Promotional products for trade show booths
A trade show booth costs ten to fifty thousand dollars all in. The branded merchandise is one to ten percent of that budget. Done well, it generates qualified leads and gets attendees to remember the booth six weeks later. Done badly, it is a stack of cheap pens nobody picked up.
The three-tier booth giveaway strategy
Top-of-funnel: the cheap-but-good item every passerby grabs. A quality sticker pack (Sticker Mule die-cut style), a magnet, or a mini hand sanitizer with the brand. Cost: under $1 per unit. Quantity: 1,000 to 5,000.
Mid-funnel: the conversation-starter that gets attendees into the booth. A quality reusable cup with a coffee voucher tied to a follow-up demo. A custom phone wallet. Cost: $3 to $7 per unit. Quantity: 100 to 500.
Bottom-of-funnel: the gift you only give to qualified leads who book a follow-up call. A high-quality notebook, a Yeti tumbler, AirPods. Cost: $25 to $80 per unit. Quantity: 25 to 100. The expensive one closes the lead.
What to skip at trade shows
Branded plastic pens. They get grabbed and thrown out in the next trash can. Stress balls. Anything that does not fit in a standard tote. Items that require batteries. Items that look generic from across the booth.
The pre-event timeline
Six weeks before the event for top-of-funnel orders. Eight weeks for premium gifts that need decoration. Confirm in-hands dates against the show's shipping schedule (most large shows have a labor and storage window). Quote shipping to the show's advance warehouse, not the venue, for orders over a few cases.
What we built differently in DECADE.promo
Unlimited AI on the GOAT plan
AI mockups, Product Capture (browser-extension AI scraping of supplier sites), AI vectorization, and AI image upscale - all unlimited on one flat-price tier. No credit metering, no per-feature add-ons.
AI Product Capture extension
Browse any supplier website - SAGE, Hit Promo, Koozie Group, anywhere - click the browser extension, and our AI reads the page. SKUs, pricing tiers, setup fees, colors, lead times, and images are extracted in seconds and import directly to your products catalog.
Tightly integrated with SAGE
Bring your own SAGE Connect subscription. Search, adopt products, and pull pricing tiers without leaving DECADE.promo. Sales decks, quotes, and POs reuse the SAGE data automatically.
Transparent pricing
Free tier for solo distributors, flat per-distributor pricing for teams, and no per-seat tax. Customers always free. Suppliers always free.
One platform. Two free accounts. One public layer for everyone else.
The tool you’re using is one feature in a much bigger app. Here’s the rest, by which side of the order you’re on.
- Every public tool on this site
- 5 conversions a day per IP
- One file at a time
- Output dropped after the request
- No account, no nag
- Every public tool, no rate limit
- Batch 10 files at once
- 30-day download history
- AI vectorization (the $50-redraw replacement)
- AI mockup generator, white-label proofs
- SAGE catalog, 1M+ products
- Quotes, POs, invoices, projects
- Storefront under your brand
- Blind-ship POs to suppliers
- Saved thread palettes per customer
- Email automation for every status
- Every public tool, no rate limit
- Every order in one place
- Approve proofs without email tag
- Two-click reorder
- Saved shipping + tax-exempt files
- Real-time status pings
- See and pay invoices online
- Message your distributor inside the app
- Always free. No card.
See it in your workflow
Free tier, no credit card, no contract. Start with one project and decide from there.