Button Makers

What Is a Button Maker?

A button maker is a manual press that turns a paper graphic into a finished pinback button, magnet, or keychain in just a few seconds. Each machine works with a matching set of button parts: a metal shell, a mylar cover, and a back (pin, magnet, or keychain loop) that get pressed together around your artwork. If you searched for a pin maker, you're in the right place: every machine on this page makes pins, the kind you wear on a jacket, lanyard, or backpack. Schools and agencies often call the same press a badge maker machine, and it makes name badges and ID buttons just as well. American Button Machines has offered button makers in the USA since 2005, and every press we sell is backed by a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects. New to pressing? Our how to make a button guide shows all six steps with photos and video.

How to Choose the Right Button Maker

The right size comes down to how the button will be used. Smaller sizes like the 1" button maker and 1.25" button maker are popular for lanyards, reading rewards, and name badges, while our best-selling 2.25" press is the standard for school spirit days, campaigns, and event promo because it's large enough to read from a few feet away but still comfortable to wear. If you're making photo buttons, our 3" and 3.5" machines give you enough canvas for a full-bleed photo with room for text. Our button size guide walks through every option, or give us a call at (972) 985-5074 and we'll help you pick.

Button Maker Sizes We Offer

Thirteen professional button makers in eleven sizes: round machines in 1", 1.25", 1.5", 1.75", 2.25", 3", 3.5", and 6", plus rectangle (1.75"x2.75" and 2"x3"), oval (1.75"x2.75"), and square (2"x2") presses. Each button maker ships with a starter supply pack so you can start pressing buttons the day it arrives.

What a Button Maker Costs

How much does a pin maker cost? Our machines start at $294.95 for the 1", 1.25", 1.5", 1.75", and 2.25" presses, and the 3" and 3.5" photo presses are $404.95. A machine sold on its own ships with a starter pack of button parts but no cutter. Want everything in one box? Our complete button making kits include the press, a cutter, 250 to 1,000 pinback sets, and three months of Build-A-Button, with free UPS Ground shipping in the lower 48 states. Kits start at $396.95, and the best-selling 2.25" kit starts at $476.95. There is no minimum order. Comparing pin maker machine prices against an import? That page covers it.

What Sets an ABM Press Apart

If you've wondered why some button makers cost more than others, the difference is in the build. We have taken a typical imported 3-in-1 apart: the dies rested loose in soft aluminum, the handle threaded into a cast mount, and the frame was plastic over metal, painted to look like steel. ABM presses use fixed, hardened-steel dies with no compression rings to wear out, a patented two-step press that makes a button in under five seconds, and so little force that students press their own. They are made in the USA, carry a lifetime warranty against defects, and we have stocked the matching supplies since 2005, so you are never hunting for parts that fit. Our affordable pin maker machine comparison shows the teardown photos and what a cheap machine really costs over time.

When a Button Maker Pays for Itself

Whether a pin maker is worth buying depends on how many pins you will make and how often. If you want a few dozen one time, ordering from a custom button shop is a reasonable choice. If you will make pins again and again, as a school, library, band, campaign, artist, or craft seller does, the machine pays for itself quickly. The parts for one run usually cost less than one order from a print shop, you get pins in minutes instead of weeks, and you can change the design between any two pins. Sports and school programs commonly sell photo buttons for $5 to $8 each, a price that covers the parts many times over. The pattern we see most often: after a couple of runs the machine is paid for, and every pin after that is nearly pure margin.

Button Maker, Pin Maker, or Badge Maker?

They are the same machine. It goes by button maker, pin maker, button press, badge maker, badge maker machine, badge press, or pinback button machine. "Pinback" is the technical name for the product itself: a metal shell, your printed design, a clear mylar cover, and a pin back crimped together. The name dates to the celluloid campaign buttons of the 1890s, and 1" pinbacks were the standard band merch of the 1970s. At ABM the presses are named by size, so the Model 100 makes 1" buttons, the Model 225 makes 2.25" buttons, and so on.

How a Button or Pin Is Made

Print your design and cut it to size with the circle cutter. Load the front shell, your graphic, and the clear mylar in the pickup die, and the pin back in the crimp die. Rotate, pull the handle, rotate, pull again, and you have a finished pinback in two presses. On the 1" machine the spring pin slides into the back by hand after pressing, with no glue. Our how to make a button guide walks through every step with photos and video, and our free button templates are sized for every press we sell.

Button Makers and Enamel Pins

A button maker does not make enamel pins, and that is worth understanding before you buy either one. Enamel pins are cast metal from a factory mold. You pay a mold fee, order a minimum quantity, and wait for the run to ship. A button maker presses your printed artwork into a metal shell in seconds, one at a time or by the thousand, with no minimum and no wait. For the closest thing to an enamel pin you can make yourself, press a 1" Medallion, a flat-backed button made with the crimp die adapter that ships free with every 1" machine, and add a Lapel Pin: a peel-and-stick tack with a pinch clutch, the same fastener used on an enamel pin. The same medallion also works as a tie tack or on an adhesive-back thumbtack. Pressed as an ordinary 1" pinback, your cost is about 6.5¢ a pin in 1,000-set packs; the medallion-plus-lapel-pin version runs about 34¢ a pin at volume, plus paper and ink. Artists, bands, and fandom sellers use it to test designs or sell flair without committing to a factory run.