Straight answers.

Order by 10:00 AM, Monday through Friday, with print-ready art, or art our design desk can finish quickly, and most standard jobs are ready for pickup that same afternoon before we close at 5. That covers banners, yard signs, rigid signs, business cards, flyers, and most apparel. Nothing about it is a lottery: if we can’t make it today, we say so on the phone rather than letting you find out at 4:45.

9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Closed Saturday and Sunday. The same-day cutoff sits at 10:00 AM, one hour after we open, because the production queue for the day has to be set early enough to finish by 5. Walk-ins are welcome any time we’re open.

Because the work is genuinely made here, not ordered from a plant. Printing, laminating, cutting, hemming, grommeting, and pressing all take real time on real machines, and a 5:00 PM close means the queue has to be set by mid-morning. Orders that land after 10 usually finish the next business day, which is still faster than most shops’ “rush.” If your job is small and the queue happens to be light, we’ll tell you it still fits, but we won’t promise it before we know.

It’s a promise we keep on standard work, not a blanket guarantee on everything. Complex jobs (vehicle graphics, building and monument signs, anything needing installation, laminating, or an outside process) take longer, and we give you the real timeline before you commit. The honest version: most people who walk in before 10 leave with their order the same day, and the ones who can’t are told why immediately.

Plan for Friday. We’re closed Saturday and Sunday, so a Saturday event means the Friday 10:00 AM cutoff is your real deadline, not Friday afternoon. This is the single most common way people get caught out, and it’s why we put the cutoff on every page of this site.

Yes. Walk-ins are normal here, not an interruption. 1835 Fulton Ave, Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with more parking in the rear if the front is full. Bring a flash drive, a phone photo, a business card you want matched, or nothing at all. Plenty of orders start with someone describing what they need across the counter.

Call first. Don’t email. (916) 944-7195 reaches a printer who can see the queue and tell you in about thirty seconds whether today is realistic. Emailing a rush at 9:50 AM and hoping is the slowest possible way to get a fast answer.

Same-day on standard work at the posted price is the normal way we operate, not an upcharge. If a job truly requires pushing other work aside or staying past normal production, we’ll say so and quote it before we start. You’ll never find a surprise line item after the fact.

It depends on the job, and we’ll give you a real date rather than a hopeful one. As a rough shape: vehicle lettering and window graphics are usually a matter of days once art is approved; building, monument, and pole signs run longer because of fabrication and install scheduling; large print runs like booklets and magazines depend on quantity and finishing. Ask when you order and you’ll get a date you can plan around.

$6 per square foot, hemmed and grommeted. Multiply width by height in feet and you have the price: a 2×4 is $48, a 3×6 is $108, a 3×8 is $144, a 4×10 is $240. That’s the same number whether you’re a first-time customer or a fifteen-year account. Run your size through the calculator if you’d rather not do the math.

Coroplast with vinyl is $9 per square foot. The standard 18×24 inch yard sign is 3 square feet, so it’s about $27 each, and larger runs get better per-piece pricing, which is where campaigns and school groups should start the conversation. Stakes are a separate, inexpensive item; ask for them when you order so you’re not stuck holding signs with nothing to put them on.

The most-asked ones: 500 business cards $58, 1,000 for $78. 500 glossy flyers $165, 1,000 for $215. 500 4×6 postcards $125, 1,000 for $170. Shirts start at $15 for a front or back print, $20 for both sides. Everything else is quoted the same way. Straight, and usually while you’re on the phone.

Because hiding them wastes everyone’s morning. A customer who has to call four shops to learn a banner costs about a hundred dollars has lost an hour to find out something that should take ten seconds. Posting the list also keeps us honest. We can’t quote you differently than the person who called before you.

Yes. Larger runs cost less per piece, in print and in signage both. The posted list is the single-order rate; call with your real quantity and we’ll quote the run. Campaigns, school districts, brokerages, and contractors with multiple crews should always ask rather than multiplying the retail number.

No meaningful one. One shirt, one sign, one banner, one box of cards. All normal orders. We’re a counter on Fulton Avenue, not a fulfilllment portal with a 250-piece floor.

Bring us the written quote and we’ll look at it honestly. Sometimes we’re already lower: the posted rates tend to surprise people who’ve been quoted “call for pricing” elsewhere. Sometimes the other quote is for a different material or a thinner substrate than what we’d put your name on, and we’ll show you the difference rather than just matching a number.

Three ways, fastest first: call (916) 944-7195 and a printer answers; use the quote form on this site and attach your artwork; or walk into 1835 Fulton Ave. On posted-price items you often don’t need a quote at all. You need a calculator.

You approve a free proof before anything runs, so nothing gets printed that you haven’t seen and signed off on. Payment terms for one-off orders are settled at the counter; businesses that reorder regularly can set up a business account and get one monthly invoice instead of a receipt every time.

A print-ready PDF is the gold standard. We also work happily with AI, EPS, PSD, SVG, and high-resolution PNG or JPG. The quality rule that matters more than the format: the file should be roughly 300 dpi at the size it will actually print. A logo pulled off a website is usually 72 dpi and will look soft blown up on a banner, not because the printer failed, but because there was never enough detail in the file.

Then you’re a completely normal customer. Bring the words, a logo if one exists, a photo of the old sign, or a napkin sketch, and our design desk builds print-ready art from it. You approve a free proof before anything runs. Plenty of the work in our photo wall started as a phone photo of something that was falling apart.

Yes. That’s routine. Bring a sample or a clear photo and we reproduce it, or clean it up if you want it improved without looking like a different company. This is exactly how most reorders start when the original designer is long gone and nobody can find the file.

Yes, and it’s the reason regulars stop shopping. Once your art is on record, the next order is a phone call (“same shirts, 24 of them, mediums and larges”) instead of a design project. Realtors, contractors, restaurants, and school groups get the most out of this because their orders repeat on a schedule.

A proof is what your job will look like when it prints, sent to you before we run it. It’s free, and yes. Nothing runs until you approve it. Read it like you mean it: check the phone number, the spelling of every name, the dates, and the web address. The proof is the moment errors are free to fix.

Bleed is extra artwork past the trim line so the ink runs off the edge instead of leaving a white sliver when the cutter is a hair off. If your file doesn’t have it, don’t worry. Send it anyway and we’ll extend the background. Just know that a design with text crowded against the very edge may need to be nudged inward, and we’ll show you that on the proof.

Screens make color with light (RGB); presses make it with ink (CMYK), and a handful of screen colors (the electric blues and hot greens especially) simply have no ink equivalent. We convert files and flag anything that will shift noticeably. If exact color matters (a brand red that has to match your existing signs) say so up front and bring a printed sample to match against, not a screenshot.

Yes. Export it as a PDF for print at the finished size and send that rather than a PNG screenshot, and it usually lands fine. If something in the export goes sideways (fonts substituting, low-resolution logos, missing bleed) the design desk catches it before it prints, which is what a real proof is for.

Match the material to how long the sign lives outside. Coroplast ($9/sq ft) is corrugated plastic. Light, cheap, stake-friendly, the right answer for yard signs, campaigns, open houses, and events. Foam board ($10) is for indoor use: presentations, easels, trade-show boards. PVC ($11) is rigid and holds up outdoors for a real stretch. Aluminum composite ($13.50) is the one that survives Sacramento summers year after year. Real estate panels, parking and site signage, anything you don’t want to reprint every season.

Sacramento sun and heat are the deciding factor, not the ink. A hemmed and grommeted banner tied down properly holds up well for seasonal use; a banner left up permanently on a west-facing wall through a Valley summer will fade faster than one that comes down after an event. If you need something for years rather than months, ask us. That’s usually a rigid material or an installed sign, not a banner.

Measure the space first: the number of banners that arrive perfect and don’t fit the railing is not small. Common sizes: 2×4 for a table or small storefront, 3×6 and 3×8 for fences and building fronts, 4×10 when it has to read from the road. At $6 per square foot, going one size bigger is usually cheaper than you expect, and the sign gets read from twice the distance.

Yes. That’s included in the $6 per square foot, not an add-on. Hems keep the edges from tearing and grommets give you something to tie through. If your install is unusual. Pole pockets for a hanging banner, a mesh banner for a windy fence line. Tell us and we’ll set it up right instead of you improvising with zip ties.

18×24 inches is the size everyone means by “yard sign”. 3 square feet, about $27 each on coroplast, and the size stakes are built for. 24×36 is the step up when the sign has to be read from a moving car. Real estate riders are the small strips that hang under a main panel.

Ask which direction people approach from. A sign on a corner lot, a median, or anywhere traffic passes both ways should be double-sided: a one-sided sign is invisible to half of the people you paid to reach. A sign flat against a building or fence only ever needs one side.

Shirts, yes, from $15 for a front or back print, $20 for front and back, crewnecks and hoodies posted on the prices page, pressed in-shop while you watch. For hats, bags, mugs, and other promotional items, tell us what you’re after and we’ll tell you honestly what we make here versus what we’d source in, and what that does to the timeline.

Lettering and partial graphics are our bread and butter. Vinyl print and lettering at the posted $7 per square foot, which covers most vans, trucks, and trailers. It’s also what most small businesses actually need: a phone number, a logo, and a license number that can be read at a stoplight. If you want a full wrap, ask. We’ll scope it honestly rather than talk you into the biggest version.

Yes. Vehicle magnets are the right call when the truck is leased, shared, or personally driven on weekends. They come off in seconds and go back on Monday. Lettering is the better buy when the vehicle is genuinely a work truck, because it can’t blow off on the freeway or walk off in a parking lot.

On many orders, yes. Ask when you place it and we’ll tell you straight whether delivery fits your timing. Customers mention it in their reviews often enough that it clearly happens. One honest caveat: if the deadline is genuinely today, picking up at the counter is still the fastest route, because a delivery run has to fit around production.

Yes, including work most print shops hand off. Our crew installs building, monument, and pole signs, up to and including boom-lift work: the lighted school sign in our photo wall went up that way. Window graphics and vehicle lettering are installed here as well. Tell us about the wall, the height, and the access when you ask for a quote.

For yard signs, banners, and most window decals. Absolutely, and we’ll tell you the tricks. Stakes go in with the sign attached, not after. Banners want the grommets tied, not stapled through the middle. Decals go on cleanly with a squeegee, patience, and a wet surface. Anything structural, electrical, or above ladder height should be installed by people who do it for a living.

It depends on the sign and the jurisdiction, and it’s worth a phone call before you order. As a general shape: permanent building, monument, and pole signs typically require a permit from the city or county, while temporary banners and yard signs on private property usually don’t, though most cities do limit how long a temporary sign can stay up. Rules differ between the City of Sacramento, the county, and every neighboring city. We’ll print to whatever specification the permit calls for; pulling the permit itself is between you, your building department, and your installer.

That’s a question for the city, not the print shop. Most jurisdictions restrict signs on medians, sidewalks, and utility poles, and campaign signage in particular has its own rules and its own removal deadlines. We print what you need; where it’s legal to place it is worth checking with the jurisdiction before you order a few hundred of them.

Ask. Replacing faces on an existing cabinet, re-lettering a truck that’s been repainted, or taking down something that should have come down two tenants ago are all normal requests. Send a photo with the quote request. It answers half the questions before we’ve had the conversation.

If we get your approved proof wrong, we reprint the job free. No claim form, no argument, no restocking fee. Defects reported within seven days get a reprint or a refund. What it doesn’t cover is a typo you approved, which is exactly why the proof is free and why we ask you to read it carefully. The full terms are posted.

It’s for the businesses that order the same things over and over: contractors, realtors, property managers, medical and dental practices, restaurants, schools. Artwork stays on file, reorders take one call, work goes on one monthly invoice instead of a receipt every visit, and your jobs get priority in the queue. How to set one up.

No. Ace is independent and family-owned. Matt and Colleen’s shop on Fulton Avenue, and about 95% of what we sell is made right here rather than uploaded to a plant in another state. That’s the whole reason same-day is possible and the reason the person who answers the phone can actually see your job.

Long enough that customers write reviews saying they’ve been coming for fifteen years. The shop sits at 1835 Fulton Ave in Arden-Arcade, on the stretch of Fulton where several sign companies ended up next to each other: a customer’s own review put it best after quoting all of them.

A printer. Not a queue, not a portal, not a form that emails someone in another time zone. The names that show up in our reviews (Matt, Colleen, Steve) are the people at the counter.

Ask before assuming we can’t. The photo wall includes a lighted high-school sign installed by boom lift, full storefront window wraps, monument signs, full van lettering, and custom newspaper spreads. If a job genuinely isn’t ours to do, we’ll say so plainly rather than take it and subcontract it badly.

Constantly. Boosters, PTAs, graduation orders, fundraisers, and event signage are a real part of the week around here. Tell us the budget you actually have and the date it has to exist by, and we’ll show you what fits. Volume pricing matters a lot on these, so ask for the run rate rather than multiplying the single-piece price.

Call (916) 944-7195 or send the reorder form with roughly what it was and when. Your files are on record, so most reorders need nothing more than a quantity and a date. If you want a change (new phone number, different quantity, one word swapped) say so and you’ll get a fresh proof to approve.

1835 Fulton Ave, Sacramento, CA 95825, in Arden-Arcade, open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. There’s parking in front and more parking in the rear when the front fills up. Walk-ins are welcome all day.