Creasing coated carton board or folding coated magazine paper, result in large strains in the surface layer of the paper product and might result in surface cracks, which decrease the quality of the products. A better understanding of the mechanical properties of coated layers increases the knowledge needed to reduce crack formation in coated fiberbased materials. The crack area on a coated board was measured after creasing and folding and the crack area on a coated copy paper was measured after folding. A clay pigment and a Ground Calcium Carbonate (GCC) pigment were used. The binder was either an S/B latex or an S/B latex combined with starch. The type of pigment seemed to have the greatest influence on the crack area during creasing and folding of thick board. Clay based coatings showed a larger crack area than the GCC based coatings and coatings containing starch showed generally a larger crack area than the coatings that contained only S/B latex. After folding of thin copy papers, the crack area showed a slightly different pattern. Here, it seemed that the binder was of greater importance than the type of pigment. Coatings containing only latex binder showed a considerably lower crack area than the coatings containing both latex and starch binders. The clay based coatings also showed similar crack areas as the GCC based coatings. A micromechanical model was used to estimate the in-plane and out-of-plane mechanical properties of clay based- and GCC based- coating layers. The clay-based coatings showed an anisotropic material behavior with considerably lower stiffness and strength during out-of-plane compared to in-plane. GCC based coatings, on the other hand, showed an isotropic material behavior with similar in-plane and out-of-plane properties. The calculated material behavior of coating layers, together with the data from the literature was used to explain the difference in cracking behavior between Clay- and GCC- based coatings during creasing of thick coated board and folding of thin coated copy paper.