The first thing any new sole proprietor or subcontractor does is print up some business cards. Self-employment means a lot of self-promotion. Therefore, expect to shake a lot of hands and hand out your business card to whoever passes you a smile. Business cards are an effective means of advertising and depending upon how resourceful you are in designing them, can tell a potential customer a lot about your business and you personally. Business cards are better than a 30 second commercial on television because these little cards are constantly selling you and can move someone to call you next week or even several months down the road.

There is certainly no shortage in creative designs when it comes to business cards. Even if you don't know the first thing about design or advertising, you can still order several hundred professional business cards with a pleasant artistic design, a logo (or graphic showing what your company is) and your contact information. Suggested contact information includes your name, address, phone number, email address and web address. However, you can also include a company motto, a special promotion, some quick price quotes, and of course, your type of business.

Where To Find Cheap Business Cards
Many companies sell standard or custom made business cards online from cheap to moderately expensive, based upon your specific needs. Some of the most popular business cards vendors include Vista Print, 123 Print, Prints Made Easy, Magic Prints and Business.com. Vista Print brags that their basic 250 cards package of a fixed design with contact information is free. However, shipping is $7.50 and the company's membership division attempts to charge your credit card for additional fees until you cancel membership. This is compared to 123 Print which charges $3.95 for 100 cards and at least $8.75 in shipping costs. While Vista Print offers the least customization, if you only need contact information then you can't beat the cost of “free” – with a slightly ballooned shipping and handling charge. Vista Print also creates different URLs such as stationary-stationery.com, which lead back to Vista Print.

Cheap custom business cards cost slightly more, such as Got Print.net's custom package which features a full color front side for $39.00 plus printing costs. Full color front and back business cards cost $49.00 plus printing, and full color on both sides of the card costs $59.00 plus printing. Finding regular business cards cheap is fairly easy. But with inflated shipping charges and accounting for extra features, nothing is entirely free.