Cartons for glass vials from about 2 ml up to 30 ml, single or in sets, with an insert cut to the vial’s diameter so each one stands upright and apart. We use SBS, or rigid board for nicer kits, and leave space for lot numbers and dosage notes next to your logo.
Your time is very important to us so we have kept it short.
Two glass vials clinking around in a box? That’s a crack waiting to happen, they’re tiny and slippery and break way easier than you’d think, so with custom vial boxes we give every single vial its own slot, cut to fit, and they never touch each other or roll.
We get all sorts ordering these. A compounding pharmacy one week, a vet clinic the next, a skincare brand with an ampoule kit, a perfume house mailing sample sets. Same headache for all of them, really, a fragile bit of glass that has to show up whole and clearly labelled.
Honestly, the insert matters more than the outer carton. We cut each opening to the vial’s actual diameter, measured at the widest point, which is often the crimp cap rather than the glass body. Get that wrong and the vial either jams going in or wobbles once it’s there. Not what a nurse wants when she’s pulling one out with one hand.
For most kits we’d just use a paperboard insert, and the whole pack stays recyclable. Shipping in bulk, or through a rough distributor? Foam grips a bit tighter and soaks up more of the knocks. For a 10 vial set, we’ll normally lay them out in two rows of five with a thin wall between each slot, so a drop on one corner doesn’t send the whole row knocking together.
A single vial carton is basically a small tuck end box with a simple insert, cheap to make and easy to stack in a fridge or on a pharmacy shelf. These suit retail products and anything sold one at a time. Most single cartons are made from SBS paperboard because it prints sharp, clean text.
Multi vial kits are a different animal. Here you’re often adding a lid or a sleeve, a spot for a leaflet, sometimes a syringe or dropper. Rigid board makes sense when the kit is a premium product, say a serum ampoule set, while folding paperboard is fine for clinical packs. If your line is skincare rather than medicine, our serum boxes might be closer to what you need.
There’s a lot to fit on, more than people expect, so name and strength and volume, how cold to keep it, directions, warnings, then a lot number and an expiry date. Those last two change every batch. So we leave a blank panel on a side or end flap and you stamp them or stick a label on after printing.
Keep fonts readable. Tiny type looks tidy on screen and becomes a squint on a two inch carton. Our design team will flag anything that’s likely to print too small and lay out the whole dieline for free. For common sizes, see our guide to medicine box dimensions. You can also browse related cartons like custom medicine boxes or the full pharmaceutical packaging range.
Minimums are low, often around 50 boxes depending on the style. You get a digital proof, a physical sample on request so you can test the vial fit yourself, and production in 10 to 12 business days after you approve. Shipping is free anywhere in the USA. Get in touch with your vial size and count per box.
The vial’s diameter at its widest point, its total height with the cap on, and how many go in each box. A sample vial is even better, because we can test the fit before you approve. Rough sizes for 2ml up to 50ml vials are in our vial box sizes guide.
For a shop shelf or a clinic, paperboard does fine and recycles easier. Really thin glass, or long rough shipping? We’d go foam.
They will with a fitted insert. Fridges are damp though, so we’d bump the board up a little so the carton doesn’t go soft.
