Vistaprint Business Cards

Good day!

All musicians or bands should have business cards with their contact information and website link on them, and there is no excuse not to have some now that they are easy and cheap to order online. But I cannot recommend Vistaprint after my experience with them.

You see Vistaprint’s banner ads everywhere on the internet, and they are always advertising that they will give you 250 business cards for free. Of course there is no such thing as free, but on initial checking, it seemed like their cards were a good deal.

I was able to pick my own design and put a photo on it (extra charge, of course), and it was going to be $19.99 for 250 cards. Plus shipping, so it was really more like 25 bucks, but I should have upgraded the paper too – more on that later.

After putting the order together I had to click through page after page of offers for stuff I did not want, so it took quite a while (which was made worse by the slow Vistaprint web site). There was also a tricky box that needed to be unchecked so that I would not be enrolled in some sort of shopping service.

When I finally got to the checkout screen, I decided not to pay extra for expedited service, so it took about 3 weeks for the cards to show up. And when they showed up it was a real disappointment.

When I finally got my cards, they felt and looked cheap. They print these “Premium Business Cards” on 80# stock, while the industry standard uses 100# stock. Should you want to upgrade to 100# stock there is a $16.99 upcharge for 250 cards.

Also, Vistaprint’s cards are actually smaller than normal sized cards, measuring 87mm by 49mm. Other printers supply normal sized US market cards which are 89mm by 51mm. There is no mention of this at all when ordering the cards from their website.

Do you really want your card to be smaller and thinner than the other guys? Perception is everything, and people might think you cheaped out when you bought your cards.

And, to add insult to injury, you can count on receiving an endless succession of annoying spam e-mail offers from Vistaprint for free or discounted products. And often when you check into the offers you will find that they are no longer valid.

I will be trying another online printing company and will let you folks know the results.

Mahalo!