Purchasing a custom wrap for your vehicle costs less than you may think. And the impact it can have for your business will astound you. An extremely effective marketing tool, a car wrap can be seen by thousands upon thousands of potential new clients every single day. Read this guide to car wraps to find out just how effective a custom car wrap can be.
Types of Wraps:
When you’re deliberating on purchasing a wrap, you’ll want to know what will suit your needs most. There are four routes you can take.
• Full Wrap vs Partial Wrap
• Printable Vinyl
• Pre-Dyed Vinyl
• Color Change Wrap
Full Wrap vs. Partial Wrap: A full wrap vs. a partial wrap probably sounds self-explanatory. That’s because it is. A full wrap is when you get your entire vehicle wrapped. A partial is a portion of your car. A partial can be as little as 25% or as much as 75% of the vehicle getting wrapped. Any percentage in that window will constitute a partial wrap. Below are examples of a full vs. a partial.
Printable Wrap: A printable wrap is different from pre-dyed (we’ll get to pre-dyed in just a minute). As you might expect, it allows you to print on it. With printable vinyl, you can put your company name, your logo, your contact information, and as many different colors as you want. And that’s it, in a nutshell, regarding a printable vinyl wrap.
Pre-Dyed Wrap: A pre-dyed vinyl wrap is a cost-effective option that doesn’t allow for complex graphics or multi-colored logos. While you can choose multiple colors, the design is limited to simple text, such as a company name, phone number, or website in a single color. This type of wrap is often used by startups, like plumbing companies, looking to save money while still promoting basic business info. Pre-dyed vinyl wraps are less expensive than printable ones, making them a budget-friendly choice for new businesses.
Color Change Wrap: A color change wrap is typically not one ordered by businesses. It’s more for the general public. It’s a wrap typically bought because the car owner is tired and bored of the color of their vehicle or wants to spruce it up. A prime scenario would be if a person has a cream-colored Corvette and they want a fire red color to make it look sportier. That’s the basic premise behind a color change wrap.
Life Span of a Car Wrap:
You’re investing some money into a vehicle wrap, so you want to know how long it will last. Makes total sense. There is no rule of thumb regarding the average lifespan of a car wrap. It comes down to what kind of vinyl you go with, what the outdoor elements are where you live, and whether you park in a garage or outside..
There are two types of vinyl used for wrapping vehicles—cast, which is the premium, high-end, longer-lasting vinyl. Then there’s polymeric calendared vinyl. It is less expensive than cast, but just so you know, it won’t last as long as cast vinyl.
There are very minimal things you address to protect your car wrap to ensure it lasts you as long as possible. The list is really just three things.
• Parking location
• Buying a car cover
• Car washes
If possible, you should park in a garage, or at a minimum, out of the elements. Continual exposure to weather like snow, rain, and oppressive sun will likely result in reduced longevity of your wrap. This is even truer if you live where the weather conditions are extreme.
It’s definitely worth plunking down a few bucks on a car cover. This will absolutely extend the life of your custom car wrap. Keeping your wrap protected from weather, bird droppings, and the like just makes smart sense.
You bought a wrap to give your vehicle a facelift or advertise your business. It makes sense you want to keep it looking crisp with regular trips to the car wash. This you need to know…you can go ahead and bring your custom-wrapped vehicle to a brushless car wash. And actually, hand washing is safer and more effective. Car washes that use brushes will be too harsh on the film. Using a car wash that has brushes will degrade the wrap and cause peeling and edges to lift off the surface of your car.
Scratches, Dents, or Chipping Paint: If you have scratches, dents, or chipping paint on your car, you will take on a little more cost. Here’s why. In every wrapping case, the vinyl will get attached to the car. During the process, bubbles or ripples can make their way between the adhesive back of the vinyl and the vehicle. The wrap will get pulled back off the car a bit to get rid of those little imperfections. When the vinyl is pulled back to make the adjustment, it can pull chipped paint off with it.
As far as dents and scratches go, you might think that a wrap would be the perfect remedy to hide those issues. It’s actually completely counterintuitive. Vinyl for wrapping is so thin that it accentuates those dents and scratches. If you’re handy, taking care of these deformities will save you money. If the prospect of doing this doesn’t sound like something you can handle, bring your vehicle to a professional for pre-wrap preparation. This will, of course, take a hit on your wallet. But unfortunately, the cost is necessary.
Advertising Your Business with a Car Wrap:
On the Road: When you have your vehicle wrapped with your business logo and contact information as part of the catchy design, you’ll likely be on the road. That especially holds true if your company is a constantly moving service provider like plumbing or lawn care. Even if you’re not a constantly on-the-go company, you’ll head to the bank, to lunch, and take care of errands. Here’s a statistic that should thrill you. A wrapped vehicle can earn 20,000 impressions per day when it’s out and about. Think if just one-tenth of one percent of the impressions who saw your vehicle were converted into new customers. The simple math says that’s 20 more customers than you had the day before.
Here are some other eye-popping numbers that should excite you. A government study showed that greater than 85% of workers in this country travel each week by car. That’s a massive audience for you to advertise to. The American Trucking Association conducted research revealing that 96% of people notice car wrap advertising. 96% of people surveyed said fleet wraps had more impact than billboards.
At the Office- Let’s assume that you have a wrapped vehicle parked at your place of business. You really don’t use it for much, other than a quick run to the bank or to pick up supplies. You won’t be attracting the number of eyeballs you would if you were in constant motion during the workday. Nonetheless, drivers will see the wrapped vehicle when they pass by it.
If you happen to be fortunate enough that your business is located next to a popular destination like McDonald’s, you’ll really grab some attention. The convenience store giant 7-11 says that its stores reside within 1 mile of 25% of this country’s population. Six million customers walk through their doors per day. How about Walmart? Thirty-seven million people head to the stores every single day in the U.S. So again, if you can snag an office location near one of these types of places, it’s simply more traffic that will see your wrapped vehicle.
#MoreBusiness– The point of this hashtag sub-heading is to make you aware of how social media can make your company reach a ton of people. You can snap a photo of your company’s wrapped vehicle or fleet. Post it online with some catchy text and a call to action. Engage your followers in some sort of giveaway contest that requires them to like and share your page. The organic growth can skyrocket. You’ve advertised your business basically for free to potentially thousands of people.
To Wrap or to Paint:
Know how much a quality paint job can cost? Would you believe it can run $5,000-$10,000? Car wraps are typically always less expensive. Another cost cutter for you is to get that partial wrap we discussed earlier. What’s really cool about a partial is that it’s hard for John Q. Public to tell.
How Vehicle Wraps Compare to Other Forms of Advertising:
Let’s say you purchase a single wrap for your company, and it costs $3,000. A wrap will typically last for five years. You earn those 20,000 impressions per day, as mentioned earlier. The cost of your wrap is only $600 per year. Break it down more, and the price you pay each day is just $2.31. You will have shelled out a meager 11 cents per 1,000 impressions. No other advertising medium can even come close to matching that.
- TV: $23.70 per thousand impressions
- Magazine: $21.46 per thousand impressions
- Newspaper: $19.70 per thousand impressions
- Radio: $7.75 per thousand impressions
- Billboards: $3.56 per thousand impressions
- Car Wraps: $0.11 per thousand impressions
When Should You Hire a Professional to Apply Your Car Wrap:
You should generally get a full wrap done by a professional. It’s a honed craft that can take a pro years to perfect. If you’re simply applying decals, you’ll probably be fine.
Our car wrapping specialist went for training at 3M, the company that supplies our vinyl. The training is pretty intense. Our pro took a course that was a week-long and 50 hours of training, which included a 20-hour test.
Our wrapper is now highly skilled, and yet it takes him about 16 hours to do a full wrap on a commercial van. He says that if someone in the general public were to try, it would likely take 45 hours or more. You want in on that?
Installation Process: 3M is considered the crème de la crème of vinyl providers in our industry. They have a motto they teach for every installation. We like to think of it as the 3M 3Ps.
1. Prep
2. Prime
3. Post
The prep comes in what’s known as mapping out the vehicle. This means to obtain as precise as possible measurements of each section of the vehicle (the doors, the trunk, etc). This will safeguard the right size of vinyl will be placed on each section. Additionally, it’s disassembling some vehicle parts, like mirrors, so that the application of vinyl goes more smoothly.
To prime is to apply a quick-drying liquid to the vehicle’s complex curves. This helps it react to the vinyl’s adhesive properties, thus ensuring the vinyl wrap sticks firmly to the car.
The post part of the equation is at the end. The installer will heat the vinyl one last time to “teach” the adhesion to remain at the size it needs to be. Vinyl has to get stretched to a larger percentage of its original size to mold to the configuration of the vehicle. If the vinyl isn’t heated, it will try (with some success) to shrink back to its original size. Heating the vinyl relaxes the material, allowing for the installer to get the dimensions just right, so the wrap looks fantastic.
Once the vinyl is cut and ready to be placed on your car, the installer holds the printed wrap section by section on the vehicle and pins it against the surface with magnets.
This verifies that the size is correct and the graphics are positioned in the precise place. Now, it’s time to actually lay the wrap on the car. Vinyl wrapping has what’s called backing paper. Think of it like you would a bandage. When you pull off the back part of a band-aid, it now sticks to your skin. The installer removes the backing paper and applies the adhesive wrap to the vehicle, one section at a time.
There are certain parts of a vehicle that aren’t really flat, like door handles. These parts of the car make it difficult for vinyl wrap to conform to. So, the installer will constantly use a heat gun on the vinyl to stretch it. This way, it conforms to those tougher to wrap areas.
There will tend to be wrinkles and air bubbles during the wrapping process, but the skilled technician uses what’s called a squeegee to push those out and create the desired smooth look of your wrap.
When the vinyl wrap is completely on, the installer will finish the edges by removing any excess vinyl. Often, it’s as little as just an inch of vinyl that needs removal.
Lastly, the installer will use the heat gun again around the entire wrap. What this does is “reset” the memory of the adhesion. It means that the vinyl will not retract back to its original size.
Ordering a Custom Car Wrap:
When ordering your vinyl vehicle wrap, it’s extremely helpful if you do some thinking on how you want your design, your color scheme, and your theme. You don’t have to get Photoshop or other design tools. We’ll take care of it. But if you at least have an idea, frustration levels on both parties will go way down. Doing a little research on wraps will help you be ready when you make the call to order. Think about wraps that you’ve seen that you like. All these things will streamline the process like you wouldn’t believe.
Designing Your Custom Car Wrap: There are three ways to go about designing your custom car wrap. They all require the use of a template for your specific vehicle (see thebadwrap.com). You can hire a professional designer. Or you can have our design team do it for you. Or if you have your own software and know how to effectively use it, that’s another option. A professional designer will cost you some money. Our smart and creative design team will do it free. Their service is built into the price of your custom wrap.
Designing on Your Own: It can be hard to design a wrap your own, especially if you’re not really solid with Photoshop. Make sure you plan it and that you map it very carefully so as to navigate through your template.
Get a good idea where you want your graphics to go on the wrap. Understand that putting a whole lot of information on your wrap can look overwhelming, messy, and cluttered at the same time. The text probably needs to be bigger than you might think. Your wrap is a message in motion, and if it doesn’t read easily, you will miss out on increasing your client base. Keep in your mind that “less is more.”
Measurements: When designing with a template, correct measurements are vital. Depending on the template, it should guide you through the process and make things pretty easy for you. However, be careful that you get good, proportional measurements. And this is very important—you must make sure the vehicle you’re designing in your template is truly the same as your actual vehicle is. It sounds like it would be hard to mess that up, but we’re telling you because we have seen it happen.
How Much Does a Custom Car Wrap Cost?
You’ve read nearly 3,000 words to this point, and the moment you’ve been waiting for is finally here. Here is a breakdown of the cost for a custom vehicle wrap.
*2025 Wrap Prices
- Small commercial vehicle: $2,900-$3,100
- Mid-size SUV: $3150-$3,400
- Large SUV or mid-size van: $3,300-$3,900+
- Pickup truck: $3,150-$3,400
- 16-foot box truck: $3,900 and up
In Closing:
In conclusion, a custom car wrap is a cost-effective, impactful, and versatile advertising solution for businesses of all sizes. With the ability to target thousands of potential customers daily, the return on investment for car wraps is unmatched by other forms of advertising. Whether you opt for a full wrap, partial wrap, or a specific vinyl type, the customization options ensure your vehicle will stand out and effectively represent your brand. By maintaining and protecting your wrap, you can maximize its longevity and aesthetic appeal.
Ready to elevate your marketing strategy? Contact our expert team today to explore your car wrap options and start driving results.