Check out our latest communities fighting
AI scams on Reddit and Facebook

business logo of Shutterfly

Shutterfly

1.5

On SmartCustomer, businesses may not offer incentives or pay to remove reviews. Learn more about our Review Guidelines.

How would you rate Shutterfly?
grey stargrey stargrey stargrey stargrey star

Shutterfly Reviews Summary

Shutterfly's reputation reflects a mix of strong product quality and significant customer service challenges. Many users appreciate the quality of photo books and personalized items, often highlighting the durability of products. However, recurring complaints about service delays, order inaccuracies, and inadequate customer support overshadow these positives. Customers frequently report issues with refunds, communication breakdowns, and technical difficulties on the platform. This blend of satisfaction with product quality and frustration over service reliability suggests a need for Shutterfly to enhance its customer service approach to improve overall customer experience and retention.

This summary is generated by AI, based on text from customer reviews

service
298
value
280
shipping
287
returns
172
quality
249
This company does not typically respond to reviews

We monitor reviews for authenticity

Wisconsin
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Chelsea b.
Unfollow Chelsea b.
Share Review
Report Review

Seeing as they charge $9 a piece for save the date magnets I would at least expect them to come with envelopes to send them in. Tried to contact customer service without any response. Will definitely be taking my business elsewhere next time!

Date of experience: August 20, 2017
Arizona
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow JOYCE B.
Unfollow JOYCE B.
Share Review
Report Review

I just deleted 10 years of photos and asked to close my account over a $22 shipping refund request. We have spent thousands over the 10 years and a recent order we paid for expedited shipping and UPS would not leave the package without a signature. I realize that this is UPS but Shutterfly employs them to deliver and when you pay extra you expect that the product will be delivered when promised this is on Shutterfly. Change carriers if they cant deliver. Shutterfly lost my business because they do not care about people.

Date of experience: August 11, 2017
New York
6 reviews
67 helpful votes
Follow Mark W.
Unfollow Mark W.
Share Review
Report Review

I like how the photos look now but all the albums I had created were lost and now my photos are a jumbled mess. I'm scrambling to transfer them to another photo site and hopefully save back-ups, but it's a lot of unnecessary time being wasted in destroying a lot of work I had put into trying to organize it.

Date of experience: August 9, 2017
Oregon
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Morgan A.
Unfollow Morgan A.
Share Review
Report Review

I placed an order last night and when I clicked the final "order" button the page was unable to load. I tried again and had the same response. The next morning I checked the status of my cart and the order was not process and the price had increased, (as a promotional value had ended) yet there were 2 charges pending on my bank account.

I immediately called customer service to see whether or not my order had actually processed, it hadn't. The lady I spoke with was super helpful, cleared up the pending charges (she'd never seen that happen before) and reduced the price in my cart to reflect the promotional value from yesterday, as well as gave me an additional discount. I am looking forward to getting my prints!

Date of experience: July 31, 2017
New York
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow Connie L.
Unfollow Connie L.
Share Review
Report Review

My Photos
July 29, 2017

The new way of uploading and viewing albums is TOTALLY AWFUL! Please revert back to the old way. It was a lot faster and simpler!

Date of experience: July 29, 2017
Ohio
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Lauren R.
Unfollow Lauren R.
Share Review
Report Review

TERRIBLE!
July 25, 2017

Ordered a photo book and spent a lot of time putting it together for a friend as a gift. Ordered and paid online. I was then sent an email notifying me of my window of shipping. On the last day of expected arrival, still no package because mine was never shipped. Now twenty, yes TWENTY days later I am still waiting for my now late gift for my friend. Will never use again!

Date of experience: July 25, 2017
North Carolina
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Marc S.
Unfollow Marc S.
Share Review
Report Review

We spent 90 minutes trying to design a wedding invitation( should have been a 20 min. Poject). The site is not very responsive or intuitive. When we went to check out the site gave us an error message with no explanation.
Talked to Customer Service Rep., very rude. Shutterfly ended up charging my account 6 times for the same order. Never use them!

Date of experience: July 23, 2017
Canada
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Taylor M.
Unfollow Taylor M.
Share Review
Report Review

Vistaprint is the way to go! Never using Shutterfly again-you can't make me! Ordered July 3rd 2017, still haven't seen it (it's the 21st). I went to track the package and it was N/A, went to see "if my package doesnt show up..." got an error message. Thing was 30 bucks! Use Vistaprint. Cheaper, better, and no joke delivered the next couple days.

Date of experience: July 21, 2017
Minnesota
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Shirley P.
Unfollow Shirley P.
Share Review
Report Review

Unreliable
July 20, 2017

I ordered a photo book as a birth day gift and I even paid extra for expedited shipping that garuntees the arrival date but never got the package on time and the person missed their gift. I am so disappointed how they handled this situation.

Date of experience: July 20, 2017
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow JENNIFER N.
Unfollow JENNIFER N.
Share Review
Report Review

I am sitting here in tears because my daughters FIRST birthday party invitations were cancelled without a notification because of a problem with the printers. I did not receive a notification at all and the customer service rep could not tell me why.

I did get a daily email about some sort of stupid sale the company was having for the 100th time. But NOT ONE NOTIFICATION about my cancelled order.

Date of experience: July 20, 2017
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow P R.
Unfollow P R.
Share Review
Report Review

My photo books are terrific quality and the reproduction/printing of my photos are perfect. I have nothing but excellent things to say about Shutterfly. The site is Super easy and fun to use and my products turned out GREAT! Looking forward to ordering more items.

Date of experience: July 17, 2017
Illinois
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Melissa B.
Unfollow Melissa B.
Share Review
Report Review

Every item I've ordered from Shutterfly has had shipping issues. In some cases I paid extra for faster shipping, in all cases my orders arrived late, if at all. While I enjoy the high quality products, the shipping process leaves a lot to be desired.

Date of experience: July 17, 2017
GB
4 reviews
7 helpful votes
Follow Rowdy B.
Unfollow Rowdy B.
Share Review
Report Review

Just finished a 53 page photobook. I found it annoying that "the site is not responding" and "you need to log in" again and again while working. It's easy to make mistakes and undo or modify work you've already done. Lastly, it's a bit annoying to spend 3 weeks on a project and have it disappear with no reason. Shutterfly says I should have emptied my cache and cookies before I started, but they didn't tell me that. They say I need to redo the project, and I say it will be with another company.

Date of experience: July 16, 2017
Minnesota
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow I w.
Unfollow I w.
Share Review
Report Review

Per my review on 7/16. Photobook birthday gift, which I paid to have 'guaranteed' delivery by July 14th - finally received an update today.

"This message is regarding your order status. At the moment your book has restarted the printing process early this morning. We do apologize for the delay and will continue checking on your books status throughout the rest of today to shipment.

Thank you for using Shutterfly!

Sincerely,
Anna G. "

This is after my last update from them which said it was almost finished and about to ship - Friday. BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN... and yes, I'm extremely frustrated since this was supposed to be a gift delivered last week.

Date of experience: July 16, 2017
Colorado
3 reviews
21 helpful votes
Follow kj B.
Unfollow kj B.
Share Review
Report Review

One item never shipped at all. The other arrived late. I paid for RUSH/$$$$ shipping. Had to call and get argue for my refunds. This used to be a reliable company. Will not use again

Date of experience: July 10, 2017
Texas
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow Austin S.
Unfollow Austin S.
Share Review
Report Review

This is the company that does not respect your privacy and steal your photos. I have once uploaded some photos to their website. Then I have deleted all my photos from albums and saved projects. However, they keep sending me promo emails which are titled "Your memories from this week three years ago...". All these emails show photos which I have deleted. Obviously they keep my photos in their database even I have "deleted" them from my own account. Avoid Shutterfly unless you don't care they steal you photos!

Date of experience: July 5, 2017
California
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
Follow brian j.
Unfollow brian j.
Share Review
Report Review

I stupidly downloaded this application. It pulls ALL your photos out of your files before you know it and you can't stop iot. AND they will not let you deactivate your account or delete it unless you call them or do a chat but even if you do a chat the operator says it can take 72 hours. It has been five days now and my acc0ouint and all my photos are still on their site. It's horrible!

Date of experience: July 2, 2017
Illinois
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Cheryl M.
Unfollow Cheryl M.
Share Review
Report Review

I will NEVER use Shutterfly again and I urge others not to! I spent hours making a college graduation photo book for my daughter and chose expedited shipping that ensured delivery by June 29th. Not only did I not get the book on the guaranteed date, I will not have the book in time for my daughter's graduation party. When I called customer service I was given the run-around. I spoke with several different support agents and never got a truthful answer. In fact, I was disconnected twice. No one would guarantee that I would receive the book by July 1st. I have always used iPhoto for my books and I have never been disappointed. The one time when I really needed a photo book, it won't be here. DO NOT believe the guaranteed arrival date for your order - you will be disappointed just like me when it doesn't arrive in time and quite honestly there is nothing that you can do. The people at Shutterfly don't care about you!

Date of experience: June 30, 2017
Virginia
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Tom D.
Unfollow Tom D.
Share Review
Report Review

Their online help tends to be two major site revisions behind, pointing to interface features which don't exist. Uploading from Lightroom is not possible, so you have to do a two-step export+update process. When uploading, often one or two images will fail to upload for no reason at all, and you aren't able to just retry the missing files upload. Sorting is horrible and unpredictable.

Overall, it is a horrible site that I have vowed to never use again. There are much better free photo sharing sites out there, and if you pay a little you can get *MUCH* better than Shutterfly's ad-funded abomination.

Date of experience: June 12, 2017
California
1 review
4 helpful votes
Follow Jade H.
Unfollow Jade H.
Share Review
Report Review

Saw a lot of bad comments - some of them just made me feel like they are just computer idiots. In my opinion - Shutterfly provides a professional design with such inexpensive price! I have used many photo printing service and I have to say by far Shutterfly has offers the best quality along with the great price. There are so much more options with products. They are just getting so much more creative. I love them!

Date of experience: June 9, 2017

From the business

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


shutterfly.com
Founded in 1999
Redwood City, CA, United States
+161
See all photos