• Shutterfly

Shutterfly

Write a Review

Overview

Shutterfly has a rating of 1.4 stars from 975 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Shutterfly most frequently mention customer service, christmas cards, and photo book problems. Shutterfly ranks 143rd among Photo Printing sites.

  • Service
    284
  • Value
    264
  • Shipping
    271
  • Returns
    162
  • Quality
    236

This company does not typically respond to reviews

Positive reviews (last 12 months): 8.9%
Positive
7
Neutral
0
Negative
72
160
See all photos
How would you rate Shutterfly?
Top Positive Review

“Beautiful Books and Cards”

Wanda K.
2/15/24

I've created 27 projects over the past 15 years on Shutterfly. This includes 15 different photo books. Each and every time, I've always received excellent, professional customer service and beautiful books. I custom design all my books. There may have been a couple of times over the years that I needed Shutterfly to help with a mistake. However, they stand behind there products 100%. If you aren't an experienced design person then ask for help. Use high quality photos! Remember Shutterfly didn't take the pictures. The photo quality of books and cards depend on what you upload. Low quality photos will create poor quality projects; so don't blame Shutterfly for your photos. They will make what you approve. Start your project early enough to allow for help and receive book in ample time in case the book or cards need to be possibly replaced if it's the direct fault of Shutterfly.

Top Critical Review

“Poor performance”

Beth T.
8/23/24

I ordered three photo books. The order was processed, they gave me a delivery date and then only one book came in the mail. No explanation- I figured it was an error and called customer service. I was told that it would come in two shipments---Why? This makes no sense and was a huge inconvenience. Now I see all the complaints I understand this is not a one off. I will not use them again. Way too expensive for such poor service!

Reviews (975)

Rating

Timeframe

Other

Reviews that mention popular keywords

christmas cards (114) photo book (92) delivery date (44) customer service (366) photo books (92)
Thumbnail of user jodip3
California
4 reviews
15 helpful votes
  • Send Message
May 8th, 2011

I agree with all of these recent POSITIVE reviews. I used a groupon discount to shutterfly and had a fantastic experience. I made a great photobook for my granddaughter and the quality was even BETTER than I expected. I plan to go back really soon to take advantage of more of the fun, photo deals.

Thumbnail of user kristinh423
Minnesota
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
November 15th, 2023
Verified purchase

I ordered one 8x10 and 208 4x6 photos for our daughters 30th birthday for decorations, and Shutterfly failed to send the 4x6s. I called and they said they can send it again and I asked for it to be expedited, and they said it would arrive 4 days later then what I needed them for. This was on Nov 14 I called, and they said it would be the 20th. Would not accommodate to expedite it! Sad that Costco joined with them. This was my first and probably my last time using Shutterfly. There are other photo companies out there.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user chelsyj2
Minnesota
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
March 23rd, 2020

I ordered my grad cards and once I received them I had realized I had spelt my last name wrong. The staff was so helpful and reprinted them for FREE all I had to pay was shipping! This was so gracious of them to do because I was the one who messed up not them.

Thumbnail of user pettis151
Wisconsin
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
November 1st, 2023
• Updated review

Thanks shutterfly and I apologize I was frustrated. After stomping my feet a bit you came through. I really enjoy this photo app and will continue to use it!

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
My actual rating would be zero
April 19th, 2023
• Previous review

Have had my pictures on shutterfly since it was Kodak gallery believe that over 30 yrs ago. Went to look for some pictures last week and all were gone. I was told they got deleted because of an email I received some time ago and didnt respond to. These are pictures that were sacred to me. Just can't believe with the technology we have today they are unable to recover them. I was told it may have went to my spam email not really sure who reads them and if so who's fault is that when they sent to to them why it went to spam I haven't any idea. I'm so frustrated over theirs not a kind word I can say after 2 hours on the phone with these people and their automated bull$#*!

Tip for consumers:
Not that doesn't consist of multiple cuss words!!!! Over 30 yrs of memories have been lost

Products used:
Picture storage

Thumbnail of user debfalletti
Illinois
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 26th, 2023

I received a pillow and blanket for Christmas. The images are very clear and quality of both is great. Blanket is very cozy and full of great memories.

Thumbnail of user alisaa40
Michigan
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 17th, 2021

Purchased 20 special Christmas cards using my photography. Super excited to send these to close family and friends with their gift cards and or checks for Christmas gifts. Contacted Customer service several times using my valuable time. Kept telling me to wait another day. Do not use Shutterfly if you need your items quickly. It has taken 17 (SEVENTEEN) days so far and no items received. They use the cheapest mail service possible while we the customer pay high end for their product.
I made photo cards from Costco and received those within TWO DAYS. I wanted a fold open card and took a chance with Shutterfly, I won't do that again! USE VISTAPRINT instead! Shame on you Shutterfly! Customer service told me to wait another day and contact them again (twice), would not issue me a refund until product arrives so I can mail them back. I am greatly disappointed. I'm a very patient person but this has really upset me. I now have to buy boxed cards (Dec. 17th) pay extra postage to get them to family and friends with their gifts inside. Merry Christmas Shutterfly!

Tip for consumers:
Order two months in advance. Shipping is terrible! You will not get your product on time.

Products used:
Christmas cards.

Service
Value
Shipping
Quality
Thumbnail of user melissaa1660
Illinois
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
September 17th, 2023

EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED on all my prints orders! Quality is TERRIBLE! The color is off, distorted and the CROPPING is WAY OFF. Costco this was a BIG MISTAKE! I feel SO let down! I am looking for another printing company! NOT worth the MONEY!

Tip for consumers:
WOULD NOT RECOMMEND!!

Products used:
NONE

Service
Value
Shipping
Quality
Thumbnail of user loric79
New York
1 review
3 helpful votes
  • Send Message
October 3rd, 2016

I received a charm bracelet for christmas. It had a birthstone charm as one of the charms. A few months after i had it the charm sheered off the hoop that held it to the bracelet. It was only worn on special occassions. I didn't get around to calling about it until recently. Since it was a gift i was not able to get a replacement, even though it was shipped to me and i had the order number. They said the giver would have to contact them by phone. Since he works and is busy - i didn't want to bother him. They would not budge.

Thumbnail of user melindas427
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
January 25th, 2023
Verified purchase

I asked to return/edit something that I "goofed" on. Regardless, they made it right instantly. I'm extremely impressed and will continue to use them frequently!

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user mindya12
Canada
1 review
4 helpful votes
  • Send Message
October 14th, 2018

I placed an order with shutterfly, while working on project I had noticed a promo going on that stated free shipping on $39 or more, so I decided to add a few more things to my cart to receive free shipping. Everything upon check out my order had some to $84 but after applying the promo code my total came to $59. Shortly after I received an email receipt that said my order was $84. Assuming they made a mistake I emailed them hoping to clear things up. The state there was no promo for $39 free shipping and that it was $70 which I was short of. Luckily I still had the page one on my computer with my order and promo code I was able to take a screen shot and email it back to them, to which they did not reply twice. As well when I checked my credit card they had charged me $110. They do not have a contact number to phone so I had to go through my credit card company to get the number and they assured me that they would back me on this dispute but I should try and contact them once more. After sitting on hold for 25 minutes and I was greeted by an extremely rude worker who defended the charges and only said she would look into cancelling my order after I had stated I had been in contact with my cc company and they would be in contact with them next. I did end up having my order cancelled. I would like to say buyer beware as this company is not at all up front and their customer service is terrible.

Thumbnail of user shannonk27
Wisconsin
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 24th, 2016

I see it's a trend- ordered a calendar beginning of December - December 2nd. It stopped tracking my package on the 8th. By the 11th they had to re order and process it to ship to me. A week later package still hasnt arrived. They put a rush delivery which promised to arrive on the 23rd. Not there. Planned to use Shutterfly for many aspects of my wedding. Will not use again. So incredibly disappointed

Thumbnail of user christinab80
Ohio
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 23rd, 2016

I purchased 2 photo books which I used the Everyday Happiness template with the Color Block Cover. I typically custom design my books, so I've never had experience with one of their cookie cutter books. Time was short and I needed the book for a memorial service. I received my books and the cover was printed wrong. You can't read the title at all because they printed two layers on top of one another even white on white. I chatted for more than 45 minutes and was told it was a production issue. I can get a partial refund and they'll contact me when the issue is corrected. NO time frame for the resolution other than 5-7 days maybe. No contact after 10 days. I called and spent more than 1 hour on the phone with a representative who promised the issue was fixed. She placed a new order with expedited shipping at no cost. Second order arrives... SAME issue. I called and was told I could hold for 65 minutes or leave my phone number for a call back. An agent called back and asked that I send a scan of the book. UH NO. The first email I sent went unanswered and I'm not spending any further time. It took 35 minutes, but I'm finally getting a full refund. NO photo book at the memorial and the family won't receive the books as planned. Thankfully, I'm talented enough to design a dust jacket and have it printed. The cover will be wrong; however, the dust jacket will cover it up. On a brighter note, I have 4 copies for free.

Thumbnail of user steveh3748
South Carolina
1 review
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
January 14th, 2024

I ordered 4 coffee mugs with 2 pictures on the mug from Shutterfly. I specified 15oz mugs (defaults to 11 oz). Added the pictures once I understood the interface and that was okay. Once I got to ordering through the cart I got the option to do multiple ship to: addresses, which is what I was hoping for. That's when the site really disappointed. Every time I tired (6x's) to add another ship to address the site hung. I finally just decided to have them ship the mugs to me and. Then I would ship them all manually to my friends, the site defaulted my order back to 11 oz coffee mugs.

When I got the small mugs I contacted support (chat)... and don't bother. I explained the situation to the chat person and they just parroted back to me that I got what I ordered. She apolgoized, but did not offer any solution, other than restating the obvious. I got what I ordered.

So as far as the site goes... hey Shutterfly Web Master, make sure your stuff works. And as for Shutterfly's "100 Happiness Guarantee", quit lying. I read your guarantee and that's why I ordered from your site.

Shutterfly is a company that lies.

Products used:
Coffee mugs with pictures.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user averilw1
Minnesota
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 11th, 2020

They sent me a card missing pictures. They stated it didn't save the pictures in their system and I could purchase new cards at full price to resolve the issue.

Thumbnail of user kippc2
Michigan
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 23rd, 2021
Verified purchase

Ordered 60 cards for Xmas middle of December. Realized after. 5 hour the order was placed, they would arrive too late to use. About 45 minutes after the order was submitted, I attempted to cancel. NOPE! You have. 5 hour to cancel and THAT IS IT! This happened over the weekend, so I called Monday morning to talk with customer support. I was told I cannot cancel because their system is DOWN! Unbelievable! I even spoke with a manager who said the same. I was then told to wait until the cards were delivered to call and cancel. I did and still could NOT cancel. Now they required my wife to authorize the CANCELLATION! I waited and called back the next day when she was home. Keep in mind, they require you to go back through WHY you are cancelling with each call. Customer support person is barely functional. Seems entertained by the dilemma. Each call took about 30-40 minutes. TERRIBLE company culture to think it is OK to make people work so hard to cancel a single, small, unuseable order. One person told me to throw the cards in the trash and the next wants the cards shipped back. I am not sure what food is in the break room, but it has to be infused with mind altering material. NEVER AGAIN!

Tip for consumers:
Stay local and use a company where you can speak to a person easily.

Products used:
None of it

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user tjf17
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
January 31st, 2021

Ordered Christmas cards with a delivery date of 12/14 and they arrived 12/28. Refused to honor their own policy of "We'll make it right" and provide a refund. Never again.

Tip for consumers:
There are plenty of printing sites. Choose another.

Products used:
I ordered Christmas cards but didn't use them because they arrived after Christmas.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user davidb1708
Kentucky
1 review
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
September 17th, 2018

Every time I try to share an album via Shutterfly, it makes me want to tear out my hair in frustration. On 9/16/18 I spent a lot of time adding captions to 46 wedding photos in an "album" I wanted to share with some relatives via email, but my recipients could not see the captions unless they logged in as a member. Even then, it was too hard for them to get the "information" button to appear, which is the only way to see the captions. Also, my recipients saw the photos in a totally mixed up order even though I sorted them all in chronological order beforehand. After the sorting I did a final slide show preview, and then hit the "share" button at the bottom of the screen, and realized almost too late that it was only going to share the one photo which the slide show was on at that particular moment! Lastly, the "share" screen itself has a check box for including yourself in the share. I checked that box, and yet never received an email from Shutterfly. In fact, I had no idea if the share happened until a relative responded to me via email and then I was able to clink on the same link which she did. All in all it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in a long time.

Thumbnail of user markl2172
North Carolina
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
November 30th, 2021

The CEO should fire him or herself... twice. I cant recall the last time I had such horrific customer service. They are slow and dumb. I only wanted to place a simple simple first order of 38 photo prints uploaded from my lap top. Every time I asked a simple question I got put on hold, over and over and over. Took about 3 hours total including my prep time to finally get a not so bad idiot to do the order.
-PATHETIC
I WILL NOT BE A REPEAT CUSTOMER

Tip for consumers:
Don't use it!! Their stupid bot cant understand the simplest of questions then it takes a a couple centuries to get a live person. Spoke w/ a couple dif ones and they were even dumber than the bots. As a first time user I had simple first time questions. Every time I got put on hold for 5-10 min's so they could find the answer a 5 yr old could do w/ 10 min's of training.

Products used:
Single copy photos from phone

Value
Shipping
Thumbnail of user jenniferm1477
New York
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 26th, 2019

I ordered prints on December 2nd and I am still waiting on the order. I needed these for Christmas presents and you would think 23 days before Christmas would be plenty of time, but no here it is the 26th and I still have no pictures. I have called three times. The first time they said they were shipped that was on the 12th. On the 16th he said we didn't ship them till today but don't worry they will be there before Christmas. Here we are the day after Christmas and I have been on hold fro over 35 minutes and no pictures and no customer service.

Thumbnail of user breanne
Utah
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
October 31st, 2020

I tried changing my order delivery address before my package was shipped and I contacted the customer support team to help change it and they said they understood my request and wanted to help but ended up having a technical error causing them to not be able to change my delivery address and then I would receive an email stating the error on their side had been fixed so we could change the delivery address. Well a day went by and they still had not notified me that they had fixed the error but I did get the notification that my package shipped so perfect timing on their part, right? I just think it was too convenient that they had an error preventing them to change the delivery address on my package and never followed up on getting the error fixed so it was too late to change it. At the end of the day it was my fault for having the system auto populate my old address but it sucks trying to get a package that was delivered to the wrong address when it would have just been easier to change my delivery address before the package shipped in the first place. Definitely going to reconsider using Shutterfly in the future due to the fact that their customer support team will give you the run around until it's too late to fix the issue.

Thumbnail of user pc385
Michigan
1 review
4 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 24th, 2020

There were a lot of reviews that mentioned items being either delivered very late or never. But I still went ahead and ordered through Shutterfly because they had a "special" price. BIG MISTAKE. After 30 days, the item ordered is nowhere to be found and it is impossible to reach a human at Shutterfly. My only alternative now is to contact my credit card company and cancel the charge. Save yourself a huge headache and do not use Shutterfly.

Revised review: In order to be fully transparent and provide a very accurate reflection on my particular experience, I felt it was necessary to update this review since the status of my order changed. After trying one last time to get Shutterfly (I have a hard time giving up) to respond to my inquiries for an update, I finally did get an email from Shutterfly that says my order is moving and shortly after that I got a text message with the tracking information. So it looks like eventually, Shutterfly will try to address the shipping problems - but it is too bad for both customers and Shutterfly that it sometimes takes extraordinary efforts to resolve.

Products used:
Large canvas picture collage

Service
Value
Shipping
Thumbnail of user ruths419
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
April 24th, 2020

I used to love es Shutterfly a lot. Then the quality started to drop. At the end it was just rare that anything lived up to standard. How ownership change can ruin a company.

Thumbnail of user bruceb368
Texas
1 review
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
April 5th, 2019

Shutterfly touted a guarantee that I would be satisfied. I ordered an expensive photo on glass. When I received it, the colors were way off those of the jpg that I provided. When I complained and asked for a re-do to match the original colors, In was refused and offered a discount on future order. Totally inadequate handling of my consumer complaint. DO NOT USE GUARANTEE IS MISLEADING AND INADEQUATE.

Thumbnail of user cindyd152
Arizona
4 reviews
27 helpful votes
  • Send Message
November 6th, 2020

I have ordered from these guys. I love the stuff. Good quality and fair pricing with good sales. But after REPEATEDLY having my photos used in ways that are offensive and unfair to me and REPEATEDLY going rounds with customer service to cease and desist, I finally deleted the account. If you procede, DO NOT store pics on their site. DO NOT connect your account to social media or other people's accounts. You will get zinged.

Thumbnail of user susieb51
Maryland
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
July 19th, 2018

Im done with this site. Ive used them a few times. They are really expensive and it took almost two weeks to get one 8x10 photo. Never again. From now on Ill do it myself at Walgreens or Target.

Sitejabber for Business

Gain trust and grow your business with customer reviews.

From the business

Create photo books, personalize photo cards & stationery, and share photos with family and friends at Shutterfly.com.

Company Representative

Thumbnail of user levih42
Levi H.
Typically does not respond to reviews

How do I know I can trust these reviews about Shutterfly?

  • Sitejabber’s mission is to increase online transparency for buyers and businesses
  • Sitejabber has helped over 200M buyers make better purchasing decisions online
  • Suspicious reviews are flagged by our algorithms, moderators, and community members
Have a question about Shutterfly?