Folding cartons where the bottom is glued at our end and just snaps shut the second you pop the box open, which is why packers can get through a few hundred an hour. Bottles and jars, mostly. Printed in full color on SBS, kraft or E-flute, with low minimums.
Your time is very important to us so we have kept it short.
If you’ve ever stood at a packing table folding tuck flaps on box after box, you’ll get the appeal straight away. Custom auto lock bottom boxes come flat, glued at the factory, and when you pop them open the bottom flaps lock together on their own. Push the sides, the base drops into place, product goes in. That’s the whole setup.
Brands pick this style for two reasons. Speed on the packing line, and a bottom that won’t give way under a heavier product. Candle jars, sauce bottles, supplements, tea tins, glass serums. Anything that would test a plain tuck bottom.
The bottom is called a crash lock in some shops, and that’s pretty much what it does. The four bottom panels are partly glued in the flat, so opening the carton pulls them into an interlocking base. No tape, no fiddly tabs. Someone who’s done it ten times can set up a box in a second or two.
That adds up. On a run of 2,000 units, it’s the difference between an afternoon and most of a day. Up top it’s normally a plain tuck flap (your customer just flicks it open) and if you’d like a tamper sticker or seal across that flap we can add one, no big deal.
One small tip from the floor: the auto bottom needs a little room to fold. If the box is sized dead tight to a bottle, the base can catch on the product as you push it down. We size the inside with a hair of clearance so it seats properly every time.
For most retail products we use SBS paperboard. Bright white, sharp color. Kraft is the brown option and we see it a lot with handmade soap people and small eco brands, and then if the product is heavy or the carton is going into a mailer with no padding around it, we’d move you to E-flute corrugated because it’s stiffer and honestly not much thicker. Not sure which? Our post on cardstock versus corrugated walks through the difference.
We print with soy-based and water-based inks, and the kraft and corrugated options are usually recyclable.
You get six panels to print on (the inside too, if you want). As for finishes, people usually go matte or gloss lamination, some ask for soft-touch, and on top of that you can put spot UV, gold or silver foil or a bit of embossing on the logo. A window cutout works well when the product itself is the selling point, a pretty bottle for example. You can also add a custom insert to keep two or three items from rattling around.
Our designers set up the dieline and lay out your artwork at no extra cost, and they check your files for print problems before you see a digital proof. A physical sample is available on request before the bulk run.
Not convinced you need the auto bottom? For light products like a lip balm or a sachet, a standard tuck end box is cheaper and works fine. For something in between, snap lock boxes use a folded bottom without glue. You can compare every structure we make in our box styles section.
Minimums are low, often around 50 boxes depending on the style, and price per box comes down as quantity goes up. Most digital print jobs carry no die or plate charges. Standard production is 10 to 12 business days after proof approval, rush is available on request, and ground shipping is free anywhere in the USA. Send us your product dimensions and quantity through our quote form.
In SBS paperboard they handle most bottles and jars up to around a pound comfortably. For heavier glass, we’ll usually suggest E-flute corrugated.
Yes. They ship flat and pre-glued, so they take up little storage room and open into shape in seconds.
Yes. A cardboard insert with a die-cut hole keeps a bottle centered and stops it knocking against the walls during shipping.
Brands ordering these often look at custom tuck end boxes, custom thumb cut boxes, custom twist top boxes and custom star shaped boxes as well. You can see the full range in by style.
