We researched more than a dozen online photo book sites and services, considering factors like ease of assembly, picture and paper quality, page count, and durability. After narrowing down our top picks, we deemed Mixbook as our best overall photo book site. The customized service offers a wide variety of designs and cover types while being affordable and easy to navigate. Here, our favorite online photo books. But the real appeal of Mixbook is that you can create and collaborate with others. For instance, if you and your siblings want to make an anniversary album for your parents, you can all add photos to and edit the book without being in the same room. This expands the options for creativity and collaboration that other options don’t offer. Once your book is designed, you can select your paper choice and cover. Mixbook even lets you add text on the spine of your book, which is a nice feature if you’ll be printing books on a regular basis. Book Sizes: 8x6, 11x8.5, 14x11, 6x6, 8.5x8.5, 10x10, 12x12, 8.5x11 inches | Available Covers: Soft cover, Hardcover glossy, Hardcover soft matte touch, Leather | Starting Price: $16 Uploading photos is simple, though you can only pull from your computer or an online photo-storage site, like Dropbox, Instagram, or Flickr. You can even edit the photos by adding a filter, cropping, zooming, tilting, adjusting brightness, or eliminating red eye. With books costing as little as $10, Walmart Photos has the most affordable online photo book on the market. This may, however, mean the quality is not on par with pricier options. Some users noted the pages of their book were thin and, therefore, less durable. But if you’re looking to make multiple copies of a photo book or aren’t as concerned about keepsake quality, then the cost may outweigh the risk of tears. Book Sizes: 5x7, 8x6, 8x8, 8x11, 11x14, 12x12 inches | Available Covers: Hardcover, Soft cover, Layflat, Premium layflat | Starting Price: $16 To start, pull in photos from your computer, Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, Google Photos, and Dropbox. From there, Chatbooks arranges them in chronological order, placing one photo on each page. You can move photos around and add captions if desired. If you find that you are frequently documenting life’s moments, you may be interested in one of Chatbooks’ three monthly subscriptions, each providing 30-page photo albums: Hardcover Month Books ($15/month), Softcover Month Books ($10/month), and Monthly Minis ($5/month). Book Sizes: 6x6, 8x8, 10x10 inches | Available Covers: Hardcover, Soft cover | Starting Price: $15 Get this—high quality doesn’t mean a long wait time. Albums will be ready in three to 10 days. You can create your album via Artifact Uprising’s desktop editor, which allows you to upload photos directly from Instagram, Dropbox, or your computer. Alternatively, you can use the brand’s iPhone app. This is a great option if your featured photos live exclusively one your phone, saving you the trouble of transferring them. Book Sizes: 6x8, 7x7, 8.5x8.5, 8.25x11, 10x10, 12x12, 14x11, inches | Available Covers: Layflat, Hardcover, Soft cover, Scrapbook | Starting Price: $17 For those who want to take a completely hands-off approach, there is the site’s “design” service. After you upload photos and instructions, the designers will select photos, design the book, and send you a proof. Once you approve, they mail you the final album. Photos can be uploaded from your computer, as well as Facebook and Instagram. The arrival time of your book will vary, but the standard timeframe is five to seven business days. Book Sizes: 8x8, 8x11, 10x10, 11x8, 14x11, 12x12 inches | Available Covers: Hardcover, Soft cover | Starting Price: $20 You can use either the free Bookwright app or the web-based software Bookify, though past customers have noted it’s more glitchy and offers less variety. From there, you choose your book preference and templates, and upload your photos, which you can arrange yourself or have Bookify sort for you. Once everything is to your satisfaction, you send it to Blurb which uses premium paper and binding to create an album that will last for years. One thing to keep in mind: Amatuer photographers and designers said the software was a bit confusing to use at times. To help, many recommend watching Blurb’s YouTube tutorial before getting started. Book Sizes: 7x7, 8x10, 12x12, 13x11 inches | Available Covers: Hardcover, Soft cover, Layflat | Starting Price: $14.99 Book Sizes: 5x7, 8x8, 8x11, 12x12 inches | Available Covers: Hardcover, Soft cover | Starting Price: Not Listed You’ll also want to pick a photo book site that will require minimal image resizing. Resizing photos can often lead to blurry or pixelated images.
Editing Capabilities
Unless you take the perfect photos, chances are you’ll want to edit your images before displaying them for all to see. If you’re an avid photographer and have editing programs at the ready, then you may only require the basic functions, like resizing and zooming, in your photo book software. But if you are more of a creator, you’ll want a program that allows you to alter brightness and color, add filters, and remove red-eye.
Paper Quality
The point of a photo book is to capture and preserve memories forever, so it makes sense that the book’s pages should last just as long. Make sure your book is made from a premium grade paper, as that implies it is thicker and more durable than your typical printing paper. But don’t confuse paper quality with paper finish. The latter, which includes options like gloss, pearl, matte, and luster, is related to appearance of the pages, not their durability.
Why Trust the Spruce Crafts?
This article was written by Leah Rocketto, a lifestyle writer and editor for a decade. To select the best picks for your consideration, she sorted through dozens of customer reviews and product ratings. That, however, is where the similarities stop. While photo albums are typically made of plastic inserts that store physical photos, photo books are actual books where images are printed on paper and bound. Additionally, photo books allow for a little more creativity. Similar to scrapbook pages, you can arrange the photos in unique ways, include text to tell a story, or add graphics and stickers to make it more custom. Layflat, however, is a special binding that makes it possible for the pages to open and lay completely flat. This allows two consecutive pages to form one continuous sheet of paper, making it possible for photos to span across more than one page. This is the ideal option if you want your photo book to contain panoramic images. Additionally, if your photo book is based solely on photos from your Instagram feed, your best bet is a square album.
