December 5, 2024

Sapiensdigital

Sapiens Digital

The Best Online Business Card Printing Services

Table of Contents

DIY Business Cards

In the internet era, you can make business contacts online through LinkedIn or Twitter, or just by plain old email, and that’s all well and good. But when you actually meet a potential client, customer, or colleague in person, you’ll want to be able to hand them a business card. That card will be a tangible and lasting representation of you once the meeting is over, so you’ll want to carefully consider how it looks and feels. You can create good-looking business cards yourself, thanks to online business card printers that help you design your cards and choose the cardstock quality.


The Best Online Business Card Printing Service Deals This Week*

  • Vistaprint: 500 Business Cards for as Low as $20 Plus Free Shipping
  • Staples: 500 Business Cards Starting at $14.99
  • PSPrint: 60 Percent Off Business Cards

*Deals are selected by our partner, TechBargains


How to Get Started

The services included here all offer design templates for a multitude of card types and uses. If you run an auto mechanic shop, you probably want a different card style from a restaurateur or lawyer. The better services here organize their templates by both industry and style. The latter choice often includes options like classic, modern, and bold.

You usually start designing your card with a template and customize what it includes based on the information you need to convey. Maybe you don’t need to show a street address, or maybe you need to include social accounts. Most services let you add or remove text boxes to taste. I especially appreciate it when the web interface includes guidelines to help with lining up text boxes or images, as EliteFlyers’ designer does.

All the designers let you upload your own images for printing, and some let you upload the whole card design as an image file, usually as a PDF. Many businesses will want a logo on their cards, and services may let you design one, choose one from available clipart, or offer professional designers for the purpose. As we found while testing photo printing services, color reproduction varies among the vendors, but Vistaprint and MOO are particularly excellent in this regard. We like when the service offers QR code generation to take your contacts right to your email or webpage. MOO offers an expensive NFC option which does basically the same thing.

Options and Pricing

Several factors affect the price of your business card order. Of course, the amount you order plays a role, but even more important is your choice of paper or cardstock. For example, if you buy the most basic level cards from GotPrint or PSPrint, you could pay less than $9. For this, you can get barebones cards with mediocre printing on thin, low-end cardstock. While such cards may be passable under some circumstances, if your image is important, you may want to pay more for better paper.

Vistaprint Choices

As you move up to heaver card stock, expect to pay significantly more. Two measures determine the density and thickness of paper. You may see indications in units of lb. or pt. The first, of course, stands for pounds, but the way it’s calculated is a bit tricky. This number is different for what’s called text and what’s called cover. The latter is what we’re concerned with for business cards, and it’s a measure of how many pounds 500 sheets of 20 inches by 26 inches weighs. Points, or Pts. is more straightforward, it’s just the thickness in .001 inch units.

Card quality, however, is about more than just weight and thickness. You also pay for textures. Linen, gloss, matte, and soft-touch are common choices. Some services also offer natural, recycled paper, which has a character all its own.

Another option is color and two-sided printing. Of course, you’ll pay more if you add either. MOO offers an interesting choice with regard to card-back printing. The company can alternate among five different designs or images on the back for a single order. MOO is also more expensive than the other services.

We tested each service with both an entry-level and premium card order. In general, the old saw that you get what you pay for holds true. All of our premium test orders were of fine quality, though there were definitely differences among the services in terms of paper, printing, color reproduction, and so on.

Shipping and Packaging

How fast you want your cards affects the price as well. In some cases, you pay over $40 for next day shipping. If speed is important to you, then Staples may be your best option: If you submit your order before 2 p.m., you can pick it up at your local branch and save any shipping fee.

MOO Packaging

If you do choose to have the cards shipped, the services’ packaging options vary in quality. MOO gets the prize for the best packaging. A high-end order came as what looked like a special gift, complete with a box with a magnetic closure. Even the lower-end order came in an attractive reusable slipcase box. The other card printers all sent orders in reasonably protected packaging, with the higher-end card orders from each coming with better packaging.

Print Quality

All the services we tested delivered acceptable print quality. If you just need something to convey your contact information, the entry-level cards from most of these services will do the trick. The exception was GotPrint’s lowest-price cards, which seemed flimsy with not quite high enough print quality. But even GotPrint offers higher-priced options that looked good. Moving up to higher-quality paper stock, two-sided printing, special textures and shapes can really make you (and your card) stand out.

High-End Business Card Printing

All the services in this roundup can get at the very least a decent card; if you’re willing to pay more, all can deliver something impressive. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, however, so make sure to click through to the full reviews to get the details so that you can get the business cards that suit your image and your budget.

Note, too, that there are many more online business card printing services out there, and we’ll be adding to the roundup over time. Don’t hesitate to weigh in in the comment section below to tout your favorite business card website or detail a bad experience you had with one of the companies.

  • Vistaprint

    Pros: Excellent print quality. Good card-designing tools and paper selections. Reasonable prices. Prints a wide range of promotional products. QR code generator.

    Cons: Lots of upsell attempts. Templates aren’t as slick as those of some competitors.

    Bottom Line: Vistaprint is the best online business card printing service we’ve tested, thanks to its combination of excellent print quality, good design tools, and reasonable prices. The company also prints promotional products like mugs, posters, and even tablecloths.

    Read Review

  • PSPrint

    Pros: Good card-design interface. Good print quality. Inexpensive.

    Cons: No snap guides in design interface. Pricing unclear.

    Bottom Line: PSPrint delivers quality business cards at a low cost, with good design tools. It’s one of the best online business card printing services we’ve tested.

    Read Review

  • EliteFlyers Business Cards

    Pros: Versatile online card designer. Offers professional design services. Fine printing quality. Timely shipping.

    Cons: Templates not organized by business type. Most choices require a minimum order of 500 cards. Some cardstock options don’t have design templates. Not the cheapest. One color was off in test print.

    Bottom Line: EliteFlyers offers a wide selection of business card stocks and textures, quality printing results, powerful online card design tools, and timely delivery turnaround.

    Read Review

  • MOO

    Pros: Stylish card templates. Lets you alternate images in a single order. Excellent shipment packaging. NFC card option.

    Cons: Higher price. Rigid designs don’t let you customize enough. Failed to print a color logo on one order.

    Bottom Line: MOO is one of the slickest-looking card printing services, with top design templates and high-end options like NFC cards, but its online editor is more rigid than competitors’ and its prices are higher.

    Read Review

  • Staples Print & Marketing Services

    Pros: Same-day service. Excellent card-design interface. Good print quality.

    Cons: Fewer cardstock and shape options than the competition.

    Bottom Line: If you need your cards today, Staples is a good option, with excellent online design tools and printing quality.

    Read Review

  • GotPrint

    Pros: Inexpensive. Good online card design tool.

    Cons: Less modern templates than some competitors. No snap to align in the card design interface. Limited fonts. Inferior print and paper quality in entry-level test order.

    Bottom Line: GotPrint gets you business cards cheaper than just about anyone and has a decent design interface, but its entry level offering is of lower quality than the competition’s.

    Read Review

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