Zenni Optical Review: What to Know Before You Buy

Zenni Optical is a budget glasses retailer with a reputation for providing fashionable glasses of good quality at competitive prices. They are worth considering for consumers on a budget, although they don’t accept insurance.

Zenni Optical Overview

Zenni Optical is a company with the stated goal of providing affordable yet fashionable glasses to its customers. The company claims they are dedicated to four principles:

• To provide the most affordable eyeglasses to people all over the world
• To provide the highest-quality optical lenses to their customers
• To make it easy to order eyeglasses online
• To provide exceptional customer support

The company offers good-value frames and lenses for competitive prices. However, it does not accept insurance. 

Some insurance companies will reimburse Zenni Optical purchases. If you’re unsure and want to maximize your savings, call your insurance provider ahead of time and ask about their reimbursement process.

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What Do They Offer?

Zenni Optical is a budget line of glasses designed with the intention of offering fashionable choices for inexpensive prices.  They offer enough variety that most people are likely to find at least some frames they like at almost any price point.

Perhaps Zenni Optical’s most impressive offering is their $6.95 glasses frames in both men’s and women’s styles. While other companies offer frames at similar price points, Zenni Optical has a good selection in this range, with several options that may look simple but don’t look cheap.

How Does Zenni Optical Work?

Zenni Optical is an online-only glasses retailer. Their website has a straightforward layout that makes finding what you need an easy process. Their site offers four distinct tabs, each with a variety of options when clicked on. These include the following:

• Men
• Women
• Kids
• Blokz (Their blue-light blocking glasses)

Once you find frames you like, you can check the available frame sizes to make sure they will fit and the types of lenses available for those frames. Assuming the frames work for your needs, you can then navigate through their lens menu, inputting your prescription (or choosing non-prescription lenses) and selecting any features you want for your lenses. An anti-scratch coating and UV protection are included in the price.

About Zenni Optical’s Virtual Store

Overall, Zenni Optical’s website is fairly easy to use. They also have a fairly extensive FAQ system broken into categories, such as this page answering common questions about prescriptions and pupillary distance. 

Customers can make an account so that their prescription information is saved. The website also lets both guests and customers with accounts “favorite” frames, so they can easily access them again. 

Another feature Zenni Optical offers, common with many online glasses retailers, is their virtual try-on system, which lets you use a number of models to test glasses on or use your camera to see roughly what frames might look like on your face.

Products & Quality

Zenni Optical offers a variety of glasses and sunglasses in men’s, women’s, and kids’ designs. Their “kid” glasses span glasses models that are aimed at toddlers to teens. Zenni also has a gaming line, offering “Blokz,” a line of affordable blue-light blocking glasses that come in a number of different styled frames. 

Arguably, one disadvantage of Zenni Optical is a lack of high-budget and other “luxury” options. The company has focused on providing fashionable frames for people operating on a budget, and none of their frames are over $50. 

Shipping & Returns

Zenni Optical can ship to almost anywhere in the world, although they do sometimes temporarily restrict shipping to certain areas due to world events. They generally reopen shipping to these regions as soon as they are able to do so.

U.S. customers in all 50 states can use their Express Shipping option, which allows them to get their order within 5 to 10 business days. This shipping method costs $18.95. Without paying for express shipping, deliveries usually take about two weeks.

Zenni Optical Costs vs Alternatives

Zenni Optical is an excellent option for budget shoppers. Their entire business model is designed around providing customers affordable frames. Through that focus, you can find frames of many different materials and thicknesses on their site, none of which cost more than $50. 

Even without insurance, many of Zenni Optical’s lenses are under $50 too. This includes lenses in mild, medium, and strong prescriptions, with features like blue light blocking raising the price but still allowing a person to keep the cost of lenses under $50 in many cases.

An article from Forbes called Zenni Optical the best-value source of prescription glasses. While some companies may offer a wider variety of frames or even overall cheaper glasses, the actual value of glasses you receive for your purchase is highly competitive with Zenni Optical.

The company’s biggest disadvantage is that they do not accept insurance. For many customers, this may mean the company’s glasses cost you more overall if you have a vision plan you can benefit from with other glasses retailer sites or at brick-and-mortar locations. 

Shipping Times

Shipping times are among Zenni Optical’s weaker areas. Two weeks is not extremely long, but it is a bit longer than some other companies can offer. Their express option is somewhat expensive at almost $20 but doesn’t necessarily provide a proportional amount of time saved with the promised window of 5 to 10 business days. 

If speed is a priority, EyeBuyDirect is an option worth considering, as they offer 2-day shipping to United States customers.

Getting Started With Zenni Optical

To get started with Zenni Optical, we recommend making an account on their website. This can save you time if you use their services multiple times. Then, you can search through their frame options at the price point you desire, favoriting those you like.

Once you have several frames you have an interest in, you can use their try-on feature to see how they look on either you or one of their models with the most similar body type and skin tone to yourself. You can then select from those you like best, and choose the lens options you want. 

Reviews of Zenni Optical

Zenni Optical is well reviewed. Overall, it seems to offer good value for the cost of its products. They have made a genuine effort in their stated goal of providing fashionable glasses options that are affordable even to low-income families. 

The company advertises its 4.5-star rating on Trustpilot on its website, which is the result of thousands of reviews. They also claim to have sold over 40 million glasses. While success does not guarantee a company offers good products, it does seem to indicate people are happy overall with the company’s products and services when coupled with its positive reputation.

Zenni Optical vs. Warby Parker

One option worth considering as an alternative to Zenni Optical is Warby Parker. Warby Parker is a company often well reviewed for the high quality of its customer service and how easy it is to shop on its website and app.

Warby Parker lacks many of the budget frames offered by Zenni Optical, but they also offer several high-budget brands that Zenni Optical doesn’t have. Additionally, Warby Parker can accept insurance, which may mean the actual cost of your glasses is similar to or even less than you would pay through Zenni Optical.

Zenni Optical FAQs

Why is Zenni Optical so cheap?

Zenni Optical is a company that has the explicitly stated goal of offering affordable but fashionable glasses to its customers. As such, it has optimized its business model around offerings at highly competitive prices. This also means they don’t offer some of the more expensive frames and supplemental glasses options other companies sometimes do.

Are Zenni Optical lenses good quality?

Overall, the general reputation of Zenni Optical suggests its lenses work as advertised. If you put in your prescription information accurately and select the lens options you want, the lenses will be of good quality and should work exactly as intended. 

Why are Zenni glasses so cheap?

With a focus on affordable offerings, Zenni Optical offers their own brands of eyewear. This means they don’t mark up from manufacturers’ pricing like most optical retailers do.

References

1. About Zenni Optical. Zenni Optical.

2. Fast Shipping Service. EyeBuyDirect.

3. Look at the Types of Lenses You Can Get for Only $50. Zenni Optical.

4. Men’s: $6.95 Glasses. Zenni Optical.

5. Prescription & PD FAQ. Zenni Optical.

6. Shipping & Returns FAQ. Zenni Optical.

7. Warby Parker Review: 5 Things to Know Before Buying Glasses. (April 2022). Clark.

8. Where to Buy Prescription Eyeglasses Online and How to Choose the Best Pair. (May 2022). Forbes.

9. Women’s: $6.95 Glasses. Zenni Optical.

10. Zenni. Zenni Optical.

11. Zenni Gaming. Zenni Optical.

12. Zenni Optical Review: 6 Things To Know Before Your First Order. (April 2022). Clark.