Buy from Kickstarter

While we can’t remember the last time we actually ordered photo prints or printed a photo ourselves, a lifetime offer to have 20 photo prints mailed to you for free every single month is just too good to ignore. Flag, a photo printing company, has just started a Kickstarter campaign offering this service as one of the perks. As expected, the response has been incredible and at time of posting, the campaign has raised over 18 times its target funding of $10,000. And it still has just over a month to go before the campaign ends.

Since we all know there ain’t such thing as a free lunch, what is the catch? The catch is Flag will print a targeted ad on the unused empty space at the back of each photo. How are the ads targeted? Simple. You have already provided Flag your mailing address so they know where you live for location targeted ads. Furthermore, they can get more information from the image file’s metadata plus they can analyze the photo content for extra info. This may sound scary but you are already sharing this information if you are using some kind of cloud service to save your photo collection online.

If you don’t mind the ad at the back and the fact that Flag is using your info to send you ads, the deal is actually pretty sweet for both you and the advertisers. Advertisers are happy with the fact that you don’t throw away the photos/ads while you get free photo prints for life.

There is one other catch. The free photo delivery service is only available to US residents. If you live outside the US, you can still sign up but you will have to pay a one-time fee of $100 for the delivery service. Other than this, you get to enjoy all the other perks as well.

If you think that you will be getting poor quality prints because they are free, think again. The photos are printed on high quality photo paper using 2400 dpi print heads. Best of all, you are not forced to resize or crop all your images to fit the standard 6″ x 4″ sized prints. You can print square photos or panoramic photos in their original ratios and they are all free. Your photos don’t even have to be rectangular. The custom sizes are possible because Flag uses laser cutters to cut out the photos. Certain enlargement sizes are available at a cost but 5″ x 7″ enlargements are free.

In addition to the free photos, there are also extra options such as special beautiful paper frames and premium laser-cut frames. Some of these add-ons are free while others start at $1. However if you sign up for Flag’s lifetime Flagship membership, you get all these premium add-ons for free as well.

Selecting and ordering photos can easily be done using the free iOS app. The Android version of the app is currently expected to be ready by the end of the year.

Flag is already providing this service for a small number of users. They are unable to expand further as they are limited by their photo printing capacity. In order to provide this service to a larger number of users, they need to purchase more and better equipment and this is where the Kickstarter campaign comes in. With the money raised they plan to do what they are already doing but on a much larger scale.
Buy from Kickstarter