Rush is a lane, not a promise. It means two things at once: your job is moved up the production schedule, and it travels by air instead of sea. Both cost money, which is why the rush premium runs about 7 to 25% depending on the job. What rush cannot do is compress the parts of the process that depend on you.
What the clock is actually made of
| Stage | Who controls it | How to shorten it |
|---|---|---|
| Spec confirmation | You and us together | Send interior dimensions and loaded weight in the first message |
| Dieline and artwork prep | Mostly you | Supply vector artwork with fonts outlined and 1/8 inch bleed |
| Digital proof approval | You | Have the decision maker on standby, this is the most common stall |
| Production | Us | From about 7 business days, expedited on the rush lane |
| Transit | Freight | 2 to 5 for delivery, air rather than sea on the rush lane |
Read that table as a checklist. Three of the five rows are yours. A buyer who has artwork ready and approves the proof the day it arrives will beat a buyer who paid the rush premium and then took four days to decide on a shade of blue.
Have these ready before you ask for a rush quote
- Interior length, width and depth, plus the loaded weight of the packed box.
- The hard date. Not "as soon as possible", the actual day stock must be in the building.
- Print-ready artwork, or a clear brief and the assets for our design support to work from.
- The delivery address and any receiving constraints, such as a dock appointment or a 3PL booking window.
- An approver who can sign the digital proof quickly.
Choosing rush honestly
- Take rush when a launch, a retail reset or an event date cannot move and the cost of missing it exceeds the premium.
- Take standard when the date has a few days of slack. Standard still moves by air.
- Take cost saver for anything planned. Sea freight is the cheapest per unit and is where your baseline stock should come from.
- Split the order when only part of the volume is urgent. Rush a first tranche to cover the launch, and bring the balance by sea.
That last option is the one most buyers overlook, and it is usually the cheapest way to solve a date problem.
What does not change on a rush job
The minimum order is still 100 boxes. Pricing still starts from about $0.48 per unit at bulk volumes and is confirmed on your written quote, with the rush premium applied on top. The die, the plates, dieline design support, free US shipping and a digital proof before print are all still included. Nothing goes to press without your approval, even under time pressure, because a fast box with a typo is not a saving.
One caveat worth stating plainly: specialty imported items can run up to about 12 weeks, and no lane changes that. If your spec includes a heavily finished or specialty construction and your date is close, we will tell you at quote stage rather than after you have paid a premium.
Ask for a rush quote
Send your spec, your artwork status and your hard date to /quote/ and mark it rush. For other formats on the same lane, see rush custom boxes, and for board and flute selection see custom corrugated boxes.
