A custom sticker sheet on a Cricut is a Print Then Cut job: your home printer prints the artwork plus Cricut’s sensor marks, then the machine scans those marks and cuts around each sticker. The steps below follow Cricut’s own help pages (checked October 2026) and point out where Cricut does not publish a number.
What you need
- A Print Then Cut machine. Cricut lists Explore, Maker, Venture, Joy Xtra and Joy 2 models; the original Cricut Joy cannot do Print Then Cut.
- A color printer. Cricut doesn’t name a model, but it recommends inkjet, and its Printable Sticker Paper is inkjet only. To print from Design Space on iOS, the printer needs AirPrint.
- Sticker paper your machine can read. On an Explore Air 2 or older, Cricut says to use non-reflective matte white or transparent materials only. Explore 3, all Maker models, Venture and Joy Xtra can read white, light-colored and simple patterned materials; dark, high-gloss or holographic non-Cricut papers may cause scan problems.
- A LightGrip mat and the Fine-Point blade (Cricut’s sticker paper instructions).
That is also the honest answer to “best printer for Cricut stickers”: any color inkjet that can print at actual size without forcing borderless or fit-to-page scaling.
Step 1: prepare the designs
Save each design as a PNG with a transparent background, so the cut line follows the artwork rather than a white box. StickerApp’s guideline is at least 300 dpi at final print size. Sticker Mule’s formula makes this easy to check: pixel width divided by print width in inches. A 600 px image printed 3 in wide is only 200 PPI; at 2 in wide it is 300.
Gridback warns you when a design falls below 300 dpi at the size you set, and it caps source images at 2,400 px on the long side (600 dpi at 4 in) so the page still runs on a phone. More detail is in the resolution guide.
Step 2: lay out the sheet
You have two ways to do this.
In Gridback. Open the sheet maker, drop in your PNGs, set each sticker’s size and let it trace a contour, rounded-rectangle or circle cut line. Defaults are a 1/8 in (3.2 mm) border, 1/16 in (1.6 mm) bleed and 1/8 in gap between stickers. The Cricut presets export a 300 dpi PNG sized to the Print Then Cut area with transparent gaps, so each sticker uploads as its own shape. Your images stay on your device.
In Design Space. Add an outline with the Offset tool (up to 1 in, or 2.5 cm, according to Cricut), select the design and its offset, and use Flatten so the machine cuts only the outer edge; Cricut warns that Attach makes it cut around every small element instead. Then click Make and raise Project Copies until the page is full, which is the method Cricut’s size article suggests for fitting stickers on a page.
How many fit depends on the area. Using Gridback’s calculator with 1/8 in gaps, 1.5 in square stickers give 24 on Cricut’s 7.44 × 9.94 in Letter area and 20 on the older 6.75 × 9.25 in area; at 2 in square both give 12. See stickers per sheet and the Print Then Cut size limits guide.
Step 3: upload as a Print Then Cut image
In Design Space choose Upload, then Upload Image, and pick the PNG. When asked what kind of upload you want, choose Flat Graphic, which Cricut describes as a single-layer, full-color image for Print Then Cut. On the Canvas, check the width and height in the Edit bar match the sheet size you exported, and that the Operation reads Print Then Cut.
If a warning icon appears in the Layers panel, the image is larger than the cuttable area for your page size. Cricut offers Auto-Resize or Change Page Size; for a Gridback sheet, re-export with the smaller safe-area preset instead of letting Design Space shrink your stickers.
Step 4: print with bleed on
Cricut is firm on one point: print, sensor marks and cut should be “done in one flow from the same device”. Saving a Print Then Cut project as a PDF and printing it outside Design Space “will result in incorrectly sized cut sensor marks”.
Bleed is on by default and can be toggled at Send To Printer on desktop. Cricut recommends printing with it; its Create Sticker guide only suggests turning it off when a sticker has no border. Cricut doesn’t publish the bleed width.
Cricut’s printer checklist: portrait mode, highest print quality, one page per sheet, no narrow margins, no edge printing, no centering, and no page scaling (“fit to page” or “shrink to fit”). For sticker paper, Cricut also suggests feeding one sheet at a time, ideally through the bypass tray.
Step 5: calibrate if cuts drift
Machines come calibrated, but Cricut required recalibration after its June 2022 Print Then Cut update, and it suggests calibrating again if cuts drift off the printed edge. On desktop, open the Design Space menu, then Calibration, then Print Then Cut; on mobile it is under Settings, Print Then Cut Settings. Use the calibration sheet Design Space prints in that session.
Step 6: choose the material setting
Place the printed sheet on a LightGrip mat in the same orientation as on screen. Open Browse All Materials and pick the setting that matches your paper; for Cricut’s own paper that means Printable Sticker Paper, with separate entries for the gray-liner and green-liner versions. On an Explore Air 2 or older, turn the Smart Set dial to Custom first.
We are not giving blade pressure numbers because Cricut does not publish one figure that suits every sticker paper. If a third-party paper cuts too deep or too shallow, start from the closest Design Space setting and save a custom material setting once it peels cleanly. Create Sticker adds “More” or “Less” pressure dropdowns on the cut screen.
Step 7: kiss cut or die cut
A kiss cut goes through the sticker layer only, so the stickers stay on one backing sheet. A die cut goes through the liner as well, giving loose single stickers. The full comparison is in kiss-cut vs die-cut stickers.
Free Offset vs Create Sticker
| Offset (free Design Space) | Create Sticker (Cricut Access) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to cut, as of October 2026 | Free | Standard $9.99/month or $95.88/year; Premium $14.99/month or $119.88/year |
| Cut styles | Kiss cut, per Cricut’s FAQ | Die Cut, Kiss Cut, or Kiss Cut plus Die Cut Edge |
| Border | Offset, up to 1 in | Border size and color in the tool |
| Flatten needed | Yes, by hand | Done automatically |
| Platform | All current Design Space versions | Desktop 8.15+, iOS 5.50+, Android 5.45+ |
Anyone can preview Create Sticker on the Canvas, but cutting needs a subscription. Its Die Cut Edge option kiss-cuts the sticker and adds a through-cut outline, so you can hand out singles that still peel easily.
Common mistakes
- Printing a saved PDF outside Design Space, which breaks the sensor mark size.
- Letting the printer driver scale the page.
- Glossy or dark paper on an Explore Air 2 or older.
- Using Attach instead of Flatten, so every letter is cut separately.
- Images below 300 dpi, which print soft no matter how well they cut. Size your border before you start; the offset and bleed guide explains how much is enough.