Is it alright to hand out business cards, that are printed on plain white printer paper, instead of on special paper? Does it make any difference?
It's fine but there will be people who wonder how serious you are about your business.
Unless you use the special business card forms that separate cleanly (Different brands have their own trade names for this feature) and are heavy weight card stock — NO!

The problem is that too many people form their impressions of you and your business based on trivial factors — like your business cards not looking professional or your shoes aren't shined or your not driving an expensive car.

Hope this helps
Jerry-the-bookkeeper
Make sure its a heavy weight paper. You dont want it to be too flimsy because it might look cheap.

If you're printing at home just use card stock or pre preforated blank business cards. (its what i did until we got ours) It's easy to print yourself and you can do it yourself pretty cheap from Stapes, office depot, something like that.

And if you want better cards check out online printing services they are cheap and usually provide good cards. I use Vista print. they get you with the shipping but if you can wait and have them shipped slow you can get 200-300 cards for like 10-15 bucks

Good Luck!
its fine