Below is a list of a few tried and recommended online printers — categorized by price, specialty services and fast turnaround time.
COMPETITIVELY PRICED
UPrinting
By far the most popular and well known by the design community at large is UPrinting.com. They offer a range of full color print services ranging from business cards, labels, folders, and postcards, to name a few. Their prices are also extremely competitive for the quality you receive.
PSPrint
PsPrint is fast and flexible and offers a full range of printing services for great prices.
PrintingForLess
Another competitively matched 4-color online printer, with quality results.
ImageMedia
Full color print services.
GotPrint
Quality print design services, offering a full range of options and even direct mail consultations and services.
FAST TURNAROUND TIME
Overnight Prints
Perfect for when you need your designs ASAP. Need some last minute business cards? Overnight Prints comes in handy for those situations.
SPECIALTY PRINTERS
JakPrints
Having used Jaks for a few years now I can honestly say every time I use them I am more and more impressed. Everything from the high quality offset printing to the customer support is perfect.
They also offer a full range of finishing options, such as embroidery, perforation, ticket numbering and custom die-cutting. Also, in addition to their standard print services you can even get apparel and sticker printing support.
Moo
Moo prints custom business cards, mini cards, postcards, sticker books and more. The neat thing about the mini cards is that each card can be different from the next, and the price is extremely competitive for such a service.
Shinebox
Shinebox takes a simple business card idea and gives it a unique twist. Each order of business cards comes in a booklet that can be self-designed and each card in the booklet can be different from the next. Shinebox also offers unique mini brochures and portfolios.
Modern Postcard
Although Modern Postcard specializes in postcards and direct mail services, they also offer high quality design, layout and finishing services.
Know of or used any other online printer? Feel free to comment and share.
I’m glad to NOT see VistaPrint listed!!!
Great post!
This is a great list. I would also add 4over.com. You can set yourself up as a print reseller (you have to qualify as a designer or agency). They will charge you wholesale prices so you can markup for your clients or get your own work done at wholesale. Good quality - all work is run as 4 color.
I’ve used GotPrint with great results. Their ship date has frequently been earlier than they estimated. Another company I’ve used has been the strangely-named iprintfromhome.com and I’ve used them when I’ve had to order slides. Amazingly cost-efficient and their turnaround is great.
Overnight prints offers free UV coating on all their products - cant beat that!!!
Great to see a consolidated list. I will be utilizing / spreading this list. THX!
Great list! Uprint is really good quality as well as JaxPrints. Gotprint.com is extreamly cheep and the quality it pretty good. I would also recommend themandatepress.com for letterpress printing and FedEx Office for fast document printing and anything Sign & Graphics related (OVS prints/mounts, lamination, banners, decals, magnets, scrolling banners, backlit signs…etc) Same day turnaround in most cases too! fedex.com/us/office/
Great list, but I’d also add WePrintQuick.com. The site hasn’t been around that long, but they do great work. Their parent company has been in the printing business since 1900. We also like 48HourPrint. Their prices aren’t as good as others, but they’re good with short deadlines.
Muy chevere el listado, saludos desde Bogotá
Emily,
4over is one that I have been hearing about more recently. I’ll have to give them a try. Thanks for the suggestion.
Donna,
Great addition to the list. Took a look at the website and I liked what I saw. Thanks!
Niki,
Good to know! Could have been getting more bang for my buck all along.
I second JakPrints. I use them almost exclusively and I’m always satisfied.
I totally disagree on your statement about overnightprints.com. EVERY time I have counted on them for fast turn-around, they’ve missed the deadline. It’s always some excuse with them. The last time they missed a deadline, I gave them the option of shipping it overnight, or losing me as a very loyal and often customer and recommender of their services… you’ll never guess what they chose. DO NOT COUNT ON overnightprints.com, if you are under a tight deadline, you will likely be disappointed.
Enjoy your blog, but as a lover of great design and all things printed (in fact, great printed design is a topic in my blog right now) , it saddens me to see the interest in these on-line printers. Is there no room for a relationship with your printer? If printing is treated like a commodity, how long until design is, too? And what about supporting your local businesses instead of some distant, impersonal corporate machine?
Lisa,
Glad you enjoy my blog! I feel like this post was misinterpreted though so hopefully I can clear things up. I am not saying that one should choose a local printer versus an online printer, or the other way around. I was simply highlighting some of the online printers I have used for a few projects in the past. More things are being done over the internet so why is it wrong to use an online printer? Sure, the communication is lost with doing things online, but there is a time and place for both uses. Many of times when dealing with projects that require extra care and attention to the print details I will go locally so I can talk with them directly and make sure things turn out perfectly. Hope this helps make better sense out of my post.
In response to Lisa, in my case JakPrints is actually a local printer (Cleveland, Ohio) so it works out perfectly. Take a look at some of the addresses of these businesses they may be in your backyard.
rn5150,
Sorry to hear about your bad experiences with overnightprints. I have used them only a hand full of times and during those times had satisfactory results, but then again waiting for last minute for anything rush is not good practice. Hope you have better luck in the future.
Brian,
Of course waiting for the last minute is bad practice, but try telling that to my clients, who, more often than not, demand last-minute, rush service.
The bottom line is that overnightprints.com makes promises and commitments, yet regularly misses their self-imposed deadlines, and does nothing to make up for their failures. In fact, they really can’t even be bothered with apologizing for their mistakes.
Again, the final straw for me was that on the last order I placed with them, they had an opportunity to fix THEIR mistake by changing the shipping to overnight, but they refused. This is completely unsatisfactory customer service.
So, I will use every opportunity to spread the word that their customer service is terrible, not to mention that their quality is only mediocre when you actually do receive the products, on time.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll have to try some of these next time I need to print, which should hopefully be very soon.
I did a review on 4over.com’s Business Cards if anyone is interested. I’m not a printing guru but I gave my observations of what I received, how much i paid, and processing time.
If interested:
http://kmillustration.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-business-cards-from-4overcom_04.html
Great list for international printers, for a dutch printer i would ad http://www.flyerzone.nl
I work with them for a couple of years now and they always give a great/fast result.
I can personally attest to the quality and service of Uprinting. I’ve been happy with everything they’ve done for me, and all at a price better than anything I can get locally. Granted, they’re not the go-to shop for speciality printing, with custom paper and ink choices, but for standard 4-color work, they’re hard to beat.
We have megaimpresores.com in our country, they have services that any on your list has:
They can design your product while your watch in your own computer.
They sell 1 unit or 5.000.
Best prices.
But right now they sell just for Colombia.
Gustavo desde Pereira
One of my favorites is:
http://trade.grprint.com/
They have a huge variety, great prices - and some extras you can’t find other places. Things like:
Folding Business Cards
Custom Sizes
Rounded Corners
Embossing
Spot UV
Woohoo!
4over.com is so disappointing.
Miss-aligned spotUV, scratchs and bad cuts, poor phone and email support. All this in my first order. Had to fight with them to get a reprint.
Seems they don’t know what they are doing..
Ps My files were ok, I worked with print services for the past 4 years.
I would recommend zooprinting.com . They’re on-line printers but actually have CSR’s who can handle your projects from start to completion. Their pricing is really low, too, especially when they give out those weekly coupons! Yes, I have made a good buck marking up their crazy low prices.
i have a Philip Magnavox Classic Web im trying to find out what printers will fit it. thanks
Brian,
Nice list of online printers. I spent 3-4 days searching for this article I once stumbled upon in the past. At that time, I didn’t bookmark the page. I went through all my feeds, frequently visited sites, etc. I should have known to check here first before spending countless hours and days searching for it on other site. But I also benefited from searching cause I found some other sites that were pretty interesting and informative.
Nice write up tho. Have you tried gotprint.com. Just received my sample packet from them and quality is awesome. Price is even better. Narrowing the list down to gotprint, moo, and premiumcards.net
Paul
Hello there! I was canvassing for an online printer when I saw this blog post. Thanks for the recommendations.
Thanks for this post as well. I didn’t even know about online printers lol. I gotta seriously start reading my tech mags more often…
We are New Yorks’ largest commercial printer. We’d love for you to check us out and let us know what you think. For a limited time we’re giving away 250 Full Color Double Sided professional business cards. Hopefully we can be on your list!
I have always been pleased with M13 Graphics.
They have great prices, and every time I order, its done the next day.
They are not huge like these other places, but they are 15 minutes from my house, and they never let me down.
I highly recommend them to anyone in the Chicago area.
Brian:
Thanks for doing this… I’m also glad to not see VistaPrint listed. It’s a shame that one of the early adopters in this field just doesn’t get it.
I’ve had good success with 48hourprint.com, and they have the widest range of products I’ve seen to date.
Thanks,
Bill
I’ve been using http://www.printsafari.com. They are cheaper than UPrinting and I haven’t noticed any difference in quality. Printsafari also offers discounts for brokers like designers etc.
Hi Brian,
Thought you would like to look into premiumcards.net
http://www.premiumcards.net
Cheers!