SmartpressReviews of smartpress.com

I had high hopes for this project, but was rather disappointed at the results. My design incorporated a narrow outlined border, which I worked diligently to be pixel-perfect on all sides. The proof's margins and cut lines appeared to be correct, so I approved. When I received the order, each card appeared to have a larger margin on the top than on the bottom and along the sides. This created an illusion that the design hadn't been centered like my proof showed. I know things can shift in the printing process, but I was bummed to see this, especially having been satisfied with other SmartPress orders in the past.

a GENEROUS 3 stars for a high quality print, however in terms of actually receiving the things we ordered, that is a one star experience. We understand that proofing can take a day or two, but for it to take over two weeks from when we submitted our order to when we received our product is absolutely insane! For context most commercial printing companies (which I have worked with over a dozen) have a turnaround time from the day you submit a file to the day they start production of about two days, meaning that there is a person who is going over your proof. They will do several revisions of your proof on the same day as submission to make sure things move quickly. Smart Press could not have been further from this. Not only did it take two or three days at a time for them to respond, but at one point they sent us back a proof that clearly had issues. Another piece of context is that proofing is there for the printer to show you what they believe is the best attempt possible at recreating what the customer wants. It is their best effort. What we received as a proof for our envelopes was not only the worst effort, there was no effort. We received a proof back from Smart Press in which the city, state, and zip code had no spaces (CityST12345) on the envelope. That shows me a deep lack of care for the customer. So that, combined with the extremely long time to receive this terrible proof has led me to give this a very, very generous three star rating. The only reason it is not one star is because the product that was shipped is actually quite excellent.

My small team has been working with Smartpress since 2021. Biannually, we have ordered about 200 perfect bound booklets and have had really pleasant experiences for the most part. Their team was quick to respond to questions and concerns and the quality of the product was fantastic. However, our experience this past Fall has left my team questioning whether we can continue to work with Smartpress. After a pretty involved process making edits to our digital proofs, we received our physical books with significant quality issues. The laminate on the covers was chipping and cracking and multiple pages throughout were low resolution. I later found out that this issue was caused by individual pages being uploaded into their software which our account representative explained should have never been done. This only happened because the pre-printing tech assigned to the order told me to submit new files this way. Throughout the process, I felt like I must have been working with a new employee that was both not aware of my team's history with the company (questioning me about my print files as if I don't know what a PDF is) and that quality control for the product was overlooked once it was printed. I also felt like I was getting bounced around to multiple techs while working on the proof and didn't feel like I could trust everyone I was in contact with. By the time the booklets were received, we were a week out from the event they would be distributed at. Once our account representative got involved, the issues were addressed and I'm grateful that Smartpress took the whole order back and provided a refund. However, my team had to find a local printer to fulfill a rush order last minute. It cost us thousands of dollars extra. I'm still confused as to how this could have happened to consistent (and happy!) customers with this company. Still deciding whether to move forward with Smartpress for our next project.

Previous years were great. I was given the runaround about Image quality of my calendar photos summited. I think now it’s must have just be a stall because you were behind schedules. Calendars were fine but I lost time selling them because they were delivered only 3 days from Christmas.

The spiral calendar template does not work with Adobe software.

I needed some design help at the outset and the customer service representative that chatted with me via text was wonderful and patient with all my questions. The production and timing of production were as promised and the finished product was beautiful. My big complaint, however, is that I paid for envelopes for each card but I was shorted 75 envelopes. I ended up getting them locally but I was disappointed (and inconvenienced) with that oversight of the envelope count.

The process was drawn out due to production and shipping difficulties. Initially production was extremely diligent and assisted with setting up our order properly. However, upon initial submission the original order we placed was lost to FEDEX. We shipped to NJ and the package went all the way to CA for no particular reason. After investigation, we discovered that there was an error with the shipping label provided to FEDEX and a new label was created. In this new label (we only assume) that an incorrect address was implemented. We reached out to the SmartPress team to notify the company of this shipping label error, but no confirmation was made. After an extra nearly two weeks of processing, we finally received our HARD PROOF (which we had not approved yet and thus couldn't start production on our full order.) Quality seemed excellent and finally went to production. However, once the order was confirmed, there was yet another error on the production line where a UV Coater had gone down and an alteration to our design was requested. We denied this alternation, as we had confirmed the quality and consistency of the product with our hard proof. After receiving the finally batch (250) the quality was initially just as we had initially received. HOWEVER. After a day of sitting on the desk, the brochure would turn in on itself, as if not UV Coated or potentially water-damaged. We were never notified that the ordered shipped prior to the fixing of the UV Coating machine being fixed, but am now realizing this may've been the case and were never notified. Overall, we were not very happy with how our order was handled, being customers for over 25 years (even with the company that Smart Press had purchased over a decade ago.)

Smartpress does an amazing job and I appreciate their products. I wish there was a better visual provided to proof before confirming. I had ordered a book printed and after receiving I realize if I had been able to view it in a book format (opposite pages facing each other), I would have changed some of the settings on my graphics and print. They were off and it didn't look as polished as I had hoped. Thank you!