If you really want to wow the recipient of your next birthday, Christmas or holidays greeting, then a personalized photo card is an excellent way to do it.
Whether it’s wishing good tidings, a thoughtful thank you message, or a get well soon card - photo cards have become the best way to personalize your greetings and well-wishing.
Or maybe it's for a bar mitzvah, wedding invitation, or congratulations - the best photo cards truly mark the occasion. And, what better way to celebrate a special moment than designing the card yourself?
As personalized cards and photo gifts continue to grow in popularity, choosing the best photo card service can be a challenge. With various providers offering different deals, delivery times, and templates to design your cards from, picking out a company that specializes in quality, speed and cost is crucial. That’s why we’ve created this photo card guide.
The best photo cards in 2022
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Out of all the digital platforms offering photo card services, we think Mixbook is the best service available today.
There’s an abundance of features on the Mixbook site allowing users to design high-quality cards without the premium price tags. There are thousands of templates for just about every occasion, including collections with local designers, wedding themes, and even a collaboration with lifestyle guru Martha Stewart.
But if you’re looking for more creative freedom, every template is customizable. Its easy-to-use software allows you to download your own background, select stickers, edit your own font, pick the trim for your card, to truly reflect your own personal style or the gifting occasion.
What’s more, you can also collaborate your Mixbook account with friends and family (up to 30 collaborators) which is great for sharing photos and contributing towards the photo card gift.
Mixbook provides some of the best quality cards, offering six card types and excellent printing quality (think crisp colors and sharp detail). With worldwide shipping, its prices are affordable, providing customers with a 40-50% off introductory offer, so you can give it a whirl without paying full price if you're still a bit tentative.
Mixbook also takes top honors in our best photo book chart - so if you're looking to do even more with your snaps, then it will also kill two birds with one stone.
Most other photo book services go large on range. Photo calendars, albums, scrap books, mugs, t-shirts - the lot. But Simply to Impress has scaled that all back to simply offer high quality photo cards quickly. Quality takes precedence over diversification, and the result is strikingly good.
Simply to Impress offers a huge selection of photo cards from holidays, Hanukkah, Baptisms, Bar Mitzvahs, Quinceañera, Birthdays to Halloween cards - you name it, it has it. Admittedly, these templates don’t offer extensive customizability like Mixbook but you’ve still got the option to design your own photo card.
All cards are printed on thick, premium card with a choice of four finishes. You’ve got the option to see a proof before placing a large order and standard orders print and ship within two business days with expedited printing services also available.
We recommend Simply to Impress for any bulk orders, whether that be Christmas cards, business cards, charity cards, or wedding invitations. The minimum number of cards you can order is 15, so you might want to head to Mixbook or Snapfish for smaller orders. However, Simply to Impress often has sitewide discounts offering big savings such as 35% off all photo cards.
Snapfish offers some of the most affordable photo cards on the market. Catering to all your card-making needs with over 1,000 templates to choose from, you might find its large number of templates tricky to navigate as the site misses out on key search filters.
Nevertheless, Snapfish has a lot to offer by the way of personalization options, giving you the choice of starting with a blank template with plenty of stylish designs, trim options and special foil colors.
The website is well-designed and the editing tools are easy to use, and you can also expect good photo quality from Snapfish. Though for the price, Mixbook provides better image clarity. And, a slight drawback is that delivery can take up to a week if you’re not paying for one of the pricier, express options.
However, Snapfish offers the convenience of collecting your order in-store at either CVS or Walgreens after ordering online. Though, just bear in mind that you’ll be limiting yourself to the printing capabilities of that individual store - which may vary especially compared to online offers.
Snapfish usually has some juicy discounts on-site, so click through to see what bargains are on offer now.
There’s no getting away from the fact that Artifact Uprising photo cards are a little more expensive than its competitors. But, there’s also no denying that their cards boast a luxurious feel to them with modern styles, top-notch quality presenting a wow-factor feel when they arrive through the letterbox.
Cards from Artifact Uprising exude elegance. The minimalist software focuses more on significant occasions (think wedding invitations and Holiday cards) so you’ll want to visit Mixbook or Simply to Impress for more choice of celebratory occasions.
But behind the eye-catching aesthetic, Artifact Uprising offers hundreds of design options, allowing you to connect your photos directly from Instagram, Dropbox, or Google Photos making it easy to find and select the images you want.
The premium photo service utilizes a press-printing method which is a more environmentally-friendly method in comparison to the widely-used silver halide method. By using this alternative printing method, Artifact Uprising photo cards tick many boxes for us: its eco-friendly and high-quality as printed images are bright and dynamic.
With an average delivery time of three business days for photo card orders, if you’re happy to spend a little more for a luxurious photo card gift, Artifact Uprising is an excellent choice.
Zazzle offers a large array of personalized products: T-shirts, mugs, phone cases, pet treats, pillow cases, blankets, etc. It also produces photo cards, and they're really rather good.
Creating photo cards with Zazzle is straightforward. There are tons of designs to choose from if you don’t want to design your own and the site offers flexible customization options, including a large selection of fonts and clip art features.
Zazzle also offers expert design help, allowing you to ‘get matched and collaborate with a live designer to craft your card'. A side note - this service does have operating hours so if you’re designing in the evening you might be on your own!
The number of paper options will vary depending on the card design you choose, offering limited envelope options in comparison to the likes of Snapfish. In addition, Zazzle’s photo card quality is fairly average, but with a 100% money back guarantee, reasonable pricing, Zazzle is a great affordable option.
What is a photo card?
You've probably received one yourself over the years and wondered how your aunt and uncle were able to get pictures of them and their family on the front of a greetings card. You simply go to one of the recommended services above, upload the image (or images) from your computer or phone that you want to send out to your loved ones and the photo cards company will take care of the printing. Don't have enough snaps of your own? You can always use some free stock photos in your designs.
And if you're not particularly creative, these websites offer a plethora of fantastic designs already accessible for you to utilize. They're surprisingly simple to produce - you'll be able to create the perfect, personalized card for a loved one in no time.
What is the best service for making photo cards?
There are a lot of very good providers out there these days, but Mixbook is the one that has impressed us most. It's the one that best manages to spin the multiple plates of high quality, excellent on-site designing software, fast delivery, and reasonable prices. If in doubt, head to Mixbook - it's unlikely you'll be disappointed, but even if you are then you can rely on the service's 100% Happiness Guaranteed pledge to replace or refund your order.
How much time should I allow for creating my photo cards?
As you might expect, one of the only downsides compared to going into a shop to grab a card is the fact you have to plan ahead if you want a custom photo card. However, some of the services above have super-fast delivery times, and you won't be waiting for more than a couple of days.
Snapfish, for example, offers an expedited next-day delivery service, which requires you to order before 11am. Even so, we're not quite sure how they do it, so if you're running late and need to bag a few cards to send out, it could be a great choice.
Others like our top pick Mixbook take a little longer, with some options reaching a couple of weeks into the future for delivery. So, make sure to check you'll be able to get the cards when you'll need them by.
In terms of creating the card design, if you find a template that you're happy with you could be in, out, and ordered within ten minutes. If you want to get stuck in with creator tools, then you could lose hours in the process, but most sites are fairly intuitive, and it shouldn't take more than half an hour to complete a design (perfectionists: do not hold us to that!).
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