How to read a fridge magnet listing

By Fridge Magnets Editorial

A listing worth trusting publishes material, thickness in millimeters, finished size in millimeters, print method, where it is made, and production and shipping times. Vague listings drop the thickness first. Convert any pull force figure by multiplying by about 0.7 for a painted door, since paint adds 0.1 to 0.2 mm of gap.

"Super strong magnet, premium quality print, standard size." Every word of that is a claim, and not one of them can be checked when the parcel arrives. A listing is the only thing you get to inspect before handing over money, so it pays to read one the way a buyer reads a spec sheet rather than the way a shopper reads a headline.

What a listing should publish

Six things, and a seller who prints all six has usually thought about the product.

None of that is commercially sensitive. A seller who publishes 0.5 mm and $1.20, as Vistaprint does, has given you enough to compare against a 0.75 mm magnet at $2.50, as Shutterfly does, and to work out that the second one holds nearly twice as much. A seller who publishes neither is asking you to guess.

Thickness is the specification they drop first

On flexible sheet magnets, thickness is the entire product. Everything else is a print. The two published thicknesses in this market are 0.5 mm and 0.75 mm, and at a 50 mm square they hold 60 g and 110 g on flat bare steel. That is close to a doubling for a difference you cannot see across a room, and it is exactly the difference a listing omits when the answer is the thin one.

Ask in millimeters. Answers in mils, gauge, or "standard" are answers about something else. If you get a number, put it next to the price and see whether the cheaper magnet is cheaper per millimeter or just thinner. Price per magnet has the arithmetic laid out.

Turning a strength claim into what your door will hold

Pull force figures are measured on a flat, bare, thick steel plate, which is the friendliest surface a magnet will ever meet. Your fridge is not that. Paint adds 0.1 to 0.2 mm of gap, and each tenth of a millimeter costs a small disc roughly 10 percent of its pull. Add texture, add the slight curve most doors have, and a coated door gives back 60 to 80 percent of the plate figure.

Multiply by 0.7 and you will not be far out.

Two cautions on that table. The figures are manufacturer and reference values, since we have not put a gauge on any of these ourselves, and a vertical door loads a magnet differently from a straight pull, so treat every number as a ceiling rather than a promise. And none of it applies if the door is austenitic 304 stainless, which holds no magnetic domain and will drop a 6,000 g pot magnet on your foot. Check the door before you check the magnet: magnets on stainless steel covers the test.

Gauss is a different question

Listings that want a big number without a measurement reach for Gauss. A 12 mm N42 disc reads about 4,000 Gauss at its surface, which sounds impressive and predicts nothing, because Gauss is the field strength at one point rather than a force over an area. A thin flexible sheet reads about 300 Gauss and holds a birthday card. A pressed photo magnet reads well below a neodymium disc and still holds several times what a flexible sheet of the same face does, because of its steel shell and the area it lays against the door.

If a listing gives Gauss and no grams, it has answered a question you did not ask. Magnet strength explained sets out which number does what.

Size, in millimeters, of the actual finished magnet

Inches are fine as a headline and useless for planning. Convert them. A 2 x 3 in magnet is 51 x 76 mm, a 2.25 in round is 57 mm, a 2.5 in square is 64 mm, and a 4 x 6 in print is 102 x 152 mm. Usable door width on most fridges runs 40 to 60 cm, so a 50 cm door takes about eight 50 mm squares in a row with a 10 mm gap between them, or three 4 x 6 in prints and nothing else.

Watch for the difference between image size and finished size. A pressed magnet crimps its rim over the print, so the visible picture is smaller than the blank it started as. If a listing gives one number, ask which one it is. Our sizes and thickness chart has the conversions in one place.

What is on top of the ink

A print method is worth a line in any listing, because it decides how the magnet ages on a door that gets wiped. Three builds turn up. A laminated sheet magnet has a film bonded over the print. A direct UV print puts ink onto the sheet and cures it, with nothing over the top unless a varnish pass is added. A pressed photo magnet puts a clear mylar cover over the print and crimps a steel rim over both, which is the most protection of the three and part of why a pressed magnet is about 4 mm thick.

If the listing names no method, ask what happens when a wet cloth goes across the front. It is a rude question and it gets a straight answer. Printing methods sets out what each one costs and how each one fails.

Origin, and two separate clocks

Where a magnet is made sets what the shipping window can realistically be, so the two facts belong together. Shutterfly publishes USA shipping in 5 to 8 days. Vistaprint publishes USA shipping in 5 to 7 days. Fresh Magnets publishes a production window of 1 to 3 business days and says its magnets are made and shipped in the USA.

Read those as two clocks rather than one. Production time starts when the file is approved and ends when the magnets exist. Transit starts there and ends at your door. A listing that offers a single "ships in" number has merged them, and the merge always happens in the direction that flatters the seller. If magnets are needed for a date, ask for both numbers and add them together yourself.

Photographs, and what a stock render hides

A rendered product image tells you the shape and nothing else. The things that go wrong with fridge magnets are all surface details: a crimp that catches a fingernail, corner lift on a sheet magnet that was shipped rolled, a print with visible banding, a gloss that shows every fingerprint on a white background.

Ask for a photograph of the real magnet, ideally on a door, at the size you intend to order. A seller who presses magnets in 1 to 3 business days has plenty of real ones lying about. A listing with four renders, no photograph, and no thickness is three quarters of the way to being a drop-shipped mystery.

Red flags, and the question that clears each one

The returns line is the one people skip. Custom printed goods are often excluded from ordinary return rights because they cannot be resold, which is reasonable, and it means the seller's own policy on misprints is the only protection you have. Find that sentence before you upload the file, not after.

One last habit. Save the listing, including the specifications, as a screenshot or a PDF at the moment you order. Sellers edit listings. A magnet that arrives at 0.4 mm against a page that said 0.5 mm is an argument you win only if you can still see what the page said.