Want to make a change to your vehicle in 2025? A car wrap may be what you are looking for!
We will cover the how, and more importantly, the how much it will cost to get the vehicle wrap of your dreams! Read on to learn about the dos and don’ts of car wrapping, as the possibilities are endless!
What Is A Car Wrap?
Before we dive into the vast amount of information available in the car wrap world, we need to answer the basic question of what is a car wrap.
A vehicle wrap is a large sheets of vinyl film with special adhesive that, when hand applied properly, can adhere to almost any surface. Wraps can be made in many shapes, sizes, textures and styles.
A professional wrap takes a good amount of time planning and careful measuring and designing to ensure your vehicle looks how you envisioned.
Most people viewing a professional car wrap are surprised by how smooth and soft they appear with no bulges or lumpiness. Just smooth, clean design, with enough sheen that can be spotted for miles.
With the limitless options of wrapping vehicles, you can get everything from expressing your unique personal style to letting the world know you have a local business or business affiliation; a car wrap can convey this information.
What Are The Benefits of Wrapping Your Vehicle?
There are an abundance of benefits to wrapping your vehicle, beneficial for both personal design preferences or marketing your business.
Unlimited Design Choices
If you are looking to upgrade your vehicle with pizzazz, wrapping your vehicle is a guaranteed way to do it.
The things to consider with vehicle wrapping are the options. Camo? Sure. Bright Pink? Even better.
If you are going to wrap your vehicle, you can be as creative as you like with something that is so personal like your car. We all love our cars, and in many instances, they are a reflection of us and who we are.
Wrapping your vehicle is a fun way to contribute to other people’s safety and make them smile with something beautiful while they are trying to make it through their daily lives.
Wrapping Your Vehicle To Promote Your Business
Other than flashing your designs and aesthetic, one beneficial aspect of wrapping your vehicle is promoting something.
If you are a small business like a food truck or a window cleaning business, wrapping your vehicle with your branding and contact information is a wonderful way to give potential clients the ability to see your service and learn about your company through an activity everyone is doing every day: driving.
Whether on a busy highway or driving through the neighborhood, you will be sure to get the eyeballs you need on your company or your affiliation when wrapping your vehicle.
Even if you aren’t promoting a business, wrapping your vehicle is a way to get your message out, like spreading joy or making a call to action, like helping the planet.
From local auto shops to the big-name brands, we are confident you will find the vehicle wrap that best suits your personal needs and personal design or business goals.
Just don’t forget to include the phone number so customers and potential clients can start calling you right away!
What Are The Different Types of Vehicle Wrapping?
A third consideration in the world of vehicle wrapping is what car wrap do you need to meet your goals?
As with the design of your vehicle, the scope of the craftsmanship possibilities is endless. In general, it would depend on the company you are looking at hiring to do this project.
If you are investigating larger companies, they generally have many more options. Conversely, a smaller company may be limited to two to three vehicle wrapping options.
Because there are unlimited types of car wrap options, designs, and finishes, we decided to limit this section to only a couple of the most well-known and popular options in the vehicle wrapping industry so you can browse and pick the best options for your vehicle.
3M Vinyl Wrap Film Series
The 3M Vinyl Wrap Film Series is probably one of the best-known premium vehicle wraps. They have become very popular in the vehicle wrapping world due to the versatility, ease of installation, and good quality of the material used.
One of the big pluses to going with a 3M Vinyl wrap is the multitude of options, including Matte, Satin, Gloss, Straight Fiber, Carbon Fiber, and Brushed Metal. This means that you will be able to customize every square inch of your vehicle.
In addition to types of vehicle wraps, there is also brands. The vehicle wrap industry provides customers with many popular brands to choose from.
Matte Wrapping
Matte Wrapping is another very popular vehicle wrapping option due to the aesthetic look and physical feel of the product when wrapped to a vehicle.
Matte wrapping utilizes all the same wrapping coverage processes as vinyl wrapping, but the aesthetic look will be different than the vinyl wrapping above.
Matte wrapping has less of a sheen and offers a muted but shiny, sleek-looking aesthetic for those episodes of using darker colors in the vehicle wrapping project.
Whichever wrapping version you choose, be sure to sit down with your project manager and discuss your goals and budgets, as these elements are very important to work through early and upfront in your customizing process.
How Much to Wrap My Car?
The short answer. It depends. There are many factors and variables to consider when deciding on the perfect wrap for your vehicle.
We have narrowed it down to 3 main components when thinking about a price point. They are brand, type of vehicle wrap, and installation.
Brand
One of the largest decisions you will make as a consumer is deciding what brand of wrap you are going to want for your car.
The options are endless and often can fit most budgets while still receiving a quality vehicle wrap. The hard part is deciding which one!
Premium to Online Shopping
The brands of vehicle wraps range from very pricey brands like Anderson Dennison down to finding a car wrap online for not too much money through resources like eBay, again, possibly not the highest quality for the aesthetic value.
From our research on eBay we have seen you can buy an entire vehicle wrap for as little as $300, but as we all know from shopping online, it is always difficult to assess the quality of a product just from their photographs or descriptions, presumably to describe the product.
The risk in ordering a vehicle wrap online is the ability to know for sure that the product is of quality, or even that the wrap will appear anything like what it looks like in the photos.
If you decide to go this route, just ensure you do your research, read reviews, and ask if there is a refund policy in case it is far from what you had initially envisioned.
Do Your Own Research
In terms of choosing a brand for your vehicle wrap, it would likely serve you well to do your own research before making a decision.
The best place to start is with your local auto body shop. You can likely speak to them about options, prices, and ask if they offer discounts.
We also recommend that you utilize a vehicle wrapping quote tool, which you can enter your vehicle, brand, designs, and even budget to check an estimation of the finished product before even driving to an auto body shop or getting on the phone.
Types of Vehicle Wraps
As we mentioned before, there are many different types, all have their own pros and cons, varying from an attractive value and aesthetic to a price. Another factor that you should consider is that many vehicle wrapping companies will provide you with a flat price for the entire custom product creation.
That is, they won’t charge you separately per square foot; they will charge a finished flat fee for the entire length of the vehicle wrapping job, from start to finish. Below, we explore and price out the four most common vehicle wraps.
Vinyl Matte
If you are looking for more of a matte design, then a matte wrapping may be an option for you. For a vinyl matte vehicle wrap, on average, according to CreditDonkey, it goes for $2.00 – $3.50 per square foot. For example, if you were a mid-size four-door sedan, that matte vehicle wrap could cost you around $2,000 and could cost more depending on how you detail your project.
Chrome
Chrome vehicle wrapping is more on the expensive side at per square foot, starting at $8 per square foot and going up depending on what quality of chrome you would like your vehicle wrap to be.
Vinyl Gloss
Vinyl Gloss is another economical option at a range from a range of $1.50 to $3.50 per square foot.
Carbon Fiber
Carbon Fiber is a vehicle wrap phenomenon that generally touches all bases for vehicle wrap lovers. On average, carbon fiber generally runs between the general range of $3 to $7 per square foot.
Installation
Another significant question that needs to be addressed to provide accurate price information is whether or not you will be wrapping the vehicle yourself, or going to a vehicle wrapping company, or an auto shop that handles wrapping a variety of vehicles.
There are many pros and cons to consider for whichever direction of installation you choose, and it is ultimately up to your personal time constraints to complete the vehicle wrapping process.
Wrapping your vehicle, yourself at home
Of course, if you wrap the vehicle yourself, there will be no labor cost to you, only your time to complete the project.
According to industry professionals, it would take a novice completing this project on his or her own anywhere between 2-3 full days to wrap an entire vehicle from beginning to end. Just be aware that wrapping a vehicle at home may not yield the results you are looking for in the first attempt.
If you have the time to spare, purchasing one or two vehicle wraps and completing the project at home may provide a great way to save some money while executing a project with your tools that may be collecting dust in your garage!
Professional vehicle wrapping at an auto shop
Another option is to find a company that specializes in wrapping vehicles or try your local auto body shop to see if they will do it for you.
With courtesy to being done professionally, the size of the vehicle and the complexity of the wrap are the two items that will affect the final price of the finished product.
According to some wrapping shops, the average cost for a partial vehicle wrap for sedans and SUVs can start from $300. If you need the wrap to cover approximately 40% of your vehicle, it will cost you a minimum of $600 for sedans and a minimum of $900 for some SUVs.
If you need the wrap to cover approximately 60% of your vehicle, you should expect to calculate at least $1,600 for sedans and at least $1,900 for SUVs. If you need to cover 100% of your sedan, SmartMotorist estimates you should be prepared to pay between $2,800 and $3,400.