DIY Greeting Card Yield from Sheet Calculator

Card making waste is mostly geometry. A standard A2 card folded measures 4.25 × 5.5 inches, so flat it is 8.5 × 5.5. From a Letter sheet (8.5 × 11) you cut exactly 2 cards with no waste. From a 12 × 12 scrapbooking sheet you cut 4 cards with 0.5 inch of waste in one direction.

The math. Cards per sheet = floor(sheet width / card flat width) × floor(sheet height / card flat height), then check both orientations and pick the higher number.

Common card sizes (folded):

• A2: 4.25 × 5.5 inches (flat 8.5 × 5.5). Standard US greeting card.
• A6: 4.5 × 6.25 inches (flat 9 × 6.25). Large invitation.
• A7: 5 × 7 inches (flat 10 × 7). Premium invitation, photo card.
• 5 × 7 flat: not folded, often photo cards
• Square 5 × 5 (flat 10 × 5)
• Square 6 × 6 (flat 12 × 6)

Common cardstock sheets:

• US Letter: 8.5 × 11 inches
• A4: 8.27 × 11.69 inches
• 12 × 12: scrapbooking standard
• Tabloid / Ledger: 11 × 17 inches

Yield by combo (flat card from sheet):

Two of those deserve a second look.

Tabloid with A2 cards is the best deal in card making, and hardly anyone knows it. Turn the cards sideways and 11 divides by 5.5 exactly twice while 17 divides by 8.5 exactly twice, so four cards come off with literally nothing left over. Buying tabloid and cutting it down beats buying Letter, every time, if your guillotine takes the width.

The 12 × 12 scrapbooking sheet is a trap for card makers. It looks generous, but 12 is an awkward number: an A2 card at 8.5 inches leaves 3.5 inches you cannot use, so a third of a beautiful patterned sheet goes in the bin. Twelve-inch stock earns its keep on square cards, where 12 × 6 tiles it perfectly, and not much else.

A warning about area arithmetic: four A2 cards need 187 square inches and a 12 × 12 sheet only has 144, so no clever nesting saves you. If a figure claims more cards than the areas allow, it is wrong before you even think about how the cuts fall.

Cardstock weight and cost. 80 lb cover is the usual choice for cards. Prices vary a lot by region, retailer, and year, so put your own figure into the cost box rather than trusting any number printed on a web page, this one included. The relationship is the useful part: cost per card is simply the pack price divided by the sheets in it, divided again by the cards each sheet yields. That last term is why the sheet you choose matters more than the price you pay.

The score-and-fold step. Score with a bone folder or a scoring board, then fold. The score goes on the OUTSIDE of the fold, which feels backwards and is right: you are compressing the fibres on the face that has to stretch. A card folded without scoring cracks white along the spine within a few openings, and heavier stock cracks sooner.

Worked example. 50 A2 cards for a wedding shower, cut from Letter cardstock.

• 1 sheet = 2 A2 cards
• 50 / 2 = 25 sheets
• plus a 5 sheet buffer for mistakes = 30 sheets
• at a pack price of, say, $12 per 50 sheets, that is 30 × $0.24 = $7.20 of stock

Then add envelopes, postage, and whatever goes on the front, which between them usually cost more than the card.