Ten pens, or a thousand. The same pen.

Five steps, and you can stop at any of them without owing us anything.

1. You enquire. The form at the bottom of this page, or an ordinary email. Quantity, finishes, personalisation and the date it has to land.
2. We quote. Within two working days, in writing: unit price, personalisation, packaging, shipping, and the earliest realistic delivery date.
3. You accept. Reply to the quote, or send a purchase order if that is how your organisation buys.
4. We make it. Payment or an agreed purchase order starts the workshop. Anything personalised is proofed with you first.
5. It ships. One tracked consignment, one invoice, one delivery date you were told about in advance.

Nothing is charged and nothing is made until you have said yes to a written quote.

Wholesale starts at 10 pens. Below that, the shop is genuinely the better route: single pens ship within 48 hours, arrive boxed and gift-ready, and you are not waiting on us to write a quote.

You can mix Midnight, Daydream and Heirloom inside one order at no extra cost — they are identical inside, and most bookshops take all three.

The bands in the table above are indicative. They exist so you can see roughly where you sit before you write to us, not to shut anyone out. A run of 12 for a leaving gift and a run of 800 for a conference are both ordinary requests here.

The workshop time in the table starts when a quote is accepted and payment or a purchase order is in place — not when you first write to us. Add the shipping time for your country on top; those are set out on the shipping page.

What stretches a timeline, in rough order of how much:

• Engraving. Each clip is cut individually. Above a hundred pens this becomes the longest part of the job.
• A different scroll per recipient. Every ribbon is printed, checked, rolled and loaded by hand.
• Custom packaging. Anything printed outside the workshop runs on someone else's schedule, and needs a physical sample signed off first.
• Finish availability. One finish running low can push a large order by a fortnight.

If your date is immovable, put it in the enquiry. We would rather tell you no in the first reply than miss it in the fifth week.

Every wholesale price is worked out case by case. There is no published trade list on this site, and there will not be one, because a fair number for a school buying 30 pens is not a fair number for a retailer restocking every quarter.

Your quote states, in writing: the unit price, what personalisation is included, the packaging, the shipping cost, the taxes or duties that apply, the delivery window, and the payment terms. It holds for 30 days.

Prices quoted exclude any import duty or local tax charged at the border of the destination country. Where we know what those are likely to be, we say so in the quote rather than let you find out on delivery.

Under 100 pens, we ask for the full amount before production begins. It keeps the arrangement simple and the lead time short.

Above 100 pens, we will consider a purchase order or a split — a deposit to start the work, the balance before dispatch. Schools, universities and public bodies that cannot pay in advance should say so in the enquiry; we deal with procurement cycles regularly and can usually work to them.

Card, bank transfer and the payment methods offered at checkout are all accepted. An invoice is issued by [Company name] with every order, whether or not you asked for one.

Bulk orders travel as one tracked, insured consignment to one address, and you are told the dispatch date before it leaves. Larger runs go on a pallet or in several boxes; we tell you which, and how many, in the quote.

We can hold a finished order for a delivery window that suits you — useful when nobody is at the shop until Tuesday, or when a conference venue will not accept a parcel early. Say so and we will diarise it.

Splitting one order across several addresses is possible and is quoted separately, because it is several consignments wearing one order number.

Check the consignment on arrival. Shortages or transit damage need to reach us within 7 days of delivery so that we can make a claim against the carrier.

Faulty pens. Every pen in a wholesale order carries the same two-year warranty as one bought singly. Tell us how many and what is wrong, and we replace them or refund them. We pay the postage both ways. The full terms are on the warranty page.

Shortages and damage in transit. Within 7 days of delivery, with a photograph of the outer packaging where you have one. Replacements go out within 48 hours of us agreeing what is missing.

Change of mind. Unpersonalised stock can come back within 14 days of delivery, unopened and in a resaleable state, for a refund less the return carriage. Personalised and engraved pens cannot — an engraved name is worth nothing to the next customer, which is precisely why it is worth something to yours.

Cancellation. Before production starts, a full refund. Once engraving or scroll printing has begun, we refund what has not yet been made.

None of this affects the statutory rights of a consumer buying from you.

We are glad to be stocked, and there is no exclusivity, no territory carve-up and no minimum annual spend. What we ask is short:

• Sell the pen as it comes, in its own box, with the printer and paper it shipped with. Please do not break the kit up into parts.
• Use the product name and the finish names as they are written: SneakPen, SneakPrint, Midnight, Daydream, Heirloom.
• Do not describe the paper as recyclable. It is not, and we explain why on the materials page.
• Ask before using our photographs in paid advertising. Editorial and shop use is fine — the terms live on the press page.
• Send a customer with a faulty pen to us, or claim on their behalf. Either works; nobody should be stuck between the two of us.

We do not set your retail price. We do ask that you tell us before running the pen at a heavy discount, so that we are not answering questions about it with no idea what is going on.

Four things can be personalised on a bulk order: the clip can be engraved, the first scroll can be printed, a card can be printed, and the packaging can be made specially above a certain volume.

Send the wording as plain text in a spreadsheet, one line per pen, spelled exactly as it should appear. We proof it back to you and print what you approve — we do not correct spellings on your behalf, because a name that looks wrong to us is frequently right.

By sending us artwork, a logo or a list of names, you confirm you have the right to use them and that we may reproduce them for your order alone. We will not use your artwork elsewhere, and we do not keep the name lists once the order has shipped.

We will decline anything unlawful, hateful or designed to impersonate someone. It has happened twice. Both times we said no.