Digitizing

The best way to get your answer is to pick a design. Then send the same design to a number of digitizers with the same instructions (local and overseas digitizers). Let them all come back. Sample all and then compare the qualities and prices. You will have your answer pretty accurate and the time you will waste doing the above will be well spent and save you money in the long run.

I am an american digitizer in Seattle. It is like anything else. Buy American when you can to support each other. I had a customer who decided to take his digitizing and production overseas. It hurt my business and away from a local production business I know. then the customer had the nerve to call me and want me to tell them how to digitize for puff. I had to do everything but bite my tongue on that one but why would I do that???? Then he called me a couple weeks later, he wanted me to talk to their overseas production guy because they couldn't figure out the proper placement for the left chest and had no idea how to do puff in production either. You tell me, is that worth it? I have to feed my family like everyone else and then he calls me to help them. All I can do is shake my head. I put my heart and soul into my business and was always there for him for any rush job etc... and the minute he got something cheaper it didn't matter that the quality was less and they didn't have a clue how to digitize or run the production properly.

I think most are reliable. Quality or communication might be an issue, but as far as reliability I think most digitizers try to be. Remember though, they are only human... a great design today might not be that great tomorrow., so dont ditch anyone because of one bad design.. might also be your machine or bad thread or some fabric you arent used to sewing on... so dont go off just one design.
Also they cannot control the number of jobs they get today.. so one day you might get yours back within a couple of hours, but if tomorrow they get slammed well... communication is key, let them know when you need something and I think any digitizer will try to achieve that. But if no instructions are given and they get 5 more designs than they can handle then each has their own method of triaging that scenario.

This is where the "consultant" fee come in. If a previous customer wants me to tell them how to do something I charge them $60 per hour with a three hour minimum. It's going to irritate them but you've lost them as a client anyway so there's not much to lose from 0.

True...Good point! I just think I was more shocked than anything that they would ask such a thing. I know people are probably thinking business is business but sometimes human decency should kick in. In the future I will do that if it happens again.

I use both, and you need more than one IMO.