PrintPlace Review — Online Printing Comparison (2012)

Established in 2006, and with 3 locations across the US in Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, PrintPlace is an online printing company enabling customers to get their designs printed on products as varied as business cards,posters, postcards,brochures, magazines, flyers, notepads and even fridge magnets!With a user-friendly interface, the site requires you to simply:

• Select your product.
• Upload your designs.
• Order and pay.

 The dynamic price calculator updates when you change any printing variable like turnaround time, paper type, quantity and so on.The order is then printed using offset printing and shipped to you or whoever you wish to depending on the turnaround time you have selected (2, 3 or 5 day excluding shipping).The end result is excellent quality prints with good finish attributable to the high quality equipments that PrintPlace uses.

PrintPlace offers the following advantages:

• Excellent print quality.
• Numerous turnaround options to select from.
• Discount coupons making it a huge draw for bulk orders.
• Serves as a one stop shop for all printing needs as it offers many products.
• In-house mailing services allow you to ship your order directly to customers.
• At par rates with most of it's competitors ensures best quality at lowest price.

PrintPlace ranks seventh out of thirteen online printing services picked up by toptenreviews.com and has strong competitors in the form of UPrinting, FedEx Office, Next Day Flyers, Vistaprint and so on. PrintPlace is a dedicated service for uploading your designs for printing and they do not have any online design tool/template you can customize, though they have an art check which is free in addition to a paid professional one. Thus, in design features area it is slightly weak  in comparison to UPrinting or FedEx Office which have highly interactive online design tools. Also, unlike most rivals, PrintPlace does not give you the option of saving your order for later just as it doesn't have a Demo section on it's site.

 It's USP clearly lies in the Business cards product category which it offers at the lowest comparative rate (as low as $17.50 for 500).The area where PrintPlace scores most over it's competitors is that of print quality and here it truly proves that it is 'passionate about printing'.

Online printing services offer a viable alternative to individuals/companies who are involved with the printing process and are dissatisfied with the local printing firm which charges higher rates or offers substandard quality.If you fit in with the above, PrintPlace is good news for you as it:

• offers high quality prints at affordable rates (eg. $15.50 for 250 copies of 2 sided glossy 2x3.5" business card).
• is user friendly with a flexible instant quote tool.
• offers a wide selection of printable products(booklets, brochures,cards,posters,calenders,flyers etc), paper types(80#,100#text, 11,14,15 pt cover or 15pt plastic) and finishing styles(aqueous, high gloss UV coating, or satin matte).
• offers same day turnaround (on printing) if required, alongwith the standard 2, 3 or 5 day turnaround times. PrintPlace ships through UPS making it easy to track your order online.By taking on your mailing list PrintPlace can ship your order to your customers if you so desire through their integrated mailing services.
• uses high quality machines from brands like Fuji, Epson, Saber to create high calibre-prints endorsing their tagline 'passionate about printing'.Their '100% satisfaction guarantee' is aimed at gaining the confidence of the customers.
• offers help through its submit a ticket,  FAQs and knowledgebase sections.They can be called on phone(877.405.3949) or be connected with directly via online chat.
• offers coupons through which you can avail discounts.

Let's hear what PrintPlace customers have to say:

"PrintPlace delivered my batch of 50 calendars pretty much on time, which I was not expecting as I have had some bad experiences in the past with other large printing companies. 

I'd give the printing quality a 4.5 out of 5 as it was very good, but it didn't blow my socks off. However, considering that my design was very technical and detailed (these were highly intricate auto-based calendars for a specialist client of mine), I could not complain. 

Considering the fact that I got a pretty big coupon discount as-well, i am quite prepared to say that I had a good first time experience with printplace. I prefer them to Vistaprint, but then again i only used them once so far!"

(http://onlineprintingreview.lefora.com/members/designgoddess)

"My experience was pretty good as well, I ordered a large batch of brochures and although my coupon only gave 10% off, the quality of the finished products could easily be described as excellent "

(http://onlineprintingreview.lefora.com/2010/02/13/printplace-basics/2/)