How Long a Made to Order Print Takes to Arrive

Custom prints are not stock items, so the clock starts in production, not at checkout. Here is the full timeline, stage by stage, including the part nobody mentions.

Auvrique Editorial · Fine Art Editions

The short answer

A made to order art print shipping time runs roughly 7 to 14 business days in total. Production accounts for 2 to 5 business days, depending on format, and transit adds another 5 to 10 business days for most destinations. Framed pieces sit at the slower end because framing happens after printing.

The Timeline in Plain Numbers

Every print is made after the order is placed. Nothing sits in a warehouse waiting. That single fact explains most of the wait, and it is worth understanding before estimating an arrival date. Production takes 2 to 5 business days. Canvas tends to be quicker because it is printed, stretched and packed in one pass. Framed posters take longer, since the frame is cut and assembled after the print has cured.

Transit follows production. Most destinations fall within 5 to 10 business days, with regional variation doing the rest of the work. A domestic address often lands closer to five. Remote or international destinations can stretch past ten, and customs processing sits outside anyone's control. The honest total for a framed poster edition is therefore 7 to 15 business days, door to door, with the framing step explaining the upper end.

Why Custom Prints Cannot Ship Next Day

The anxiety behind this question is usually about uncertainty rather than duration. A buyer plans a delivery around a date, a visit, a room being finished. Made to order production makes that planning harder than buying something off a shelf, and there is no way around it without stocking pre-made prints, which limits sizes and formats badly. The trade is a slower start for a wider choice, which is the same reason ordering a single print with no minimum works at all.

There is also a quality reason for the wait. Ink needs time to dry and settle before a print is framed or stretched, and rushing that stage shows up later as warping or colour shift. A Cassinari canvas with its heavy colour fields, the kind discussed in choosing between canvas and framed poster, is more exposed to this than a spare line drawing would be. The extra days are not padding. They are the difference between a print that hangs flat in ten years and one that does not.

What Moves the Timeline

Canvas formats usually finish production faster than framed formats
Frame assembly adds several days after the print itself is done
International transit and customs can add a week beyond the estimate
Peak seasonal volume can extend production toward the upper range

Planning Around an Arrival Date

If the print needs to arrive by a specific date, work backwards from it. Add the 2 to 5 day production window to the 5 to 10 day transit window, then add a buffer of three to four business days for anything time sensitive. Ordering two weeks before a deadline is comfortable. Ordering three days before one is a gamble, and no honest seller will pretend otherwise.

Tracking begins once the parcel leaves production, not at checkout, so the first few days of silence are normal and not a sign that anything has gone wrong. If a date is genuinely fixed and tight, asking before ordering is faster than asking after. The contact route exists for exactly this, and a direct question about a deadline gets a straighter answer than any estimate published on a product page. The same logic applies when comparing formats, since a canvas edition and a framed piece rarely land on the same day.

The wait is not a delay. It is the price of a print that did not exist until you asked for it.

Stage	Duration	Notes
Production	2 to 5 business days	Canvas at the faster end, framed at the slower end
Transit	5 to 10 business days	Varies by destination and customs
Total	7 to 15 business days	Add a buffer for fixed deadlines

Typical timeline by stage

Key takeaways

Total delivery runs about 7 to 15 business days from order to door.
Production takes 2 to 5 business days and starts only after checkout.
Framed prints take longer than canvas because framing follows printing.
For a fixed date, order at least two weeks ahead and build in a buffer.

Related questions

Does tracking start as soon as I order?

No. Tracking activates once the finished print leaves production, which is typically 2 to 5 business days after ordering. The quiet period before that is normal. Once a tracking number is issued, transit updates follow the carrier's usual cadence for the destination country.

Do framed prints really take longer than canvas?

Usually, yes. A canvas is printed, stretched and packed in one workflow. A framed print waits for the frame to be cut and assembled after the ink has cured, which adds days. The difference is typically a few business days rather than weeks.

What if my print arrives damaged after the long wait?

Damage in transit is handled separately from the production timeline, and the remedy is a replacement or refund rather than a re-print from scratch in every case. The refund policy sets out the conditions and the window for reporting, so photograph the packaging before opening it.

From the Auvrique collection

Made to order · Every size