Send Out Cards established by Kody Bateman in 2004 in Salt Lake City, Utah has grown from an $800,000/year business to one turning over $70 million in 2009.

While this growth is staggering, we must ask ourselves “is Send Out Cards a scam?” Or are customers and distributors getting involved in a real deal?

In this Send Out Cards review, we’ll look at what the company does, what support and training is provided to distributors, the quality of their products, the costs to get involved, and what flaws are glaring in the business. At the end you can decide if you want to participate as a customer or as a distributor.

Kody Bateman started the business after his brother passed away when he realized that acting on a cue by sending a card is difficult for most people. When a prompt enters your head, it often passes just as quickly because a person usually doesn’t have a card handy at home or is discouraged by having to go to a store, park their car, find a card, write your message, then go to the post office, stand in line to buy a stamp, and finally mail your card. Most people say “I’ll do it tomorrow”, but unfortunately that day never comes and the sincere thought of it is not expressed to the potential recipient of it.

Send Out Cards offers customers or distributors a virtual store service that can be operated from anywhere in the world whereby they can choose a card from over 10,000 selections, create a personal handwritten message, upload a photo, select a recipient and click send on your computer.

The Send Out Cards team then prints your card, stamps it, and posts it to you. Printing is produced in Utah and Australia. Distributors and customers can take advantage of the company’s campaign manager feature that allows people to create cards, select recipients, and send those cards at a future date.

Such a service sounds attractive, but is it the quality of the final product? GSM card quality is the same as that used by all major card manufacturers, but unlike the ‘out of the box’ cards offered by Hallmark cards and American greeting cards, Send Out Cards products can be personalized with your own message. You can even add photos to give your card a more personal touch. By uploading your own handwriting, you can save time when ‘writing’ cards en masse.

With over 8 billion cards shipped annually in the US alone, there is a lot of competition. Hallmark cards and American greeting cards dominate the market with physical greeting cards. Blue Mountain Cards and 123 Greeting Cards offer an eCard service that is also popular. Send Out Cards takes advantage of these companies by providing an online service that produces a quality physical card just by clicking send on your computer.

Card costs vary, but generally range from $3 to $6 for a quality card. As a distributor or wholesale customer of Send Cards, your cards are only 62 cents. The company also includes your first 100 cards with these packs when you get started.

Getting started with Send Cards can be as little as $9.80 as a retail customer. This will allow you to ‘put your toe in the water’ and try out the business. You don’t get all the features with this product and your cards will cost you $2 each. The Retail Customer account gives you 10 cards included in the package.

Preferred Customers can purchase a package for $31 per month. Card costs are now reduced to 31 cents per unit. Typically, a card will cost 62 cents without personal photos.

But if you’re in a small business, like real estate, financial services, home loans, healthcare, health or beauty, then this Preferred Customer package is your best deal. The cost per card is now 62 cents and includes all features. For those who want to start a card mailing business, they must purchase the Entrepreneur package at $295. This package includes all the same benefits as the wholesale package but includes a distributor kit that allows you to run a business.

Now, up to this point, you may be thinking that Send Out Cards sounds like a great service or business. But what flaws are there?

Well, you need to be organized to some extent with this service. Send cards still connected in the postal services of a country. There are some problems. Postal services can be unreliable for being late and are often subject to strikes. The message here is to send your cards early. You should budget approximately 5 days including printing time and shipping time.

Humans are also involved in the process which can ultimately lead to problems. Mistakes can be made, but with Send Cards, the company compensates them if they are at fault.

Computers sometimes crash too and with an ever-increasing print run, sometimes these crashes occur more frequently. However, based on the bigger picture, such failures are very minor.

So is Send Out Cards the real deal? Well, you are the judge. Before you engage in any service as a customer or dealer, be sure to do your own due diligence.

With businesses trying to figure out how to keep in touch with their customers cheaply or people just wanting to send a heartfelt message quickly, the 8 billion card market is certainly growing.