The Best Photo Card Companies

Wednesday, March 22nd

2023 Photo Card Company Reviews

Mixbook

• Cost: Starting from $1.29

Mixbook was founded in 2006 and provides photo cards, photo books, calendars, home decor, invitations, and announcements. Over 15 million products have been created by their customers here. Any product you want to buy from Mixbook can be printed with a custom photo. Since every aspect of designing online with Mixbook is customizable, it is fun and easy to carry out unique projects on their site.

Photo card templates

Pre-created photo card designs can easily be found on Mixbook's site to make it simple for customers to drag and drop photos and add small messages. You can also create a card from scratch without a template. The categories of photo card templates include:

• Wedding
• Baby
• Invitations
• Greeting Cards
• Stationery
• Mother's Day
• Father's Day
• Graduation
• Labels
• Holiday

Variety of options

Depending on the chosen theme, you might be creating a card that is one-sided, front and back, or that even has photos and messages on the inside as well as the front and back. The size options as well as the "starting at" cost are shown when you click on any given template to view an example of what it looks like and how customizable it is. Most cards come in a standard 5"x7" size.

Photo card features

For such a seemingly simple project, there are a lot of ways to make it fancy and unique. Once you've chosen the design you want, there is also a choice of what type of photo paper and card shape to use on your photo card. Photo papers include satin finish, signature matte, premium matte, pearl finish, cotton texture, or luxe board. You can have your photos cards printed with squared corners, double rounded corners, vintage crest edges, in the shape of a ticket, and more.

Easy to use

Using Mixbook's design features could not be easier. You'll upload the photo(s) you want to use either from your mobile phone or desktop computer. You can then drag and drop them anywhere on the card. With a pre-created theme, you can even delete things you don't want, like photo and text boxes, to make it your own. Adding messages to your card with a wide range of text fonts and colors as well as stickers will be the cherry on top of your personalized creation.

Customize your envelopes too

Don't forget that with photo cards you can also do some customization to the envelopes they are mailed in - if you want to! Your shipping costs will be determined by how many photo cards and envelopes you are purchasing, but will typically cost around $8.99 for standard shipping.

Highest rating

Mixbook is a great option for any photo project, but especially for creating photo cards. They have a 100% happiness guarantee that means they will refund your order if you are not satisfied with it for any reason. They receive an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and also earn our highest rating among photo card companies.

Minted

• Cost: Starting from $1.67

Minted has a unique business model where they sell stationery, art, and gifts that are created by independent artists. They are a design marketplace where individuals can gain exposure by submitting their artwork and monetizing it. Since 2008, Minted has been holding design challenges for artists to submit their work and be voted on in order to be a featured seller.

Hundreds of photo card themes

Each photo card theme comes in different color schemes and features the name of the artist for reference. To narrow down the hundreds of photo cards to choose from, shoppers can browse by event, format, style, occasion, and theme. Each design you find on Minted is modern and appealing. The one-of-a-kind cards here are fun to browse and we feel like it would be hard to choose just one design since there are so many pretty and novel options.

Cost is a bit more

To view the pricing for any given card, you'll need to select it and read the details. In general, we would say that Minted is going to cost a bit more. This is likely because you're buying from both an artist and from Minted, and the designs here won't be generic. The more photo cards you plan to order at once, the cheaper the price is for each card. You'll pay about $1.67 for a front and back photo card if you order about 100 of them, but if you order a few hundred, the price per card drops as low as $1.29. Higher quality paper will up the cost of your photo cards, so keep that in mind.

Good return policy

If you opt for standard shipping, the cost to have your photo cards, envelopes, and whatever else you order delivered will be between $3.95 and $7.95 with a delivery time of 6-9 business days. For faster shipping you will pay anywhere from $10.95 to $34.95. Aside from commissioned art, you can return your purchase for any reason to Minted if it arrives and does not meet expectations. You just contact customer service with your order number, description of the problem, photo of the issue, and preference for a replacement or refund to get it settled.

Satisfied customers

Minted receives an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Customers are definitely satisfied with their purchases here, but definitely end up paying more for the unique designs. If you sign up for their email list, you could save 15% on your first purchase, but overall will likely end up with a more expensive purchase than you might elsewhere. We like the idea of supporting artists with small businesses, so we suggest Minted as a good option for printing photo cards if you can fit them into your budget.

Zazzle

• Cost: Starting from $1.20

Zazzle was launched in 2005 from the garage of the three founders, Robert, Bobby, and Jeffrey Beaver. Zazzle uses cutting-edge technology that allows customers and designers to make their own products with independent manufacturers. They claim to have over 300 million unique designs for sale on their website.

Over 59,000 photo card options

If you are searching through all of the photo card options on Zazzle, it will take hours. There are over 59,000 results, so there is definitely no shortage of options here. Their main categories of cards are Thank You, Holiday, Birthday, Sympathy, and Anniversary. Other sorting tools on Zazzle allow customers to narrow down the photo cards they want by foil, type, format, orientation, shape, size, price, officially licensed, and more.

Cost is a little higher

Most of the photo cards on Zazzle are in the $3 range, which is a bit more expensive than the other sites we evaluated. For these more expensive cards, it really adds up if you are printing in bulk. However, similar to other photo card retailers, the more you purchase at once, the higher the discount on each card. Also, at the time of this review, Zazzle was advertising a discount code that customers could use at checkout to save 15% on their purchase.

Good customer reviews

Customers have good things to say about their purchases and customization experience at Zazzle. It is easy to edit the existing templates that are found here. We like how many options there are for customers to choose from. Zazzle's 100% satisfaction guarantee ensures that customers can get a refund or replacement if they contact customer service within 30 days of receiving their order.

Great place for photo cards

We see many reasons that Zazzle is a great place for creating photo cards. The Better Business Bureau gives Zazzle an A+ rating, which is a reassuring sign. Their pricing is a bit more expensive than some other photo card retailers, which is the only real issue we foresee customers running into. If you're willing to spend a bit more on unique designs, Zazzle is a good place to design your next photo card.

Shutterfly

• Cost: Starting from $0.79

Shutterfly has been around since 1999 providing custom photo services for those looking to make cards and stationery, prints, gifts, calendars, wall art, decor, and wedding products. All of their inventory can be customized with photos uploaded by customers and designed to their liking. They receive a satisfactory rating of A- by the Better Business Bureau.

Extra steps needed

Stationery, labels, notepads, napkins, and stickers are all mixed in with the themes you can choose for photo cards. The main themes you can choose from are wedding, graduation, baby, thank you, birthday, seasonal, stationery, invitations, religious, announcements, greetings, and magnets. We don't love the way things are organized here and feel like it takes a few extra steps for customers just looking to buy photo cards to find what they want.

Thousands of photo card templates

Once you narrow down the category of the photo card you want to make, you'll be impressed with the selection of photo card templates. There are thousands of designs to choose from, so customers should be able to find one that they are excited about. Sizes to choose from are 4"x8", 5"x5", 5"x7", and 6"x8". Not all photo cards will come in all four sizes, so you can use a side toolbar to narrow down your specifications and view the options that fit what you want.

Volume discounts

The more photo cards you purchase from Shutterfly, the cheaper each card is. Photo cards that start out at $1.48 each can be dropped as low as $0.76 each when you buy a few hundred of them. In general, pricing here is similar to the prices you will find with other photo card retailers. Shutterfly periodically runs discounts for their photo products, giving customers as much as 50% off of their order. Free shipping is offered for orders of $49 or more, so this is also an awesome perk.

Delayed orders

Most customers who create photo projects with Shutterfly have good things to say about their experience. However, more recently some customers have complained about customer service being difficult when it comes to rectifying issues that are the fault of Shutterfly, such as delayed orders, sending the wrong products, or blurry photo quality. This is something that concerns us, but we feel that it is the minority of orders that have these problems. Shutterfly is a good option for photo cards due to their big inventory of designs and easy customization.

Picaboo

• Cost: Starting from $1.29

Picaboo brings memories to life by offering customizable options for customers to create photo cards, calendars, home decor, photo books, and more. They were founded in 2002 in Palo Alto, California by two Babson College classmates, Howard Field and Kevin McCurdy, who were looking for a way to use photo editing tools on a variety of products. Picaboo carries an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and is used by thousands of people to create photo projects.

Over 500 photo card templates

At the time of this review, Picaboo carried a total of 565 photo card templates. They give categories on the main photo card page of their website to choose from. Like many of their competitors, Picaboo has templates that you can choose and edit, or you can start from scratch and create your photo card to be whatever you want.

Photo card categories

The categories for photo cards include:

• Christmas
• Season's Greetings
• New Year's
• Hanukkah
• New Year
• Valentine's Day
• Graduation
• Baby
• Thank You
• Birthday Invites
• Save The Date
• Create Your Own

100% guarantee

Picaboo's photo cards come with a 100% guarantee, so if you receive your photo cards and they do not reflect what you saw on preview mode during creation, they will fix it and send you a new product at no cost within 30 days. Outside of this, there is no return policy, so if you are unhappy with a product, you will get store credit - "Picabucks" -to be used toward future orders.

Visit special offers page for discounts

We suggest visiting Picaboo's "Special Offers" page before creating photo cards in case they have vouchers for sale or other discount codes that will give you a deal on your purchase. The more cards you are ordering at once, the better deal you will get per card. There are two main price options for photo cards at Picaboo. The first is the cost for a signature photo card and the other is for premium photo cards. The price difference between the two is usually about $0.30. Overall pricing at Picaboo is competitive with other photo card retailers.

Good for simple photo cards

Picaboo is an okay place for creating simple photo cards. Their photo card templates are more basic than some of their competitors, but they have a good enough variety that there should be at least one photo card to fit the occasion that you like. The most critical thing we have heard about Picaboo is that sometimes the quality of photos are not as high in-person as they appear in the design tool. Customer service can be difficult to work with for some as well, so keep that in mind before purchasing here. Picaboo is an average photo card website in our opinion.

Simply To Impress

• Cost: Starting from $0.62

Simply To Impress was started in 2003 by Heather Hasse, a wife and mother, wanting to use photographs to capture moments to share with others without having to pay a fortune. Rather than selling home decor, calendars, gifts, and other products, you'll find that this company focuses more specifically on just photo cards and invitations than some of their competitors. But, before you get too excited, we should warn you that many customers have had bad experiences with Simply To Impress, so they have earned a low rating from us.

Beautiful website

Customers have many options for photo cards at Simply To Impress. They have a beautiful website that is easy to navigate. You can use their search function if you already know the product you are looking for, otherwise you can browse through their categories to find whatever strikes your fancy.

Photo card categories

The main photo card categories at Simply To Impress include the following:

• Graduation
• Baby & Kids
• Wedding
• Announcements
• Seasonal
• Stationery & Gifts

Hundreds of photo card styles

Within each category are hundreds of different styles, shapes, colors, and sizes of cards. Prices are very competitive at Simply To Impress, so you won't have to worry about breaking the bank on announcements, invitations, or thank you cards if you are printing them in bulk. At the time of this review, a sitewide sale was running for 25% off plus free shipping. If you are able to purchase during one of their sales, you're in luck because it makes everything quite inexpensive. Without a free shipping promotion, customers are going to be paying anywhere from $8.75 to $23 depending on the chosen speed.

Dissatisfied customers

Despite all the great things we see at Simply To Impress, they have a lot of dissatisfied customers. The wide variety of designs, nice website, and competitive pricing are not necessarily the issue. There are many reports of customers not receiving their orders in a timely manner, or sometimes at all. Others say customer service was nearly impossible to get a hold of, while some received orders that were completely wrong. We are really disappointed with how unhappy many customers are with their experience here. Simply To Impress has a 100% guarantee that says customers will get their money back if they are unsatisfied with their order, but this is not helpful if you aren't able to work with customer service.

Better choices

Overall, we like what we see at Simply To Impress, but we would recommend steering clear of them just for the sake of avoiding potential hassles. Spending the time to create a beautiful card only for it to arrive differently than expected or be delayed in the mail would be incredibly frustrating. Because of this, Simply To Impress has earned one of our lowest ratings.

Snapfish

• Cost: Starting from $1.50

Snapfish has been in business since 1999. They are headquartered in San Francisco, California. Upfront, we will address the reason they have earned one of our lowest ratings. The Better Business Bureau gives them a D- rating and we found a lot of unhappy customer feedback about their experience at Snapfish. If you choose to make your photo cards here, you might be disappointed in your product.

Large number of photo card themes

There is a long list of themes that customers can choose for their photo card designs. They include:

• Holidays
• Graduation Announcements + Cards
• Occasion Cards
• Thank You + Stationery
• Invitations
• Birthday Cards
• Baby + Kids
• Announcements
• In Memoriam
• Wedding Cards
• Christmas + Holiday
• Design Your Own

Modern designs

There are hundreds of modern designs available within each category that are appealing and would cater to everyone regardless of their style. Snapfish has recently added a search bar feature to help customers find specific products faster and easier. Once you choose your desired card, the creation process is as simple as using Snapfish's drag and drop features to add photos and text.

A little more expensive

Most 5"x7" photo cards start at $1.50 at Snapfish. This is a bit more expensive than some of their competitors are selling photo cards for. However, at the time of this review there was a discount code that Snapfish was offering for customers to save 70% on all cards. This is a huge savings and a great deal for those able to make purchases whenever Snapfish is running sales.

Quality issues

From browsing their website, it would initially appear that Snapfish seems like somewhere you would want to create and purchase photo cards. However, keep in mind there are customers who say they have experienced glitches on Snapfish's website or that the quality of their photos looked great online but were pixelated once they arrived in-person. There are many more issues that customers have had, so along with their D- rating from the Better Business Bureau, we are leery of this company. We recommend choosing a higher-rated site for photo cards.