Vinyl cutter recommendation

Something like this?

https://www.brother.ca/en/p/CM650W

Never used one and I can't imagine it's very efficient, loading one sheet at a time. Seems more like a hobby tool.

 

The GX 24 (and I'm sure similar plotter from the other brands) Roland plotter can cut your 11 x 17 sheets (needs 15" min on one side), but it can also do rolls as well.

For your 8.5 x 11, more then likely looking at a hobby cutter. I would nix the 8.5 x 11 if you don't want a hobby cutter at all.

 

If your not buying pre-die cut sheets, there would be no reason to print the 8.5 x 11 size. Just print 11 x 17 especially if your getting charged a single click on 11 x 17.

 

You can technically load that size of material into the machine but because of the way the pinch roller system is designed, you will lose most of the cutting area on sheets that size. These machines are meant to cut rolls and large scraps. Smaller sheets are generally too small to be useful. I don't see any roll to roll machine working well in your case. As you said, you would have to hand feed the machine every single sheet so doing 1000s is out of the question. Now if you could change up your process a little and move to a roll material, then making 1000s at a time is ez pz.

 

We do 90% of our labels on IJ35 or IJ40, depending on permanent or removable, works like a charm.

 

This is probably way too late but we have a 54" graphtec cutter and we love it. In your case, Graphtec has an automated cutter that will do up to 200 13x19 sheets automatically. Seems perfect for your application needs. Check this out: https://www.graphtecamerica.com/cp-automatic-sheet-cutter