Shutterfly has a rating of 1.89 stars from 1,437 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Shutterfly most frequently mention customer service, christmas cards, and photo book problems. Shutterfly ranks 142nd among Photo Printing sites.
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Firstly, my soft cover 8 X 11 book was expensive! The shipping of a small soft covered book was $10. The total cost was much more than the 2024 calendar I made just a couple months ago, which I was quite happy with. Also, upon delivery the book was bent on front page in two places. It was rolled into my mailbox instead of being left flat or delivered to the door. There was no extra support inside the envelop to prevent damage to the product. It was just put inside the envelop in its plastic cover with nothing to keep the product flat. Some of the layouts which extended over to the next page were not identified as a problem and thus they dont look good in the soft cover format, almost cut and folded. I even called to ask questions about this. I liked the embellishment and backgrounds offered very much. Many of my recent photos were great, but using older photos from pictures taken from photos, some were not so clear. This was a lifetime photo album for a 90 year old so old photos were included. Even photos from 1970-1980's were not as good as the current photos. Current photos were great! Taken by digital camera on phone rather than a film camera. Overall, I like the photo book and give this a 3+/4 rating.
I ordered 2 of 1 book and 2 others; 4 in total. 1 printed poorly, 1 damaged. Asked them to reprint, they sent the wrong ones, asked again, sent wrong ones again. I have 6 copies of one book now. Took months for them to get the order right. Perhaps this could have gone better if they hired people who had a good command of the English language. I couldn't understand them, they obviously didn't understand me. Quality of photo books was average. Won't use them again. Photo shows 5/6 books…1 was a gift.
I ordered 40 picture holiday cards from Shutterfly about 8 days ago (which included the photo) but just received them, which DIDN'T include the photo. I spoke with a customer representative *******610) who said he was unable to give me the correct cards without charging another $75 (he'll give me shipping free this time). The confirmation emails don't include what the cards should look like. I won't be using Shutterfly again.
Products used:
Going to Walgreens
I ordered 2 of 1 book and 2 others; 4 in total. 1 printed poorly, 1 damaged. Asked them to reprint, they sent the wrong ones, asked again, sent wrong ones again. I have 6 copies of one book now. Took months for them to get the order right. Perhaps this could have gone better if they hired people who had a good command of the English language. I couldn't understand them, they obviously didn't understand me. Quality of photo books was average. Won't use them again. Photo shows 5/6 books…1 was a gift.
Tip for consumers:
This company is associated with Lifetouch so if you make one company angry you can expect to be blocked by the other.
Products used:
Photobooks
Printed my books incorrectly and in filing a complaint… had me phone chat with over 3 people in an hours time. For no reason, it went from person to person. The last person was looking something up, thanked me for her patience and then I got a conversation time out! Don't waste your time! Too many other good companies out there. I unfortunately wasted 300.00! Here's a photo of one cover… not even my photo choice and no title. My big book is done in incorrect order! I can't even open the one with the weird photo
Products used:
Can’t even open package
Every year I make a Shutterfly photo calendar as a Christmas gift for my mother. I usually order it the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year, the tracking info on my package abruptly ended & UPS said they couldn't find it. Four days before I needed the gift, I contacted Shutterfly about the problem. They offered to reprint the calendar. I told them when I needed the gift & they offered to expedite printing & shipping at no extra cost to me. I received the calendar the day before I needed it! Very impressed with Shutterfly's commitment to making things right!
Products used:
Calendar
I placed my order with Shutterfly. Was given a date of Dec 14 for delivery. Three more changes in that delivery date got me to Dec 20. They have 100% happiness guarantee. They have a guarantee to upgrade the shipping to get it there faster, but that was not done. Overall, it is one of the worst experiences from beginning to end that I have dealt with in a long time. Customer service was absolutely no help either. What a joke!
S door. I looked at my fyrurfly did not deliver the order. They said it waste my front door but it was neither there nor anywhere on my block. They originally offered to reprint. The next day when I checked the status of the reprint they said they would not and the order would be delivered that day. It was not. Thy refused to reprint or issue a refund. I had no choice but to inform my cc company.Order #**************012
Products used:
cards from another company
My husband is a photographer and we ordered a large order from shutterfly. When it arrived the frame was slightly misaligned and did not look great. When I called to discuss the issue the customer service was fantastic and the agent went above and beyond to help us. Mistakes happen but how you handle it says a lot. I am a firm believer in good customer service. I will be a lifelong customer of Shutterfly now.
Products used:
We tried all of there types of prints and frames.
My wife made me a photo album for my birthday. It's been 5 months and counting. Avoid this company!
The price I spent for these pictures doesn't match the quality. They should have called or emailed me if the pictures didn't look good. But the worst thing is the message I included. I had capitalized the names but that wasn't included. The holiday greeting I had was hard to read with the background, but you can plainly see the shutterfly logo to advertise. Why not give MY message the same clarity? I'm the one paying for it. Never again. They don't have my loyalty anymore.
Products used:
The holiday cards. Too late to make news ones.
Thank you Shutterfly! I made an order of less than 10 photos and when 2 weeks passed by (now after Christmas) I realized I never got them. I had to reach out (they never did) and ask why they were never delivered. No explanation except a "we will resubmit the order and provide the fastest shipping available).
This would mean overnighting it. NOPE. New order could take up to 2 more weeks to come in. Waiting a full month for 10 photos? Seriously? And saying you will go with the fastest shipping service available LOL the afstest avalable is overnight not another 2 weeks.
Products used:
Photos
Their app continually times you out without saving your work, so you have to redo what you were working on. Once you finally get what you want, and think the order is done, their techs feel the need to change it and get it re-approved by you, causing the order to be delayed. Estimated arrival dates seem to have a range of +/- 20 days. Recommend ordering Christmas cards before Halloween if you want them on time.
Shutterfly's website is useless!. I have tried contacting someone in so called customer service for the last week. My order was supposedly shipped on December 5th today is the 20th. It has supposedly been sitting in some facility in Atlanta, GA, since Dec 11th. I mean seriously, this is the second time Shutterfly has ruined my Christmas and I really don't know why I even bother. Every time you try to contact someone in customer service it just sends you on a loop back on itself. I tried the phone. I was on for over 2 hours and nothing! It really is a ridiculous set up. So if you want to gamble with you holiday greetings and have no care if your order ever turns up, please go ahead and use this useless company!
Warning, don't buy if you can't wait 18 days to get your Holiday cards! I thought we were well ahead of the game ordering this card on Dec 9. But Shutterfly took eight days to print and ship, then another ten days in transit, so we won't even see our cards until Dec 27, two days after Christmas! Shutterfly should be ashamed of this level of service. At the very least they should display a realistic estimated delivery before you complete your order. We've bought our cards from Shutterfly for several years, but we'll absolutely be ordering from a competitor Vistaprint next year.
Products used:
Holiday cards
Ordered framed print for my father in laws first Christmas without his wife. Shutterfly boasts upgraded shipping to ensure it gets there on time. It sat in his town post office for 4 days and now Shutterfly says it's lost.
Instead of offering a refund they offer credit on our next order? There will be no next order.
Ordered Christmas cards Dec 2. Was told by Dec 18 at the latest. Never thought they would take that long. Today is Dec 19 & no cards. Have called 3x & been told will not credit me for the total or overnight new cards! Last time I order from Shutterfly! Customer service is zero after frustration & no cards to send out! They do not care!
Holiday cards ordered Dec 5, paid for expedited delivery Dec 13. No delivery on appointed date, but website stated goods were in transit. Still no delivery one week later, yet the website still showed good in transit with projected Dec 13 delivery date. Phone call to customer service determined cards had not yet been printed; could not project when cards would be shipped or delivered. My request for a full refund was refused; so much for their "100% satisfaction guarantee." I will never use this service again (after being a regular customer for twenty years).
Products used:
Printed cards
Lately, I have been extremely disappointed with shutterfly. First, their app (which you have to use for several deals) works only about half the time. Second, projects I work on and save sometimes disappear. Third, sometimes the app won't let me check out. To top it all off, when I finally recieved my latest photo book, the pictures were chopped off in weird ways not like how they were on the preview when I ordered it. Plus, customer service stinks. At one point, I tried calling and was on hold for over two hours when I gave up. So I started one of those email chat things... and they never responded. A couple days later they emailed a me a "how did we do" survey for the chat. Well, not too good considering I never heard a word back. Avoid shutterfly if at all possible- I will be from now on.
I've created 27 projects over the past 15 years on Shutterfly. This includes 15 different photo books. Each and every time, I've always received excellent, professional customer service and beautiful books. I custom design all my books. There may have been a couple of times over the years that I needed Shutterfly to help with a mistake. However, they stand behind there products 100%. If you aren't an experienced design person then ask for help. Use high quality photos! Remember Shutterfly didn't take the pictures. The photo quality of books and cards depend on what you upload. Low quality photos will create poor quality projects; so don't blame Shutterfly for your photos. They will make what you approve. Start your project early enough to allow for help and receive book in ample time in case the book or cards need to be possibly replaced if it's the direct fault of Shutterfly.
Tip for consumers:
I've always received excellent, professional customer service and beautiful books. I custom design all my books. They stand behind there products 100%. If you aren't an experienced design person then ask for help. Use high quality photos! The photo quality of books and cards depend on what you upload. Low quality photos will create poor quality projects; so don't blame Shutterfly for your photos. Remember Shutterfly didn't take the pictures.They will make what you approve.
Products used:
Shutterfly stands behind their products. I created 27 project within 15 years that included 15 photo books.
I have ordered from Shutterfly for years. I just ordered 4,000 pictures. I got them all, the quality is AWFUL, and worse- they are all shuffled. Not one picture from 3+ years is in order. I have to sort through 4,000 $#*!ty quality pics to arrange them in my photo albums. It already took hours to go through all of my photos to place the order. Am I really supposed to reorder from a different company now?! I'm so mad and disappointed!
Products used:
Prints
My daughter placed the order for Christmas photos on 11/30. It is 12/19 and order still not received. Impossible to get past the bots on the site to get a real response from a real person. Finally get to customer service. Call center in Jamaica and communication is completely unintelligible (like speaking through a tin can). I asked call center rep to call me back. She did. The line is better. Now on hold 15 minutes and counting waiting to speak to supervisor. For some reason, they cannot help because my daughter placed the order even though she used my credit card to pay for it. My daughter works in a trauma hospital and I cannot interrupt her. What kind of policy is this? When I track my order I find they were stuck in Atlanta for over one week and still there. The christmas cards will not arrive in time to address and send out. I will need a refund. I am still on hold. The supervisor just answered. 20 minutes on hold. I explained the problem and was disconnected. Now average wait time is 35 minutes. Issue is still not resolved. Here is the order number: **************062.
The experience on shutterfly starts off great, but you soon realize they will upsell you on everything, so that somewhat reasonably priced photobook you thought you were going to be creating goes for ~$40 costs over $100 by the time you check out. To give an example, you have to PAY to have the shutterfly logo removed from the photobook you create. That's ridiculous. Very sneaky, very crafty, but by the time you've invested 3 or 4 hours to do the design and then realize how much the final product is going to cost you, you are effectively left with two choices - pay $100 when you were only really willing to pay $40 because of all the little extras you have to pay for, or start from scratch on another site that is a little more transparent with their pricing. They also charged my credit card $29 for overseas shipping when I was quoted $9.95 in the checkout process, so the photobook actually ended up costing me $120! Not happy. Given its lack of transparency and all the little hidden costs they slug you with, I would recommend looking elsewhere if you are thinking about using Shutterfly.
I spent hours on a project I was making for a Christmas gift.when it came time to check out I kept getting a error message saying try again later. My promo codes expire today, so I contacted customer support and their response was to delete the app and it's cache in my iPhone settings and see if that works. If I do that my project is gone. What was the point!
After paying 15 dollars shipping to get my Christmas cards delivered in a week, my cards where shipped using a cheap USPS service and never arrived. I had to call customer service 5 times already and I still haven't got a refund.
I recommend that you use another company. I will not be ordering from Shutterfly again. Terrible service.
There was an error with my order (wedding invitations) I called in and was given the run around for 2 hours stating they couldn't do anything. I was only charged for the 75 invitations I was given out of the 140 ordered. I was not asking for the rest to be sent for free I repeatedly told them I was more than happy to pay for the additional invitations. They stated that they would not be able to pay for expedited shipping, set up expedited printing, or give me the same discounted price as the first time I ordered. I tried over and over to explain my frustration. The lady stated that "we don't do expedited printing" and "expedited shipping is only one or two days faster and not worth it" at the end they did everything I was asking for, but it was a huge hassle. Then I got my new order and they messed up the envelopes. It's just been an awful experience across the board.
Create photo books, personalize photo cards & stationery, and share photos with family and friends at Shutterfly.com.