The three stages of the timeline
Getting a custom trading card made breaks into three stages, and only one of them involves any waiting on your part.
- ✓Design — instant. Upload a photo, pick a template, add details, preview. About 60 seconds.
- ✓Production — 1 to 2 business days. The card is printed on official stock and cased.
- ✓Shipping — 2 to 5 business days for free US standard delivery.
What "business days" means for your order
Timelines run on business days, so weekends and holidays do not count toward production or transit. An order placed Friday effectively starts production the following week.
In practice, most US orders arrive within about a week of being placed. Build in a little extra room if there is a hard date on the other end.
Planning around a deadline
If the card is a gift or tied to an event — a birthday, a holiday, an end-of-season banquet, senior night — work backward from that date.
A safe rule is to order at least 7 to 10 days ahead for US delivery. That covers the full production and shipping window with margin for a weekend. The closer you cut it, the less slack you have if anything runs long.
Team and bulk orders
Bulk team orders follow the same production and shipping windows once the order is placed. The variable is upstream: collecting a photo from every family is usually what takes the longest.
Start gathering player photos early. Once the full set is submitted as one order, the production and shipping timeline is the same as a single card.