Shutterfly Review: Graduation Invitation Stores

Since its inception in 1999, Shutterfly has evolved from a platform primarily focused on printing 4x6 digital photographs to a site that provides a range of custom photo services. Shutterfly offers options for creating cards and stationery, prints, gifts, calendars, wall art, decor, and wedding products. Promising a user-friendly interface, Shutterfly helps you personalize your selections by uploading photos from your devices and begin customizing. Shutterfly's family of brands includes Tinyprints, Lifetouch, Groovebook, and Spoonflower.

183 templates

Shutterfly offers 183 different template designs for graduation invitations. To streamline the selection process, Shutterfly provides filters to narrow the selection. These include foil color, trim options, number of photos, design color, theme, style (ranging from classic to modern, contemporary, whimsical, and rustic), price, card size, designer, and format. You can also find flat and multi-fold cards if you're looking for a more distinctive style.

Minimal edits available

While Shutterfly's customization tools are user-friendly, the degree of customization is somewhat limited. Although you can add personal details and your chosen photos, most designs don't allow any changes to the actual template design. All of the predetermined elements such as photo placement, headings, or other stylistic features remain fixed. However, if you change your mind about the shape or element that you chose, you have access to all the cards, cardstock types, and cut-out shapes to change while you're in the editor. So, you don't have to back out and find an entirely different card to see all of Shutterfly's options.

Prices start at $1.99 per card

The price per card starts at $1.99 at Shutterfly. This includes a square-cut card, the lowest tier cardstock, and a minimum purchase of 80 cards to get that price. You can order 1 single card or a fewer packet like 10 cards, but the price per card goes up the fewer you get. The full price for 80 cards at the low end is $159.20. For the most expensive card, the price per unit is $4.15 per card. This includes iridescent foil, rounded edges, foil cardstock, and a minimum order of 80 cards. Like the cheaper cards, you can get just one graduation invite or as few as a pack of 10, but the price per card is higher if you order a smaller number. So, the full price for 80 cards is $332.80. While this can get a little pricey, Shutterfly offers Afterpay, so you can split payments into four interest-free installments over two-week intervals if you need to.

100% happiness guarantee

Backed by a 100% happiness guarantee, Shutterfly pledges to address customer dissatisfaction, although specifics regarding refunds are not explicitly stated. Shutterfly also promises free, unlimited storage for uploaded photos and products. This way, you can be sure that your content won't get deleted over time or in favor of new projects you want to upload to Shutterfly.

Up to 2 weeks to get your invites

For most packages, the shipping will take 6-10 business days, as that's the lowest tier of standard shipping. This doesn't include production time, so your final timeline could be about two weeks. If you really need your graduation invites in a rush, you can pay for expedited shipping which is 1-2 days, but Shutterfly states on its shipping page that the opportunities for rush shipping are limited.

Tons of negative reviews

Despite past positive reviews, Shutterfly's reputation has suffered a decline, evidenced by its now "NR" rating from the Better Business Bureau and numerous negative customer reviews. On Trustpilot, Shutterfly has a 1.5-star rating out of 5. Complaints primarily revolve around prolonged delivery times, quality control issues such as watermarked cards, and challenges in communicating with customer service. As a result, many customers advise against using Shutterfly, suggesting alternative options for ordering graduation invitations from more highly-rated companies.

Can't compete in the current market

Considering all the problems reported by customers, we can't recommend Shutterfly against much better-performing graduation invitation providers. With such negative reviews and no recommendation from the BBB, Shutterfly falls near the bottom of the pack.

On the Shutterfly website