Gold, silver, black nickel, antique gold, antique silver and antique bronze, plus plating with color spray. Combinations follow three rules: shiny with shiny, antique with antique, plating with color spray. The full plating name goes on the quote.

Artwork and customization

Yes. A logo, a sketch, a reference image or a written description is enough to start. Artwork service is free, and we turn it into a production-ready proof for your approval.

Because metal line width has a floor. Lines under 0.2 mm do not fill during casting, so they break, blur or fuse. The smaller the lettering, the thinner the stroke, and the closer it comes to that floor. The usual fix is a larger pin, or converting the lettering into a solid shape.

Yes, to a Pantone number. Color numbers are confirmed in writing before filling. Grinding lifts the color slightly on imitation hard enamel, and that shift is flagged on the approval proof.

Yes. Fittings include butterfly clutch, rubber clutch, safety pin, magnet and screw-and-nut. Packaging includes poly bag, backing card and gift box. Both are finishing items, listed separately on the quote.

Not in enamel, because enamel is filled one solid color at a time. Those graphics need UV printing, offset printing or an epoxy dome, or the printed detail can be laid on top of the enamel surface.

Order, lead time and tooling

100 pieces. Below 100 the unit price is higher, because tooling and setup are spread over fewer pieces.

Bulk production is 15 to 18 days from written approval of the pre-production sample. Sampling is 7 to 10 days. With tooling on file, a rush order can ship in 7 days.

Give us the date with the inquiry and we will work backwards from it, then tell you which grade fits and which does not. If it does not fit, we say so. We do not take an order we cannot hold.

Kept for 3 years, and it may be scrapped if no repeat order comes within that window. When cumulative orders for the same design reach 10,000 pieces, the tooling charge is refunded. Repeat orders count, and the count does not reset at year end.

Request a Quote

Send the drawing and four numbers: size, quantity, grade, plating. If there is no drawing yet, send a logo or a sketch and we will start from there.

What happens after you send it:

You send the file and the four numbers.
We confirm in writing what is manufacturable, against the four limits in section 4.
You get a quote with tooling, unit price, finishing items and lead time on separate lines.
You get a free digital proof, revised until you approve it.
You approve the pre-production sample, and bulk production starts.