PSD2HTML Review
For several years, PSD2HTML have been the primary sponsor of Design Shack. We don’t like to suggest a service to you unless we have tried it ourself to ensure that it’s worth a recommendation. A recent addition to our network of sites, 13 Styles was in need of a redesign and I took the opportunity to use PSD2HTML’s service and document the process.
This article will be more than a straight forward review of PSD2HTML. We’ll be considering the basic idea of these type of services and considering when, and for who, they are appropriate. Honesty will be foremost, and I hope that you will gain a real insight into using a PSD to XHTML tool.
PSD to XHTML Services
PSD2HTML are one of the first companies to provide this service (you can see their original press release), but there are a huge number of competitors in the area today and a Google search for “psd to html” brings back over half a million results. Here is a table summarizing the main players in the industry (a more in depth list can be found at Most Sliced):
| Service | Price ($) | Time (days) |
| PSD2HTML | 153 to 211 | less than 24h |
| Slice ‘n Diced | 279 to 399 | 3-6 |
| The Choppr | 149 | 3 |
| XHTML iT | 119 | 1 day or less |
| XHTML Slicer | 200 to 350 | 1-3 days |
| XHTMLGenius | 250 | 3 |
| XHTMLized | 249+ | up to 7 days |
| We’llcodeit | 199+ | 3 |
We’ll be focusing on PSD2HTML, taking you through the process and showing you the final resulting design.
The Process
The ordering process at the site is very simple. There are several options available, starting with either a basic or professional package. We opted for the professional, as semantic, search engine friendly coding was a must have. Other optional additions are:
- Flexible width
- Stretching the header and footer
- Rollovers and dynamic menus
- sIFR flash replacement
- Commented CSS and XHTML code
- Load speed optimization
- Integration with CMS software (e.g. WordPress, MT, Drupal, Blogger, CubeCart)
After submitting the order, we were contacted at the start of the following working day with a request to clarify some of the features in the submitted PSD file. By the end of that day, some 7 hours later, the markup was provided through their online ticket system. The speed of the turn around was incredibly impressive – it would take even an experienced designer far longer than 6 hours to code a relatively complex site such as the one we submitted. If you need results quickly, this service would seem to be a great resource.
Speed isn’t the only factor, however. We’re going to show you, in full, the code created by PSD2HTML for the new layout.
The Results
This is the original 13 Styles design:
And this is a screenshot of the new version which we created in Photoshop:
You can see the full website through the following link. It is essentially the exact code which we received back from PSD2HTML, and will still require customization before being integrated into the real 13 Styles site.
Please feel free to take a look and judge the quality for yourself. We found it to be great – well laid out with the correct separation of content and presentation and semantic coding. We aren’t incredibly easy to impress, but this was certainly not a rushed, second rate effort. The process takes web design to a level of ‘mass production’, and high standards can be achieved through having a huge catalog of code examples and snippets to work from.
Do We Recommend Them?
The service was fast, efficient, inexpensive and of an outstanding quality. PSD2HTML would definitely be worth considering if you:
- Are short on time
- Are a skilled designer, but not a coder
- Require high quality, semantic and valid code
- Want to have a personal, well trained contact creating the design
It can be argued that design does not come from the ability to write code, but rather the ability to create an intuitive user experience which is simple to operate and gives the desired message. Using a service such as this ensures that you are free to focus on these aspects without being bogged down in small issues such as cross browser compatibility.
PSD2HTML impressed us in every area when coding the 13 Styles site, and we would not hesitate to recommend using their service. Be careful, though, that you don’t lose the passion for crafting your own HTML and CSS.
That article just secured the sponsorship for another 12 months. Well done you!
Thanks for the comment. We wanted to provide an insight into this sector of services. All the CSS and XHTML they sent back is displayed, so you can judge for yourself whether they are any good or not. After looking at the code, what conclusion do you think you’d draw personally?
The code could be much cleaner and the images too. It isn’t a bad job to be fair and if i was ever in the position that i couldn’t cope with the amount of coding needing to be done i would use them.
Also 7 hours is good yes but it also could have been done much quicker. I myself could have coded that in around 1-2 hours without giving it a rush job.
Certainly a good idea for those with little time.
Too bad they can’t offer any advanced coding services.
Cool service that might come in handy someday. Nice design too :)
As a freelance HTML/CSS code myself, I often wonder how these online services can actual turnaround templates so quickly and so cheaply.
The quality of the HTML and CSS in your example is good. It’s not incredible, but it’s good enough and a lot better than the majority of websites out there.
They seem like a really good company. really good idea. Wish i’d though of it :p
Will, you’re kidding yourself if you think you could slice, xhtml and css that mock up bug free within 1-2 hrs.
For those interested, we have used PSD2HTML and other similar services in the past. Most of them are either 1-2 people shops or outsource work to India/Romania, which is OK as long as they deliver.
Honestly, I like PSD2HTML but I’ve found a better provider in xhtml.pixelcrayons.com with the very same quality but for a better price tag.
@nobody, I agree with you… These guys are gentlemen with their promises…
Those prices seem really high! PSD2HTML is the better of the bunch, but they are slow!!!!!
I have used codemyconcept.com, they are cheap – and code is pretty good. They only charged me like $70 or $80 bucks for a main page.
I think i agree with Terry. I also encountered a web design company http://www.webartsense.com they also offfered some of the work for PSD to XHTML for a resonable price of $70. I am also getting new web design done by them.
Yes psd2htm have been there for a long time. i use to see their adverts. I think they must be good but if you have smaller budget there are definately other options.
i’ve used http://xhtmlcandy.com/ once for a text pattern based website they were fast and affordable.
Well ive use them constantly on many high end website projects, i code CSS myself but i found i was really spending allot of time making sure my CSS was valid and the like. Since i outsourced all my layout needs to these guys ive been able to bring in more work and turnaround times have improved dramatically. As for ‘not bad CSS’ its 200% better than allot of my competitors, yes sometimes i wonder how they are slicing it up some weird techniques at times but at the end of the day its 100% validated code that is cross browser complaint (just having that added years on my life LOL) I would recommend them 100%
Check this:
http://www.psdtohtmlcompanies.com
They have a listing of over 100 psd to html providers. They offer search and compare feature to find the right provider and you can also send inquires to many providers instantly from the website itself.
Easy and clean Interface.
I have worked with couple of companies but recently I came across this company http://www.xhtmldevelopers.com and was pleasantly surprised with the kind of response they gave at times of sales and while developing my project. I would recommend more people to use their services.
Thanks for this great review. we have also collected a resource of 20 best PSD to HTML service providers on the basis of basic industry fundamentals like market reputation, brand popularity, quality of work, turnaround time and pricing. You can check the list at http://www.bestpsdtohtml.com/20-best-psd-to-html-service-providers/
Am trying to use these blog posts to recommend against Codemyconcept (www.codemyconcept.com). It seemed to good to be true, unfortunately it was in my case. The turnaround was fast but that’s about the only positive – the end result is problematic in IE6 despite me paying extra to ensure it works in that browser. They also missed elements of my design. Have emailed several times over the last week but no reply. Hope others avoid them :(
Just a follow-up to the above – I’ve finally heard back from the team at CodeMyConcept with a fix. Main thing is, they got it working. Still disappointed it took so long though. Will change my overall stance from above from avoid to use but ensure you are entirely happy before paying!
I found another easy and quite affordable way to get the photoshop designs sliced into pixel perfect CSS Markup.
You may want to visit this service at http://www.seo-semantic-xhtml.com
Prior to this I had been using psd2html, though they are good, but still they are bit expensive and slow.
Andrew
Even we provide Psd to Xhtml services..
There are plenty of such services and surely psd2html is one of the most expensive. Found http://cssmenow.com recently, will try them instead
Actually they are quite good, and they have a cool control panel. But, nothing can’t beat the Chimp! 25% discount forever!
But, that would be spam and we won’t want to do that. We will just say psd2html is a good service. Go ahead and try it. In our opinion, everyone should try every service and stick with the one that works best for them.
It’s the old school way. Try and see what you want. There are a lot of services out there!
Cheers!
Mr. Crazy and Happy Chimp
Also had a bad experience with CodeMyConcept. OK if you want HTML and CSS, but do not try to get them to do JS. They agreed to do it then came back a week later saying it couldn’t be done. (Had to get someone else to make the function).
As for their ‘specialized customer service’ and client log in area? A complete fabrication. I emailed them about this. Their response? None.
Thanks but no thanks.
thanks for this article very interesting
I would recommend staying away from CodeMyConcept. They are one of the worst markup services I have ever used. They use automated tools to produce the code (even though they claim not to) and they are ALWAYS late.
The last project I sent them they screwed up so bad that I just ended up redoing everything myself.
They even messed up the link CSS styles!
I love going on search engine, and checking out some cool reviews about us. But unfortunately, it’s a shame when I go ahead and read some some false reviews from clearly pissed off competitors that have no real creativity then to post false negative comments on a blog about us.
Automated tools? Always late? Messed up link CSS styles? Come on now, clearly a pissed off competitor.
I can assure you our code is 100% handwritten, we deliver on-time 99% of the time – however we have been late of a few occasions, as our business can be a little unpredictable at times, as that is the absolute most honest answer that can be given. And our code is nothing but the highest quality. Check out our programmers and see for yourself: http://codemyconcept.com/about-us/
Just a piece of advice to the few negative comments that are false – if you spent more time building your company, improving your code and less time trying to bash competitors with false comments, you may have some success!
Sincerely,
Michael
CEO, CodeMyConcept.com
If anyone does have any questions about our service, feel free to contact me directly and I would be more than happy to help answer any questions you have.
http://www.SliceZilla.com — psd 2 html slicing: W3C standards-compliant, cross-browser, clean, SEO/semantic friendly, optimized for high load, accessible, microformats-powered.
I totally recommend RapidXHTML and Psd2HTML. I had several past work relationship with both of them and they are both excellent. Never had a chance to test CodeMyConcept so i can’t say anything about them.
This is often a wonderful weblog. I have been back repeatedly within the last 7 days and want to sign up for your rss implementing Google but can’t understand the way to do it precisly. Do you know of any instructions?
I’m waiting for a response from codemyconcept.com for the last 2 days after their promised delivery date, and i haven’t heard anything or any kind of response from them. This is worrying me. I hope the CEO of codemyconcept.com sees this and does something about it. This was for already marked up code and all they had to do was convert it into a wordpress format for just pages. normally this would take me 4-5 hours but i wanted to take on more projects and try their service out. not thrilled at the moment. I’m not a competitor and I have many friends who use cut-up services like psd2html and pixelcrayon.
Michael of codemyconcept.com, what’s your contact info? It’s not listed anywhere.
Wow. I was actually planning on sending most of my conversion work to codemyconcept.
Their prices seemed “too good to be true”, and only 4 work examples that when clicked to view code or css, doesn’t work… Doesn’t show anything on my chrome 9.
And I also saw a couple of links that take you nowhere ( the markup actually links to “http:” !?!)… So yeah, a company that promises to be the best PSD to Xhtml on the planet should be able to at least have it’s own site working 100% perfectly.
And I can’t leave out the US$ 999/m “unlimited conversions”… Unlimited really??? I wonder what their excuse is for not keeping up with the promise when they are given 30 sites to code up for only the $999/m.
But yeah, when prices are too low, you can probably expect promises not to be kept. Well, if I decide to give them a shot, I’ll post the outcome in here.
It is the good list of PSD to HTML provider but now you can get lots of PSD to HTML service provider in the market…they provide better and cheaper service.
“XHTML Champs” is a business unit of Acedezines, a well-established web designing company with clear business orientation and strong creatives. Ace Dezines has over fifty satisfied clients across the globe from different verticals such as animation, software, pharma, e-learning, construction and nutraceutical companies.
For More Details Visits to our site: http://www.xhtmlchamps.com
Do NOT ever consider using CodeMyConcept. They say 3 business days, but I’m not on day 9 and being told that it’s going to be 2 more days till I hear back. On top of this the quality thus far has been crap. I brought it up to one of their online “customer service reps” and all he did was agree that it was crap. And then was like, “yeah, don’t really know what else to say.”
A warning to the rest of you. Do NOT use CodeMyConcept!
Guys!
Why to waste your time? Everybody need cheap, fast and the highest quality. We can do that, np. You will have your personal HTML angel
htmlangels.com
This all very high prices. We provide service for very good prices. How? We take very small comission from our teams that coding for you. So our pricess is realy good and quality is highest.
Just $35 for main page. Check here htmlize.me
I saw our CEO made an statement here, yet some people were still wondering about us and our service; not to mention some other comments.
If anyone needs assistance and/or have questions, comments, critiques about our service these are some of the emails you can use to contact us:
grace@codemyconcept.com Marketing Director
cesar@codemyconcept.com CS Manager
hello@codemyconcept.com Project Inquiries
abner@codemyconcept.com Sales Inquiries
We will be more than happy to help you out.
–
Sincerely
Grace Gonzalez
Marketing Director
http://www.codemyconcept.com
grace@codemyconcept.com
Follow us on twitter for special offers!
Actually there are some designs which worth $35 to slice :-)
If you have own custom design you will think twice to accept such coding.
I respect p2h business, they are nice guys.
As the competitors, we are trying to make same and better quality work and provide with more services than you expect,
helping to make your site ready to use.
Cheers and welcome to http://www.htmlcut.com.
I would not EVER recommend CodeMyConcept.com to anyone!
I had a rush job that I needed completed in under 2 weeks. They not only missed the deadline, but in the end they tried to blame me for the short-comings in their mark-up. The site slice did not validate in ANY browser, and completely fell apart in IE 6, 7 AND 8.
They ended up showcasing the project on their site under their portfolio of projects, even in this maligned state (the View CSS/View HTML buttons don’t even click to anything because they would be embarrassed to show anyone what’s under the hood). Unfortunately for me, they used my name and site URL WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, which has negatively affected the first-page search ranking of several of my social network profiles; effectively, their terrible slicing job is ranked higher than some of my actualized, relevant projects and client work.
Needless to say, I never paid for the project because it was never finished, AND they missed their deadline by over two weeks. By the time things got straightened out on their, I had to get someone else to do the job in under a week.
To top things off, I had several conversations with the customer support line, and the owner (Michael La Rosa), which all ended in him trying to blackmail me into paying the balance on the project that they could not deliver on.
I would give them a rating of an F overall. Bad business practices, poor coding, and terrible project management. Avoid like the black plague. I recommend YummyCSS.com instead. I’ve now used them for over two years without a single problem ever!
Well I just tried using PSD2XHTML to cut up a simple design. Three days later and a lot of stupid questions from them (that were already defined by the AI we sent them) and I got the impression someone was stalling for time. Got one of my staff to do instead and took them 1.5hrs. Still haven’t got any code from PSD2XHTML. Will never bother using PSD2XHTML again. Will let you know if they at least have the courtesy to refund my money or not.
PLEASE REMOVE MY PREVIOUS POST as the issues just seemed to be more of a miscommunication than anything else and they’ve graciously agreed to refund. Thank you.
@CodeMyConcept… the CEO in particular.
It seems very convenient to attribute the many critical comments towards your business, simply at your competitors?
I am a designer working for one of your former clients, and I am here to back up your critics and say the 4 jobs you did for us were ALL terrible. From lengthy delays, unmet promises and poor communication to the ‘far from pixel perfect’ results, I would advise anyone contemplating using your services to try anyone else.
Thanks to your poor service and frequent delays, not only did we have to finish off the markup ourselves, but more sadly we lost a valuable client.
I suspect you guys are so busy in ‘damage control’, mending the broken fences, that you can’t assign the resources to actually do the work?
In regards to PSD2HTML… We used these guys from the start and found their service excellent! The markup was clean and the design WAS pixel perfect. However the one criticism I do have is that after 5 projects or so, the quality of service does wane. I can only assume it’s due to laziness, in the sense that after they have secured your business you are no longer the priority you once were? Our last 2 projects with them were delayed and ultimately came back with a few bugs. We turned to CodeMyConcept… but after our experience with these guys, our issues with PSD2HTML paled in comparison.
To finalize, we’ve decided to try a new company… first job is up so we’ll wait and see. Here’s to a third time lucky.
hi Adam,
give us a shot, and we’ll take care about all your html/css stuff!;)
Welcome to http://www.htmlangels.com
@HTMLangels,
Your site looks very unprofessional to say the least.
Hi, @Kevin P!
Thanks for your time and visiting our site. We are focused on a highest quality PSD to HTML services, and our customers have no doubts on quality of our code. If you`re a real profi having a highly-ranked web-service we would be really glad to listen to your advices and it will help us on our way to perfectness. It would be great if you could tell us some REAL things to make our site more “professional”.
We are open for your suggestions. Please email us at: hello@htmlangels.com
I believe that HTMLcut has to be right up there with some of the best names in the psd to html conversion industry. I just got some markup back from them with beautiful coding. It was a very clean code and of course fully w3c transitional compliant. If you compare their prices with the other big names in the industry, you’ll notice that HTMLcut is much, much cheaper. They have backend developers too, so if you want more than markup, I can tell you that they do a great job programming as well. Check these guys out – do something small to test. You’ll stay with them – they are very good.
1 May 2011: Stay away from YummyCSS. I have used them before but of late they are getting bad. Biggest problem is lack of communication and not project feedback. Being trying to email them for 5 days now and ZERO response. No way to run a business. I had to pull the plug and go elsewhere. They also did not deliver ANYTHING after the agreed 5 day period – not even a preview! They DID NOT set up a Basecamp account for communication and project updates as their website indicated. If you doing work for a client, DO NOT USE THEM! You will suffer the wrath of your client for non delivery and end of losing your clients trust and probably not get paid either.
IN regards to PSD2HTML, I had a fairly simple WordPress site that I needed coded in a month. After what seemed like eternity I eventually had to fire them and get someone else to finish the site.
Horrible communication. It appears like good communication, but when it starts seeming like you’ve answered the same question 3 different times over the course of 100 back and forth messages, you begin to wonder if you’re talking to 1 person or 3. On top of that, they didn’t do a majority of the stuff I not only requested, but paid for. Overall the code was sloppy and the project was almost a month past deadline (and I provided the code with clear typed out functionality and instructions 3 weeks before it was due). The thing that killed me was the fact they NEVER were able to wrap their heads around the simple sight. Everything was a struggle. A simple 10 min phone conversation before they started would have avoided 4 weeks of frustration and me losing serious money on the project.
I will never use these guys again.
Definitely The Best PSD to HTML and WordPress Firm on Earth.
We just got a Major Design done with Code My Concept, and we are more than happy with the finished project.
We recommend your service to everyone who needs Top Notch Service, in a Timely Fashion, as well as Supurb communication, and of course an Affordable Price.
……Code My Concept You Rock!!!!!
Looking forward to our next project with you!
Cheers
FlexDen Team
Great chain of comments you have here. Looking through most of the sites mentioned here gave me a better view and understanding of this market. I do have one thing I would like to point out to companies such as HTML angels, psd chimp, code my concept etc. The English on your sites needs improving! You have a number of grammar related errors as well as a use of incorrect vocabulary at times. The other concern I have is that all three of you claim to be the best, reading through these posts leads me to believe your claims are unfounded. Ultimately I appreciate that you guys are all about code, however if you are looking to portray a professional image you really should hire a professional copy writer or an editor to go through your text and rectify these errors, once again I appreciate the fact that your languages are, HTML, CSS, php, etc. Take this as simple friendly advice, also code my concept your portfolio is giving a 404 error fix it or keep losing potential clients … Like erm me!
Just got burnt by Codemyconcept. Like BURNT. Re-doing everything again! DONT USE THEM.
Worst company ever. They said it would take 8-10 days to finnish the project. I have now been waiting for 2 month. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!
I appreciate CodeMyConcept strongly defending their business. As many of us who run our own businesses can attest, there is usually two sides to every story and I am sure they work hard to build a strong company.
However, I too was sorely disappointed with their service. The markup, once it was completed, was great. However, it was late and responses to fixes, while answered, were delayed. To date, I still cannot get a clear answer from them about some issues with the site.
Having a great markup is an obvious necessity, but equally, so is customer service; and I found it ironic that CMC boasts so heavily on their site about their communication and hands on approach with clients. Yet, I did not experience this. The customer service was basically a fail. Anyone could do better.
Despite their offering to discount me on my next project because of the mishaps with the present one, I am not sure I’ll use CMC again. The delays and fixes were an embarrassment to me with my client. I ended up looking stupid because of CMC’s mistakes and lack of communication. In this business, I cannot afford that.
This is all really disappointing to me because I was hoping to develop a long term relationship with a company like theirs.
Michael (CEO), I do appreciate your hard work and passion poured into your company, and wish you the best, but it appears that your efforts should be focused on improving quality of service and customer communication. Addressing those things would be greatly beneficial to your long term viability in such a competitive market.
I think I will try PSD2HTML or one of these other companies. If any can provide quality and good communication then I’m in for the long run.
WOW! this is very interesting!
I am considering to codemyconcept and htmlangels for my first psd to wp job. After reading the comments above I think htmlangels will get the job.
Any positive/negative past experiences here with htmlangels service?
Best regards,
Karl
Karl, we used HTMLAngels a couple a weeks ago, but we needed only PSD to HTML conversion service, no WordPress building. What can I say? The code is pretty professional. And when we needed to make a little changes – they have done that next day.
Support was quite friendly and in general our experience is positive. The only issue was that they don’t accept PayPal, and we had to pay by CC.
Yes, I’ve experienced PSD2HTML services long time back and it was a good experience by god’s grace. However, the industry today is brimful of myriad conversion service providers and last month I got the services from a new service provider in the US, named Css4me (http://www.css4me). I got my PSD file converted into WordPress themes and these guys really did a fantastic job though. I must say PSD2HTML really got tough competition in the market and they really need to pull up their sox now.
I’m using psd2html.com right now. I submitted my project on Monday night, keeping it within the as promised 8hr delivery.
got a message from them around 12.00pm Tuesday saying they will begin and it’s now Wednesday 1.09pm and they tell me it is going under “The quality assurance procedure”.
Minus sleep and within business hours 9-5pm its been 9 hours and they say another 2 -3 hrs on “The quality assurance procedure”.
Really annoyed and not happy as this needed to be done by 12.00 today to show to the client. I would’ve and should’ve done this myself but Im too busy.
Have been working with psd2html.com for the past month on a project for a company blog. I have been less than impressed. It is taking them an eternity to get anything done a and the form of communication is time consuming and confusing. There have been several things that are taking them several attempts to get right and the hours of the day I can communicate with them are few. Can’t say that I’ll use them again.