I expected that I would be cutting the padding, and it is not a problem to cut with good scissors or however you choose. The pad arrives folded, so from reading other reviews, I chose to open the pad the night prior to opening the new rug, and it helped to flatten the pad. The quality and thickness is as stated. I read reviews about if placing area rugs on carpet that pads under rug can help prevent ripples that happen when rugs placed on carpet and this pad is doing a pretty good job helping that issue. If my rug were a thicker rug, I think it would have corrected the ripples.