How to Make Price Signs, and the Math Behind Them

What a price sign is for

Stores call them price signs, sale signs or POP (point of purchase). They sit next to the product and tell shoppers the price and the deal.

Shoppers read them from a few steps away. So the price goes big, the deal fits on one line, and the product name sits in between.

Stores with weekly deals remake the same sign again and again. Saving it as a template means you only change the price.

Basic rules for sale prices

The FTC says a former price comparison is fair when the former price is the actual price the item was openly offered at, on a regular basis, for a reasonably substantial period (16 CFR 233.1).

Some states require unit price labels, and what they require differs by state. Your state weights and measures office has the details.

In Korea, large stores label unit prices for set items like tofu, milk and snacks, and round unit prices to the nearest won.

When a sale ends, take the sign down. An old sale sign left up can mislead shoppers.

How this tool does the math

Money is kept in whole cents (or won), so floating point errors never reach a price.

Buy N Get M: you pay for N and take N+M. Price each = price × N ÷ (N+M), and % off = M ÷ (N+M). Buy 2 Get 1 shows 33%, BOGO shows 50%.

Multi-buy: enter the total or the price each. Enter a regular price each and it also works out the savings and % off.

Percent off is always rounded down to a whole number, so 29.6% prints as 29%, never 30%. If you enter a percent, the sale price is rounded to the cent and the sign shows the percent from that final price.

Price each and unit price round to the nearest cent by default. You can pick round up or round down. When a number isn't exact, the sign says about.

Unit price = price ÷ size × unit. Weight only converts to weight and volume only to volume, since density differs by product.

Printing signs that read from far away

Sizes are full page, half page (2 per sheet), quarter page (4 per sheet) and shelf strips (6 per sheet). Smaller sizes print several to a sheet with dotted cut lines.

The price grows to fill its space. Shorter product names leave more room for the price.

On a black and white printer, pick Outline only. Filled colors are dark enough to read as gray, but outlines are sharper and use less ink.

In the print dialog set margins to None or Minimum and scale to 100%. Fit to page shrinks the sign a little.

Reusing signs every week

Save signs you reuse as templates. They stay in this browser and are never uploaded.

To move them to another computer, use Export to file here and Import from file there.

Add sale dates to the sign so you know when to take it down.

The store plan adds your store name and logo, printing many different signs at once, and seasonal designs. If the plan ends, your templates stay.

Common snags

I want a PDF: hit Print, then pick Save as PDF as the printer.

The sign prints a bit small: set scale to 100% and margins to None.

A character looks different: rare characters the sign font doesn't have print in your system font.

Saving doesn't work: private windows block storage. Open a normal window.