As an invitation designer and a design teacher, I thought it would be fun to test out the same invitations on a few different printers! I printed these invitations on my 2 in-house printers (laser and inkjet) and ordered prints from 4 of my favorite print shops in order to compare invitation printers. Keep reading to see which one is the best, pricing breakdowns, and which printers you should use for your wedding invitations!
Long story short:
- The BEST result, in my opinion, was PrintsWell (they have been my favorite for a while for a reason)
- The best result from a printer that offers retail was: LCI Paper
- The cheapest prints came from: LCI Paper / in-house
- The fastest print shop was: LCI Paper (close 2nd PrintsWell and Prints of Love)
- I personally never advise printing in-house, because it takes a lot more finagling than you realize. Cutting paper takes time, ordering paper takes time, printing and color adjustments take time, etc. But I did personally prefer the way my inkjet printer handled these prints – the color was way more accurate and vibrant with no adjustments, although it printed a little blue.
Let’s get into the nitty gritty!
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I printed this same design file on 6 different printers:
- In-House inkjet printer (Canon Pixma Pro)
- In-House laser printer (HP M452DW)
- PrintsWell
- Cards and Pockets
- LCI Paper
- Prints of Love
Here’s the video showing the ordering process for you:
Total Printing Cost Breakdown
Printing options varied a little for each print shop, and you may find your pricing to be a little different if you need different paper, quantity, etc. I also chose the Ground shipping option for all of these.
Our In-house printers technically were “free” to print, but we did have to purchase the printers, ink/toner and paper in the past.
- Cards + Pockets total: $16.64 for 10 ($1.66 each)
- LCI Paper total: $29.33 for 25 ($1.17 each)
- Prints of Love total: $10.30 for 1 sample
- PrintsWell total: $18.98 for 10 ($1.90 each)
Some notes on pricing: Prints of Love offers free shipping on all orders (obviously built into the price of 1 sample). I ordered the minimum quantity of prints for each shop, so most don’t offer just printing 1 piece, but have a minimum of 10 or 25 pieces. Obviously Prints of Love was the cheapest overall cost for the sample, but for 10 samples with them, the cost is $38.60, so it’s definitely a more costly option at that price point. At 100 pieces, the pricing is $135 so much more in line with these other printers!
Discounts are often available, depending on exactly what you order. Our link for PrintsWell will get you $25 off your first order.
Paper will also affect price. I attempted to choose a “standard” white invitation paper for each order, but you may find different results with double-thick, colored, or other textures of paper.
Lastly, we often want to call printing in-house cheaper, but if you calculate your time and energy, that’s almost never true. For instance, just to get a sample print, I had to print a few pieces of paper, have full ink/toner cartridges, and spend some time cutting the papers down. Printing those 2 samples took about the same amount of time as ordering samples from 4 different companies.
To compare the invitation printers, I’ll rate all the quality pieces on a scale of 1-10, and rank cost and speed out of the 4 options.
Printing Invitations with PrintsWell
Let’s talk results. PrintsWell was my favorite result, mostly due to color accuracy. I like the paper we used better than LCI or Cards and Pockets, but both of those have tons of other paper options, and the ones we chose were totally fine as well. PrintsWell’s print quality was extremely crisp, and their colors printed more warmly than the others, which was my intention for this artwork. Something I love about PrintsWell’s printer is that the ink actually sits IN the paper (the matte papers) instead of on top of them. The others in this test (and most commercial printers) have a little sheen to them because the ink is more ON the paper than IN it. Hard to show in a photo but I’ll try!
- Overall Print Quality: 10/10
- Text: 10/10
- Colors: 10/10
- Paper: 10/10 – 120# Eggshell Ultra White (a good bright white that’s not too blue, light texture)
- Cost: 2/4
- Speed: 2/4 (Shipped in 2 days – tied with Prints of Love)
- PrintsWell Total: 44/48
The only issue I personally see with PrintsWell is that they only offer wholesale printing! If you’re looking for retail options, check out the other printers listed here. (Reminder, if you are new to PrintsWell, my link gets you $25 off our first order!)
Printing Invitations with LCI Paper
LCI Paper honestly did a great job as well! They were the cheapest and the fastest, shipping next day for our order. I love their selection of colorful papers and envelopes too. The cursive text printed ever so slightly less crisp, but I will say this is a very thin script. The block printing was more crisp. The colors were fairly accurate, just a tad more blue than I intended.
- Overall Print Quality: 8.5/10
- Text: 8/10
- Colors: 9/10
- Paper: 9/10 – Gmund (a brighter white, slightly more blue, light texture)
- Cost: 4/4
- Speed: 4/4 (Shipped next day)
- LCI Total: 42.5/44
Printing Invitations with Cards and Pockets
I chose the Snow White paper with Cards and Pockets which I like a lot. It’s a tad thinner than PrintsWell’s but the texture is nice. They have a thicker “Lux White” option too as well as many colors to choose from. The text printed very crisply, and the colors were generally accurate, if a tad blue! I think this would be a good printer if your design has bright colors in it as they are very crisp and vibrant.
- Overall Print Quality: 9/10
- Text: 10/10
- Colors: 8/10
- Paper: 9/10 – 100# Snow White (a good bright white that’s not too blue, medium texture)
- Cost: 3/4
- Speed: 1/4 (Shipped in 5 business days)
- Cards and Pockets Total: 40/44
All 3 of these printers overall did a really good job, and I would totally recommend them for your stationery printing. There could be a slight preference to one or the other, but I have used them all for my clients and will continue to do so!
Printing Invitations with Prints of Love
Now getting into one I didn’t love so much – Prints of Love. They only have a couple paper options (matte, gloss, linen and soft touch). I went with the matte option and while it’s fine, it’s not my favorite. It feels muted and blue-toned, with very little texture to it. Overall, I think Prints of Love is a simple site, easy to use if you’re not a designer, and you don’t have to make a lot of decisions. I do think you have better options for just a little extra work though!
- Overall Print Quality: 10/10
- Text: 10/10
- Colors: 10/10
- Paper: 10/10 – 120# Eggshell Ultra White (a good bright white that’s not too blue, light texture)
- Cost: 2/4
- Speed: 2/4 (Shipped in 2 days – tied with Prints of Love)
- Prints of Love Total: 36/44
Printing Invitations on my Laser Printer
In-home laser printers are notorious for not handling thicker paper well. I first printed this on a 130# paper, and then printed it on a thinner cardstock (80-90#). The results were not amazing on either. I think with time we could have gotten a better print, but that’s the rub with printing in-house! You have to do all the adjustments and configurations. Pros here are that the laser printer is FAST and the text is very crisp on the paper that works well. If this were a text-only invitation (or envelopes – we often print them on this printer) then it would be a great result!
- Overall Print Quality: 2/10
- Text: 10/10
- Colors: 4/10
- Paper: 4/10 – You have to use thinner paper to get good results on this printer
- HP Total: 20/40
Printing Invitations on my Inkjet Printer
My inkjet printer is usually better with colors and worse with text than my HP. The overall print was a little muted and quite blue in undertone. While I was pleasantly surprised, it would take a few more adjustments to get to a good final product on this printer!
- Overall Print Quality: 7/10
- Text: 8/10
- Colors: 6/10
- Paper: 10/10 – You can print really any paper on this printer, including handmade papers!
- Canon Total: 31/40
Overall, I think all 4 of the print shops did a pretty good job, and don’t think the average person would be unhappy with their prints. Cards and Pockets, LCI and PrintsWell did better than Prints of Love, mostly from a paper selection standpoint. PrintsWell was my favorite in terms of quality, papers, pricing, and speed (this further solidified why they are my favorite!). If you need a retail offering, I would recommend LCI or Cards and Pockets as a top choice, Prints of Love for something simpler if you don’t have much design experience. And as expected, neither of my in-house printers held up in print quality to the commercial print shops. I do think adjustments could get us better results with those printers, but even knowing the best maximum output for those – I would likely still choose the print shops if I wasn’t in a huge rush!
Let me know if you’re going to try out any of these print shops!
Behind the scenes with your favorite Stationery Auntie Laney (and all the inside scoops!)
