Proofing and approval software for print shops

Online print proofing software is where your team reviews and approves print files before they hit the press. Instead of marking up a PDF, emailing it back, and hoping the designer opens the right attachment, everyone comments directly on the artwork in one place. Every note is tied to a specific spot on the page. Every version is tracked. And somebody has to actually click "Approved" before the job moves forward.

That last part matters more than it sounds. A reply-all saying "looks good to me" isn't a sign-off. It's a guess you're printing 20,000 copies of.

Over 1,200 of them, which is a number that sounds made up until you look at a print shop's job queue.

The ones you'll use most:

• Production files: INDD, AI, PSD, EPS
• Documents: PDF, DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT
• Images: JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF
• Video and audio: MP4, MOV, AVI, WMV, MP3, WAV
• Web and rich media: live URLs, static site snapshots, HTML5

No conversion step, no flattening, no "can you resend this as a PDF." Upload the native file and Ziflow renders it. The full searchable list lives in the Help Center.

Yes. Color separation is available on Pro and Enterprise plans, so reviewers can isolate individual plates and check CMYK and Pantone values before the file goes to press.

Worth being clear about what this is and isn't: separations let your team catch the problems that cause reprints, like a spot color that should have been a process build, or a black that's registering as rich black when it shouldn't be. It's a check on the file, not a substitute for a calibrated hard proof. Your monitor is still a monitor.

Yes. Ziflow's Adobe Creative Cloud plugins put review and approval inside InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop, so designers push a new version and pull feedback without leaving the file they're already working in. The plugins are on Adobe Exchange, and they're included even on the free plan.

Figma too, if part of your work starts there. The plugin turns live Figma files into static, review-ready proofs.

Beyond design tools, Ziflow connects to monday.com, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Wrike, Trello, Smartsheet, Airtable, Basecamp, Teamwork, Planview AdaptiveWork, and Salesforce on the project side; Dropbox, Google Drive, and SharePoint for storage; Slack and Microsoft Teams for notifications; and Zapier plus a RESTful API for everything else. See the full list.

Proofs are unlimited on every plan, including the free one. Reviewers are unlimited too. What scales with your plan is storage, users, workflow stages, and templates.

For a shop running dozens of jobs at once, the features that actually save you: bulk proof creation, folders, workflow templates so recurring jobs route themselves, and automated deadline reminders that chase reviewers so your account manager doesn't have to. Enterprise adds unlimited stages and unlimited active templates, which is where most high-volume shops end up.

AWS uses Ziflow for high-volume event collateral. Linney turned around video campaigns for McDonald's and Royal Mail in 12 hours. Volume isn't the problem.

You can sign up free and have a proof out for review the same afternoon. No credit card.

Bringing in clients is the easy part, and this is the thing people get wrong about proofing tools: your reviewers don't need accounts. Not a trial, not a seat, not a license. You send a link, they open it, they comment, they make a decision. Unlimited reviewers on every plan, free included. A user license is only needed for the people creating and managing proofs.

So "we'd have to get 40 clients to sign up for something" isn't a real objection. They just click the link.

Enterprise plans include custom onboarding and training if you're migrating a whole operation and want a hand.

Yes. Every comment, checklist item, version, and decision is recorded automatically, with a timestamp and a name attached. When a client insists they never approved the version that printed, you don't argue about it. You pull the record.

Audit history depends on your plan: 90 days on Standard, one year on Pro, lifetime on Enterprise, which also adds detailed activity and access logs and electronic signatures.

Reviewers choose from three decisions: Approved, Approved with changes, or Changes required. No ambiguity about what "fine, send it" meant.

Many of them, yes.

Everyone in print has some version of the same unfortunate story where a job went to press with lorem ipsum still in the sidebar, or a disclaimer that got dropped in v4 and nobody caught until 30,000 units were boxed.

ReviewAI is built for that category of check. It applies automated pass/fail recommendations against your Checklist criteria — current logo, required legal copy, correct layout spec — and flags what doesn't pass (also, its eyes don't get tired).

What it doesn't do is replace your reviewer. Every AI suggestion requires human review before anything moves. Whether the photography is right, whether the color feels off, that stays with your team.

There's a free plan that's free forever: 2 users, 2GB storage, unlimited proofs, unlimited reviewers, and 60 days of review history.

Paid plans, billed annually:

• Standard — $199/month. 15 users, 1TB, 2 workflow stages
• Pro — $329/month. 20 users, 2TB, 3 stages, color separation, advanced integrations
• Enterprise — custom. 25+ users, 4TB+, unlimited stages and templates, ReviewAI, SSO, electronic signatures

Print shops usually want Pro at minimum, since that's where color separation lives.

Free trials don't need a credit card, and there's a 20% discount on Standard and 17.5% on Pro for annual billing. Educational discounts exist too. Check ziflow.com/pricing for current numbers before you budget around them.