Which tin box shape should you choose?
Masaş holds tooling for 7 tin shape families across 120 stock sizes. Rectangular and square tins fill the whole footprint of a pallet layer and give the largest flat area to print on. Round tins are the cheapest body to form and seal the most evenly, which is why tea, coffee and tobacco use them — but a circle covers only about 79% of its own footprint, so roughly 21% of every pallet layer ships as air. Deep-drawn tins are pressed from one piece with no side seam and stay shallow. Trays and shaped tins are chosen for presentation rather than for volume. The full comparison, with the exact size range we already hold tooling for in each family, is below.
- Shape families
- 7
- Stock sizes
- 120
- Lead time
- 4–6 weeks
- Typical MOQ (pcs)
- 5 000–25 000
| Shape | Stock sizes | Footprint range | Height range | Pallet layer use | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rectangular | 45 | 50–345 mm | 20–270 mm | 100% | Flat products and the largest print area |
| Round | 24 | 41–230 mm | 22–325 mm | 79% | Aroma-sensitive products and the lowest forming cost |
| Square | 23 | 75–215 mm | 35–180 mm | 100% | Gift sets and stackable retail display |
| Deep-drawn | 14 | 58–205 mm | 15–60 mm | 95% | Shallow premium formats with no side seam |
| Tray | 10 | 89–400 mm | — | 100% | Presentation, serving and gift-set bases |
| Oval | 1 | 160–300 mm | 40 mm | 79% | A softer silhouette without a custom die |
| Shaped | 3 | 195–235 mm | 40–75 mm | Varies | Gift impact where the silhouette is the product |
Rectangular
45 stock sizes
The largest family in our range and the default for anything flat — chocolate bars, tea bags, playing cards, pasta, cables, tools. Straight sides mean a rectangular tin loses nothing on a pallet layer and gives you the biggest single face to print on, which is why most licensed and seasonal artwork ends up on this shape. The trade-off is corner strength: a deep rectangular body needs a heavier tinplate gauge than a round one of the same height, so very tall rectangular tins cost slightly more per unit than their volume suggests.
Most ordered for: Chocolate · Coffee · Tea · Electronics & Gadgets
Round
24 stock sizes
A round body is rolled from a single sheet and closed with one vertical seam, so it is the least expensive shape to form and the easiest to seal well — the reason tea, coffee and tobacco have used round tins for a century. A slip lid on a round tin also reseals more evenly than on any cornered shape, because the pressure on the lid is the same all the way round. The cost is shelf and freight efficiency: the tin fills only about four fifths of its own square footprint, so you pay to ship the gap on every pallet layer.
Most ordered for: Tea · Wine · Popcorn & Snacks · Pet Food
Square
23 stock sizes
A square tin gives you four equal faces and a full-bleed lid, which is why gift and confectionery sets favour it — the pack reads the same however it is turned on a shelf, and it stacks flat in a carton with no wasted space. Square corners limit how deep the body can be drawn before the corner radius has to grow, so a very tall square tin is built as a separate body and lid rather than pressed in one piece. That is a manufacturing detail rather than a quality one, but it affects tooling if you are designing a new size.
Most ordered for: Baklava · Nuts & Dried Fruit · Tea · Coffee
Deep-drawn
14 stock sizes
A deep-drawn tin is pressed from a single blank, so it has no side seam and a soft, continuous corner radius — the finish people associate with mint tins, saffron boxes, solid perfume, jewellery and small cosmetics. The seamless corner also lets the tin be opened and closed repeatedly without deforming, which matters for a product the customer keeps on a desk or in a pocket. Depth is the limit: the deeper the draw, the more the metal thins at the corner, so this family stays shallow. The table shows the exact height range we hold.
Most ordered for: Candles · Saffron · Soap & Bath · Jewellery
Tray
10 stock sizes
A tray has no lid and only a low rolled rim; it is bought to be seen rather than to protect. Ours are used as serving trays and coasters, and as the base of a boxed gift set where a printed metal tray replaces a moulded plastic insert — a straight swap that removes plastic from the pack without changing the box. Because the rim is shallow there is very little forming involved, which makes a tray the least expensive printed metal item we produce, and the one where the artwork does all the work.
Oval
1 stock sizes
An oval sits between round and rectangular: softer than a box, more distinctive than a circle, and unusual enough to stand out in a chocolate or biscuit assortment. It shares the round tin's weakness — part of every pallet layer stays empty — and it is the smallest family we hold, so the choice of stock sizes is narrow. Anything beyond what is listed here is a tooling project rather than a stock order, and the eight-week first lead time applies.
Most ordered for: Chocolate
Shaped
3 stock sizes
Hearts, books and other silhouettes exist for one reason: the outline is recognised before the artwork is read. Every shaped tin needs its own die set, so it carries the full tooling cost and the longest first lead time of any format. It pays back on repeat seasonal runs — a Valentine's, wedding or Christmas line ordered every year spreads the die over several seasons, and the die stays ours to store and yours to reorder against. For a one-off promotion, printing a striking design on a stock shape almost always makes more commercial sense.
Most ordered for: Gifting · Chocolate
How to choose, in four questions
What shape is the product itself?
Flat products — bars, cards, sachets, dry pasta — lose usable volume in a round tin. Loose or granular products such as tea, coffee, nuts and popcorn settle better in a round one and are easier to scoop out. Match the tin to the product before anything else; every other consideration is cheaper to change later than this one.
Does it need to reseal?
Anything aromatic or moisture-sensitive — coffee, tea, tobacco, spices, saffron — holds better in a round or deep-drawn tin, because a continuous curve keeps even pressure on the lid all the way round. Cornered tins reseal perfectly well for biscuits, confectionery and dry goods, but never quite as evenly as a curve.
How will it ship and sit on a shelf?
Square and rectangular tins use the whole footprint of a pallet layer and stack flat. Round and oval tins leave roughly a fifth of each layer empty, which turns into real freight cost on container volumes and into lost facings on a narrow shelf. On a 5,000-piece gift run it is irrelevant; on a repeating tea line it is worth calculating before the shape is fixed.
Is the shape doing the selling?
If the silhouette is part of the gift — a heart, a book, a shaped seasonal line — a custom die is worth the roughly eight weeks and the first-run cost, because the shape is the thing the buyer remembers. If the artwork is doing the selling, a stock shape gets you to market faster with no tooling cost at all, and the print quality is identical either way.
Why the shape changes your freight cost
The pallet figure in the table is how much of a pallet layer each shape actually occupies. A straight-sided tin fills its own footprint completely. A circle inscribed in the same square covers only about four fifths of it, and the remainder is air you pay to ship, to store and to insure. Deep-drawn tins sit just below the straight-sided shapes because of their corner radius. None of this matters on a single pallet of gift tins; it matters a great deal on a repeating export order, and it is worth checking against your own carton and pallet dimensions before the shape is locked.
If none of these fit
We cut our own dies in our own tooling studio, so a shape that is not on this list is a project rather than a refusal — roughly eight weeks for the first tooling, then nothing on repeat orders. Send a drawing, a competitor sample, or simply the dimensions and fill weight you need, and we will tell you which stock shape gets you closest before you commit to a die. Custom-printed orders on the shapes above run 5,000–25,000 pieces per design with a 4–6 week lead time.