Show HN: Printify.io – No-hassle canvas prints and posters | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Printify.io – No-hassle canvas prints and posters

printify.io

45 pointsowensbla41 comments

The price is roughly triple that of Costco. A bit of hassle is worth that to me (and to be honest, they have no hassle either).

That's valid. There's a quality difference for sure, but I'll be keeping a close eye on pricing and as we get more efficient I anticipate prices coming down.

"Starting at $55."

I see $60 and up...

For the canvas prints, but the poster prints are a really good price. Most are less than half the price of FedEx Office and price competitive with the few poster sizes Costco does.

I'd have to agree with you. As someone who works in print, I'm usually surprised by the prices the fulfillment services are offering. I actually am preparing a beta launch of a service to offer all of these same products (kind of creepy coincidence) because I do feel the market is lacking. We already have all of the equipment in place and running, along with fantastic discounts on bulk shipping, supplies, packaging etc. Our pricing will be about 25% of what is shown (give or take a small amount). If you are interested, I'd love to chat with you and see if we can work together.

Will you do stuff besides prints? Specifically apparel?

It would likely come down to how much interest we have in the product. Because we already have everything in place for canvas, framed products, and posters, we will be starting with those as our production lines are already optimized for that. If we could make a good business case for apparel products then we would absolutely expand there, but it likely won't be for a bit.

What's the best way to reach you, rebel.

Feel free to send me an e-mail at interest@printdropper.com -- our site is coming soon.

+1 to interested. Michael's charging 350$ USD for a 30$ poster is absurd. This space needs change.

Get in touch with me at interest@printdropper.com if you'd like to speak further.

Maybe when your service is up and running you can do a "show HN" post and one of your competitors can hijack that thread just like this.

Classy.

Appreciate all the pricing feedback, brought the prices down a bit and added a coupon for HN: use SHOWHN for an extra 20% off between now and the 15th!

SHOWHN doesn't seem to work.

The website would benefit from a gallery - the idea of printing on canvas appeals to me, but I don't understand how it distorts photos and what the final product looks like.

I agree, one of the most important factors in buying customized products is getting a feeling of what you're getting. This way the user is more likely to make the purchase and even more likely to be satisfied with the product once it's delivered.

I agree! Good thoughts (both of you). I love the idea of a gallery of examples.

I'm in the field myself (see profile) and although the website looks nice I don't see how it's different than any of the existing services.

Here are my $0.02:

1. PRICE - The prices are way too high. Especially given that all established print services offer huge discounts these days. Even our Printy.pics iOS app offers lower prices + 40% discount.

2. Registration - I would prefer to register when I need to (before payment) and not when I'm asked to. The common practice for most web print apps is to allow product creation and require registration (if at all) on checkout. I guess you should do some A/B testing to see which approach maximizes LTV.

3. Why .io?

On a general note, it is very hard to compare print products. There can be huge quality differences and for someone who isn't an expert in the domain it would be hard to tell if the price is worth it.

1. I'll be optimizing the fulfillment process as time progresses (thus lowering prices).

2. That's a good point. Definitely something I thought about while building it. I decided to just move forward with how it currently is and optimize/iterate after feedback/testing.

3. No reason in particular :)

Appreciate the thoughts!

Dont ask someone to create an account so quickly.

I cant say for other people, but I have too many accounts and I hate creating accounts unless I have to.

Better to allow someone to upload a photo and make a purchase and convert them into an account later than up front.

Would be great to have an API. Been passively looking for good poster printers that I could automatically send jobs to, as well as do the fulfillment. Looks slick.

Seconded. I run an online portfolio service that integrates with Fotomoto to sell prints right on the customers' site. Would be interested in adding this as an option.

theprintful.com - does a good job of this.

There are many APIs out there. To name a few: CanvasPop, QuickPrints by Walgreens, Kodak Alaris, Print.io, Pwinty, Printzel and others.

CanvasPop isn't really an API, in the Twilio sense. It's more like a glorified affiliate program.

I had a canvas printed on a cruise boat, where the prices are ridiculously jacked up, for about 1/2 to 1/3 less than the prices quoted here.

I have to say I loved the way you illustrate the sizes of the prints - having people hold them for scale. That's very very neat.

> High quality PNG's are best (150dpi or more). [..] All fonts should be converted to outlines to ensure fonts are displayed correctly.

Above is from the guidelines for posters. PNGs are bitmaps and hence there are no fonts to outline. Outlines could be part of PDFs but those don't have an associated DPI. This needs clarification.

Ah yeah, I pulled PSD and PDF support right before launch, needed a little more work for those. So, that text was with regard to those file types. Thanks for catching that!

Very well done. Love the simple approach. Definitely going to check this out.

How does this compare in quality to canvas prints from a photo lab such as Millers/MPix or WHCC? Cost looks to be about equal to a 1.5" canvas gallery wrap from either those shops.

Canvas gallery wraps are comparable to WHCC's premium gallery wraps. Though they don't have backing. PM me or email me if you're interested in ordering a test print: blake@printify.io!

Just a heads-up: I'm assuming you meant "uneven" in "Avoid making graphics with straight borders. Borders may come up unever after the cutting process."

Ha, I actually read it as "uneven" didn't realize what you were talking about until I looked again.

Anyone here have suggestions for quality wood and glass/plexiglass frames at a cost not more than twice what you'd pay for prints in the first place?

americanframe will print and frame for decent prices.. twitter/fb generally has discounts/promos as well.

Nice, clean website. Are you fulfilling the products yourself, or using a vendor?

What are you using for the cropping tool?

Well done! Congrats on shipping!

Thanks! I'm using a vendor for fulfillment. Ordered several test prints and loved their quality.

And I'm using Jcrop for cropping.

http://deepliquid.com/content/Jcrop.html

The site never got past the loading animation for me.

Chrome Version 39.0.2171.71 on OS X 10.10.1

EDIT: Never mind, Ad Block was what was killing it.

AdBlock and uBlock both seem to kill this site. Seems related to the inclusion of Bugsnag, and not accounting for the possibility of that library being blocked.

Disabled Bugsnag for now, thanks for catching that!

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