by Dr. Piyush Singhal
Roll, sheets or dispenser: which honeycomb paper should you buy?
The cheapest honeycomb paper per metre is not always the cheapest for you. If you ship 20 orders a month, a 250 m roll will sit in the corner of your room for about two years.
My short answer is this. Under about 50 orders a month, start with a 10 m roll or a pack of 50 sheets. Between 50 and 300 orders a month, the 100 m roll is the sweet spot. Above that, move to the 250 m roll, and think about the dispenser only when one person packs all day.
We run PackSmith from Jaipur, under JPPL Innovation, and our group has been making packaging since 1997. We would rather you buy the right size than the biggest one.
The rest is maths, and I will show you all of it.
What honeycomb paper options are there?
We sell honeycomb paper in five forms. All of them are 390 mm wide (about 16 inches). These are PackSmith store prices at the time of writing (October 2026), and delivery is free across India on every order.
To compare them fairly, I have assumed one wrap uses about 50 cm of paper. That is the same as one 390 x 500 mm sheet, so rolls and sheets line up. The numbers below are approximate.
| Option | Store price | Wraps at 50 cm each | Approx. cost per wrap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roll, 390 mm x 10 m (7 colours) | Rs 289 | about 20 | Rs 14.50 |
| Roll, 390 mm x 100 m (6 colours) | Rs 889 | about 200 | Rs 4.50 |
| Roll, 390 mm x 250 m (brown) | Rs 1,400 | about 500 | Rs 2.80 |
| Sheets, 390 x 500 mm, pack of 20 | Rs 299 | 20 | Rs 15 |
| Sheets, 390 x 500 mm, pack of 50 | Rs 349 | 50 | Rs 7 |
| Dispenser with 250 m roll | Rs 6,299 | about 500 | Rs 12.60 on the first roll |
How do I work out my own cost per order?
Your product will not use exactly 50 cm. A lip balm needs less, and a wine glass needs more. So do this once, with your own hardest product.
- Wrap it the way you would ship it.
- Unwrap it and measure the length of paper you used, in cm.
- Divide the roll length in cm by that number. That is your wraps per roll.
- Divide the roll price by your wraps per roll.
Say you sell scented candles and each one takes 80 cm. A 100 m roll is 10,000 cm, so you get about 125 wraps. At Rs 889, that is about Rs 7.10 per candle. Now you have a real number to put in your product costing, not a guess.
This small exercise takes ten minutes.
Honestly, it is the single most useful thing in this article.
Which option fits my order volume?
| Orders per month | What I would buy | Roughly how long it lasts (50 cm per order) |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 (testing, new brand) | 10 m roll or 50 sheets | roll: 1 month or more, sheets: 2.5 months or more |
| 20 to 50 | 50 sheets, or a 100 m roll | sheets: 1 to 2.5 months, roll: 4 to 10 months |
| 50 to 300 | 100 m roll | 3 weeks to 4 months |
| 300 and above | 250 m roll | about 7 weeks at 300 orders |
| 30 or more a day, one packer | 250 m roll, plus a dispenser | about 2 to 3 weeks per roll |
I would not buy a 250 m roll for 30 orders a month.
Paper does not go bad quickly, but it takes up space, and in the monsoon it picks up damp if it sits near a wall or on the floor. Buy what you will use in three or four months.
When do sheets make more sense than a roll?
Sheets are for sellers who want the same wrap every time without measuring. If you have a helper packing for the first week, hand them sheets. Nobody tears 30 cm one time and 90 cm the next.
They also suit gift boxes where the product never changes. One candle, one sheet, done.
One thing to notice in the table. The 50-sheet pack costs Rs 349 and the 20-sheet pack costs Rs 299. For Rs 50 more you get two and a half times the sheets. Unless you only want to try the material, the 50-pack is the obvious buy. If you only want to try it, our sample listing has a honeycomb roll variant you can pick first.
Is the Rs 6,299 dispenser worth it?
For most small sellers, not yet.
I will be straight about it, even though we sell it.
The honeycomb dispenser holds a 250 m roll and lets you pull and tear with one hand while the other holds the product. On a busy packing table, that is a real help. But compare it with the plain 250 m brown roll at Rs 1,400. You are paying about Rs 4,900 more for the dispenser itself, which is the price of three and a half more 250 m rolls.
So I would buy it when packing is one person's daily job, at something like 30 or more orders a day, and the loose roll keeps rolling off the table. Below that, a roll on a simple rod or a broom handle does the job.
We would rather sell you paper you need than a machine you do not.
Before you reorder paper for the dispenser, ask us which refill roll fits it. I would rather you check with us than guess.
Colour or plain brown?
The 10 m roll comes in blue, green, yellow, red, white, brown and black. The 100 m roll comes in the same colours except white. The 250 m roll is brown only.
My view is simple.
Colour is for gifting, hampers and festive orders, where the wrap is part of the look. Brown is for everyday shipping, where nobody keeps the wrap. If you run both kinds of order, keep a 100 m brown roll for daily use and a 10 m coloured roll for the special ones.
Questions small sellers ask
Is 390 mm wide enough for my product?
For mugs, jars, bottles and small boxes, yes. For something wider than the roll, such as a large photo frame, wrap it twice and overlap the two widths by a few centimetres.
Can I mix rolls and sheets?
Yes, and it often makes sense. Use sheets for your standard product and a roll for the odd sizes.
Do you sell larger quantities?
We do. If you need more than the biggest pack here, or a regular monthly supply, contact us with your monthly order count and product size, and we will quote.
If you are still deciding whether honeycomb paper is the right material at all, read honeycomb paper vs bubble wrap first. And if you are setting up your packing table from scratch, our packing station starter kit lists what to buy first.
