Printfection vs. SwagUp

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Printfection
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Printfection is a swag management platform that aims to simplify the buying, managing, and distribution of swag and branded merchandise, from the company of the same name in Denver. They offer a suite of online swag management tools and APIs alongside custom printing, inventory management, and distribution. The vendor states their customers use the platform to drive more leads, reward customers, and engage employees.N/A
SwagUp
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
SwagUp in Piscataway aims to bring simplicity and quality to the world of branded swag. The solution provides swag packs for employee welcoming, client gifting, and event attendees. The service is paired with warehousing and fulfillment services.N/A
Pricing
PrintfectionSwagUp
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PrintfectionSwagUp
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PrintfectionSwagUp
Considered Both Products
Printfection
Chose Printfection
I was not on the team when we switched from SwagUp to Printfection yet, but what I do know is there were distribution issues that drove us to leave their platform. We have not experienced any delivery/distribution issues since working with Printfection. They have been highly …
Chose Printfection
We switched from SwagUp to Printfection because SwagUp is much more manual than Printfection, specifically for giveaway campaigns where you send someone a link to redeem swag. SwagUp is also less self-serve, meaning that you have to email their support in order to set up …
Chose Printfection
Printfection won out over SwagUp due to their ease of use and ability to truly allow our team to self-service our swag via their platform, versus having to find storage for swag on our own.
Chose Printfection
The big thing for us with Printfection was being able to consolidate everything into one platform. We were using so many other swag tools, SwagUp, Swag.com, Merchology, iPromo, etc. We were able to take the items from those platforms, send them to Printfection, and get …
Chose Printfection
Swag.com was our previous swag company. I find Printfection has a superior customer support system as well as quick turnaround on new swag orders, and great communication when swag is shipped (I know when swag has been ordered, shipped, and delivered). I can also add a note to …
Chose Printfection
I had a poor interaction with their sales representative who didn't seem very interested in us or our business needs. Also their pricing seemed odd in that there was no monthly subscription but instead the postage costs were astronomical. I selected Printfection because I'd …
Chose Printfection
Printfection met all of our requirements for an acceptable cost.
Chose Printfection
They are much better- they have dedicated customer support and are constantly looping in other leaders so they can ensure you're happy with the process. THey are knowledgeable about their vendors and lead times so they can provide proper timely considerations for you and your …
Chose Printfection
- The one-stop-shop solution
- Customer service
- The platform
Chose Printfection
The other solutions we vetted were more DIY and involved a bit more work on the end user. We wanted ease of use and distribution. Printfection was the most expensive option but the easiest to manage for a remote company.
Chose Printfection
Our company switched to Printfection.
SwagUp

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
PrintfectionSwagUp
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Sendoso
Sendoso
Score 8.2 out of 10
Sendoso
Sendoso
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Sendoso
Sendoso
Score 8.2 out of 10
Sendoso
Sendoso
Score 8.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PrintfectionSwagUp
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(80 ratings)
4.3
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.5
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(80 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
6.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PrintfectionSwagUp
Likelihood to Recommend
Printfection
It is well suited for a one-stop shop that gets everything done in one place (sizing, order, warehousing, shipping, drop-shipping, ability to do one-off orders, support in the process). It is less appropriate if you need something very specific and what they have doesn't work for you or if you like to be very involved in the complete process. It is also less appropriate if price is a major factor.
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SwagUp
In my experience, it was a horribly complicated process with an account manager, who takes things very personally in my opinion. SwagUp came highly recommended from some client-serving companies, who I believe, apparently, spend a lot of money with them. For a company that is supposed to help other companies wow their clients, I find their customer service is woefully lacking in my opinion. I believe “swag” doesn’t make up for the bad service. Not recommended because I believe I did not get the customer service or product fulfillment I expected when initially choosing this product, service, and company.
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Pros
Printfection
  • The swag catalogue has lots of items to choose from and they try to source anything else you need
  • Takes care of the logistical challenges of getting swag to offices, events and to customers
  • Their customer team are really hands on and helpful
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SwagUp
  • Customer Services has gotten better.
  • Platform is organized.
  • Communication.
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Cons
Printfection
  • Their Giveaway feature was made some improvements but I would like to see it be more flexible
  • Being able to get more samples of products and printing prior to ordering
  • Swag photography/ items in stock in our closet- we had to provide photos of these items
  • Better updates on swag items that are low in stock
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SwagUp
  • UX
  • International shipping.
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Likelihood to Renew
Printfection
We are currently extremely satisfied with printfection. The quality of swag is very good, but the customer service ranks high above any other swag company. I have been working closely with my Printfection manager (Tyler Rowland) and he has been more than helpful from the start.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Usability
Printfection
The product is really easy to use and manage. We love using Printfection. It's easy to order, ship and manage everything. I did remove one rating point because their set up for "giveaways" is a little cumbersome and I wish their platform notified you when products in your giveaways are running low.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Printfection
Prinfection's availability has been great. There was one time when a product we needed wasn't available, but our Printfection rep made sure to get what we needed.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Performance
Printfection
Printfection's performance has been top-notch. We have been using Printfection for only about 8 months, and have not had any issues with performance.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Printfection
Every step of the way, I have been helped by someone who feels like a friend. They know their stuff and they get back to me in a timely manner. It gets frustrating when you need help but the "experts" don't offer any. Printfection isn't like this at all. They've done a great job making sure I understand everything I need to have a successful campaign for our employees.
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SwagUp
We have an active order in with SwagUp at this moment for $1400+, but the poor customer service, complicated process, the entitled attitude of their account manager who is on some sort of weird power trip, and the fact that our clients won't ever be receiving what we ordered makes that amount irrelevant in my opinion and experience. I feel like the time I wasted with their account manager was worth much more than what we spent with SwagUp. First of all, I’m not the type to be critical of anyone doing their job. People are busy, tech has issues, emails get lost, etc. in our digital world. It happens and true professionals who work online understand that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are employees who don’t get this and feel entitled to express their emotions freely. I believe that while this doesn’t harm them, it definitely harms the bottom line of the company. In my opinion, an angry and insulted client WILL spread the word about said company - which is precisely what I will do. Let's talk about this what I feel like is a completely unprofessional account manager first, because, in my opinion, this is the type of employee who causes companies to bleed revenue unless they are checked. The call was recorded, so whoever is in charge can feel free to review it for consistency. The purpose of my call was simple - to smooth out what I believe was a simple miscommunication. In my opinion, what should have been a simple process became stalled because the person who I feel like was an entitled account manager was more concerned with flexing his “client boundary” muscles than actually doing his job, which was taking care of the account. I believe that an account manager who gets upset and emotional because he didn’t receive a response to an email, and who can’t even disguise that fact on a zoom call, needs to fix it or work elsewhere. Because if he had this attitude with me, I feel like lord knows how many others of his accounts are receiving the same treatment. During my experience, here are a few statements I believe he made on the call: -I believe he talked about how my business was “not the type of clients SwagUp wants to work with”… -I believe he complained out how it was “unfair” it was to bring up their January 18th delay. -I believe he asked, “what sort of company we run” (because an email was missed - even though from my understanding from SwagUp, communication is encouraged mainly through their portal). -I believe he proceeded to talk about “how busy” he was and had other people to talk to, while he was on the call with me, a paying client. -I believe he also complained about third-party vendors and stated that they (SwagUp) don’t even want to have third-party materials sent to them (which to me, is confusing as a customer, because then why on earth do you even allow it through your product and service?) -I believe he denied that the company had anything to do with “fulfillment” and then proceeded to try to explain what sort of company SwagUp was. Nevermind that when our order was delayed the email literally started with (what I believe is a copy and pasted message) “You are receiving this message because we've been notified that your order is experiencing a longer than normal fulfillment timeline.” -During my experience, after what I feel like was him constantly implying that our company was incompetent because we missed an email, he proceeded to give what I felt like was a half-hearted “apology” and state that “he hopes we consider SwagUp in the future”. After all of this happened during my experience with them, I informed him that we would not based on what I felt like was his horrible customer service to me, and guess what Mr. Emotional Customer Service does? I believe he ended the call by saying, “Well, the feeling is mutual”. With all of that personal customer service experience I had out of the way, here’s the context of our experience using SwagUp: We began the process with SwagUp on November 29th. Mockups were completed and approved on December 28th. In the meantime, we had originally wanted to add a third-party item to our order, so they linked us up with an account executive. Throughout the process, the account executive was adamant that we use the SwagUp dashboard to stay informed of the progress of our materials and order. In my opinion, based on my experience there with the account executive, the implication was that everything could be one on there (SwagUp dashboard). The problem, in my opinion, is (and now I know) that it can’t. On January 18th, our order was delayed. The message I believe we received was: “We know you and your recipients are looking forward to receiving your custom swag and understand the frustration of missing holiday expectations. We appreciate your patience, apologize for the inconvenience, and look forward to getting you your order as soon as possible.” No complaints on our part for that. On the 20th, our account manager reached out to ask about the third-party material we requested to be included. Unfortunately, on our part, due to a personnel change, the email thread was archived. Nevertheless, we were informed it was shipped to their warehouse. However, at this time on their online portal (SwagUp dashboard), where we were previously constantly encouraged to check for updates, there was nothing to see in my opinion. I couldn't find any new updates or any new information. As far as we knew at that point, our order was still delayed. Bear in mind that at this point in our experience, we had paid our invoice and were assuming that SwagUp still had logistics problems due to COVID and other factors mentioned in their email. On February 16th, I believe the account manager emailed to state that due to lack of responsiveness, they were going to go ahead and pack the packages without the third-party material we had requested. I believe we did not hear back from SwagUp till February 21st when were informed that our order was ready to ship. This is when my customer service experience began, which was when the account manager was called and I believe his entire attitude was based around being upset that his emails were not responded to. In my experience, he kept repeating that under no circumstances would they place our requested material in the boxes - never mind that I didn’t even call about that. I never asked, but during our call, it seemed like to me that he got some sort of kick out of explaining how their process worked and why he would send the boxes back, which was information that I had no interest in hearing because I didn’t call about any of that. It seemed to me that he wasn't informed that SwagUp had delayed the process and that we received no feedback from their portal, which I feel like they heavily push. The craziest part, in my opinion, was that at the end of everything, he STILL redirected us to the portal to fill out everything else. I recommend SwagUp to listen up. This company (SwagUp) *looks* good as a brand. I understand that logistics is tough. This could have been a good experience - even just using your portal, but, in my opinion, there are two issues: 1) Your third-party fulfillment is clunky and 2) Your account managers (the human element) need to be better managed and trained based on my experience. Just because they had a poor experience with one client, I hope they don't treat all other clients with the disdain and disrespect that I feel like I experienced during my time using SwagUp. In my experience, we still paid for our product on time and fulfilled every aspect of the complicated process, despite a delay, which we never complained about. Even though we requested it, our third-party order will not even be included when it's shipped out to our clients – and we still had no complaints either. But, in my opinion, what we won’t put up with or will actively share is an employee that I believe is emotional, condescending, and acts like he owns the company towards clients.
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In-Person Training
Printfection
Tyler led some of our staff through training and was very helpful. Tyler was also always available for any questions after training was complete.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Printfection
We completed online training with a Printfection rep leading us through the process. This made the whole experience easy and helpful.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Printfection
Their team is very helpful in getting set up and we felt like they worked with us on price and also getting our previous inventory we had at our offices set up in Printfection. The only down side of shipping in your items to Printfection is the photography of the items (which clients can see) is pretty terrible if you don't have clear product photos prior to sending the items to Printfection warehouse.
**All items purchased through Printfection the product photos look better (so this issue won't be the case with those who aren't shipping existing swag to their warehouse)
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Printfection
There were a couple of reasons we selected Printfection: price and contract/level of commitment (we are on a month-to-month plan). To be honest, there are products that integrate better with Salesforce and have more capabilities but we were looking for something that didn't require us to sign a year contract and was a reasonable price. After purchasing, we are extremely impressed with their team and consider this a huge benefit of going with Printfection.
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SwagUp
SwagUp has more options to order swag and items for the organization and is more user-friendly, the others are but SwagUp is easier to figure out on the first try!
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Printfection
Simple pricing and easy to pitch to stakeholders
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Printfection
Only a few of our departments will be using Printfection, (like HR and Customer Success), but both departments find Printfection flexible and scalable.
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Printfection
There aren't many professional services besides what is related to their product. What would have been great was to get design services included in our membership since we dont have one in house
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SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Printfection
  • Previously we had a "welcome" kit for certain new customers with custom packaging and great messaging. It was very successful in helping kick off a new customer relationship.
  • If the platform was integrated with our CRM we'd have more metrics to be able to measure ROI.
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SwagUp
  • Negative- The process takes too long, comes with delays, and based on my experience, involved a lot of miscommunication.
  • Negative- In my experience, I believe the account manager was rude and entitled.
  • Negative- In my opinion, employees may say one thing, but their automated portal proceeds at a different rate, so I feel like there is constantly conflicting information for the customer.
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