We are swimming in a sea of digital memories these days with pictures and other formats. But let’s be honest – you can’t truly showcase photos to your friends and family on handheld devices. That’s where online photo printing services come in. Without owning a printer or visiting a print shop, you can turn those pixels into real, tangible keepsakes that you can hold, hang, and proudly show at reunions. However, not all printers deliver the best prints after you order them. So, we selected a few services and tested out the paper quality, color retention, details, ordering process, turnover time, and more. Now, after having sought out the best photo printing service online, we’ve got the inside scoop to share with you, including our top pick and some of the best alternatives.
Note, the options in this article are for digital photography. If you’re looking for recommended printing services for film photography, see our list of the best places to develop film.
Our Top Pick for the Best Photo Printing Service Online: Nations Photo Lab
From the moment you place an order at Nations Photo Lab and receive your prints carefully packed in a cardboard box, your stance will likely be the same as ours: Nations Photo Lab knows how to treat your digital assets with the same care you would. The ordering process is smooth as well, which starts the overall experience off on the right foot. Simply visit the Nations Photo Lab service page and head to the Order Prints section. There, upload your photo in PNG, JPG, or TIFF files from your computer or Cloud. Then, choose from over 60 printing sizes like Wallet, Panoramic, Square, 30×40, and more.
Print Options & Add-Ons
Nations Photo Lab also gives you the option to pick Glossy, Pearl, or Lustre print textures. As the order proceeds, you need to pay a bit more for color correction, linen texture, or color filter to your picture, but the additional costs are minimal. This photo printing service also offers Gatorboard, Styrene, Foamcore, or Matboard mounting options. The great thing here is that you can see the pricing adjustments in real-time as you go through and select different add-ons.
While checking out, you can opt for UPS Mailer, Economy, Standard, Expedited, Express Saver, or Express Delivery and pay through PayPal, ShopPay, or Credit Card.
Our Results
We ordered a 5×7 glossy print with a color correction add-on at only $2.02 (without the shipping cost). It arrived pretty quickly (within the promised turnover time), and we were overjoyed that they securely sandwiched the pictures with plastic and paper protective paddings for safety.
As far as the quality goes, Nations Photo Lab didn’t disappoint. The color of the pictures is quite true to the original and preserves most of the details and contrast. However, since Nations Photo Lab has no odd print sizes, it automatically cropped the image to fit the paper. They also don’t add any metadata at the back of the pictures, but very few customers will pay that detail any mind.
Runner-up and Still One of the Best: Printique
Printique (AdoramaPix) was once better than our top pick in a couple different ways, with faster image upload time and order processing features. Again, the overall experience matters, especially when you order a lot of prints. But still, Printique has a lot going for it.
Print Options
For starters, Printique has multiple print options to choose from, like Metal, Photo, Canvas, and more. It offers several standard photo sizes (3.5×5 to 12×36), and you get to choose the paper in luster, glossy, fine art, metallic, matte, or deep matte type. You can even select the printing mode you prefer.
The good bit is you can upload a 200 MB file in JPEG or TIFF file from your PC, Cloud, or directly from your social media accounts. But the letdown is you can’t work with PNGs and must convert them to these two file types before uploading. This won’t be a big deal if you’re a working photographer and you’ve already exported your edited files as jpegs.
Our Results
We tested the service with a standard framing option for $2.80 without shipping cost. You may get the order late in holidays or busy seasons, but the color of the prints will be on the spot, with rich highlighting and shadow details. So, waiting a few more days for this quality is worth it. You can find our full review of Printique’s options and services here.
Click here to explore Printique further.
For Those on a Budget: Snapfish
Although Snapfish is surely not the one to choose for best-quality prints, the money you’ll pay for the service deserves a spot on this list.
Print Options
After uploading your photo, Snapfish then asks you to select a print size that ranges from smaller 4×6 ($0.10) to larger poster sizes of 20×30 ($21.99) and choose between Matte or Glossy finishes. For some extra bucks, you can also customize the orientation and background of the image.
Our Results
When we got our order, we checked the paper quality. It is quite decent, considering the price factor, but the color accuracy can be hit-or-miss. You may get lucky, or you won’t, so reliability is the issue here. These are great for home use, but you should consider using a professional photo lab for any client work, especially if you’re printing larger pieces.
Bonus: Snapfish frequently runs promotional offers, so you can snag a great deal to get prints in bulk. You can learn more about them here.
From Calendar to Books: Shutterfly
Want a printed version of your photobook for your coffee table or a calendar to check out your schedule quickly without looking at a screen? Shutterfly won’t disappoint. They’re also very well-known and heavily used for printing holiday cards.
Print Options
Shutterfly has multiple calendar types, and you can choose to import your own design or select from Watercolor ombre, muted everyday abstract, whimsical, and seasonal patterns, amongst other options.
Our Results
The color range of the prints is on point and retains a lot of details, but the paper quality is not good compared to that of the pro labs like Nations Photo Lab or Printique. Also of note, without a coupon or special deal, Shutterfly can be relatively expensive when compared to similar print services. For instance, the 5×11 desk calendar print cost us $29.98, again, without the shipping charges. So keep an eye out for those sweet, sweet special offers.
One more thing The constant upselling and unwanted dialogues during the ordering process are tiring. That said, once you go through it, you may like what you get.
Click here to explore more of Shutterfly‘s offerings.
A Common Choice: Mpix
Many shutterbugs and pros praise Mpix, so we decided to include them on the list and see what they bring to the table. Going into it, we were aware that Mpix leans more toward the professional lab side than Shutterfly or Snapfish. The real question is how do they compare to the other pro labs?
Print Options & Add-Ons
One thing we loved about Mpix is that you get to choose from over 30 different print sizes and select whether you want metallic or E-surface paper type. While placing your order, you can decide if you want Mpix to crop your photo to fit your selected size, add luster coating, border, or fine line texture, and choose mounting or framing options. We also tested out the retouching services (starting at $5) for facial retouching, red eye reduction, and stray hair removal. Mpix did a fine job here.
It is worth noting that you can only upload JPG or PNG files.
Our Results
The print service used a giclée printing process to give us the best prints that pretty much blew us away. They retained most of the details, and the color retention is incredible, rivaling the best on this list.
The pricing usually starts at $0.36 but can add up if you’re not careful, especially with all the add-ons. But here’s a pro tip: keep an eye out for their promotions, which they send out often. You can also find a “Sales” tab on their website that includes their current sale offers.
Another perk from our experience is that Mpix delivered our order in under 3 days, and that’s quite fast when it comes to comparing shipping with other services on this list.
Click here to explore Mpix further.
Best for Photo Books: Google Photos
Many use Google Photos to save and organize media files, especially photos, but it turns out that it also offers printing services to convert them into a photo book. As you might expect, you can only use images that are uploaded to the service, and you have to scroll through them to find the one you are looking for (if you don’t remember its name). That is kind of a downer when compared to other photo printing service online options.
Our Results
To redeem the overall experience, we found that we could easily add captions (like date, day, or event) to each photo, crop the images, place them where we wanted, and select between hardback ($30 per 20 pages) or softback ($15 for 20 pages) covers for the book. So, the design process is user-friendly once you get past loading and locating the photos you want to use.
The printing quality is generally good, with crisp details and color retention. However, it may not meet the expectations of a pro photographer because Google Photos compresses your pictures before printing them.
As for the delivery, our order arrived within a couple of days and was securely packed in a cardboard box.
Find Google Photo’s printing services here.
Clever Business Cards and Postcards Printing: Moo
We had an event coming up, so we decided to print out some business cards to hand out to people. We shortlisted Moo for this, and they truly did an amazing job.
Print Options & Experience
As you go through the order process, you’ll notice Moo gives you multiple paper options, and you can opt to add a photo on the front (upload up to 50 photos if you want your card to be different) and info on the back of the card.
While making the card, you can either upload your own design or select the preset on the website. However, it does not have many customization options for editing the templates. So, you will most likely have to edit the cards on GIMP and then upload the design as PDF or JPG.
Moo has expanded its services to printing postcards, marketing materials, drinkware, stationery, notebooks, artwork, invitations, and more, and the color, texture. So far, in our experience, the print quality is impressive with the cards, so the other items will likely prove to be high quality as well.
However, all of this comes with a price. Moo is not the most budget-friendly option, and the standard business card costs $21, while the postcard pricing starts at $23.
You can find Moo’s online photo printing service here.
Other Photo Printers
Apart from the above photo printing service online options, we tested some others and received lower quality prints, sometimes with faded colors or cheaper paper quality. You can give these a try and possibly have a different outcome, but we suggest you test them on a smaller scale before going big on an order:
- EZprints
- Zazzle
- Winkflash
- FreePrints
- Amazon Photo Printing
Key Takeaways
Alright, as we wrap up, we’ve introduced you to some of the best online photo printing services by actually checking them out. We’ve discussed our top pick, Nations Photo Lab, as well as other great options. You can always explore local brick-and-mortar print shops and hope to find a partner to print your photos moving forward. It’s very convenient, however, to quickly send your images online and get the prints delivered to your door. The trick is finding a print partner you can trust. Hopefully, the options above will help start you on your journey.