The Best Places to Get Holiday Photo Cards

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or the solstice, or you just want to reach out for New Year's Day, sending a card is a simple way to keep in touch and show you care. Even better are custom greeting cards personalized with photos of your family members and pets.

We test online sites for making your own holiday cards and other photo greeting cards to let you know which ones are best for quality, price, card options, and delivery. This year eight services delivered custom greeting cards of high enough quality that we recommend them. If you want to go beyond greeting cards, several of the services listed here also sell mugs and other items that you can emblazon with your photos, which make thoughtful holiday gifts.

Best Quality

Minted

Starts at $1.49 Per Card for 105 Cards

at Minted

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Minted is a community of designers focused on gifts and cards. You can upload your photo to add it to a greeting card and preview it on every card option at once. Some font choices highly resemble handwriting, others look announcement-like, but there’s not much in between. You get several choices for color scheme and layout in most designs, but you can't change the placement of the image or text boxes.

Prices are on the high end. For the minimum order of 25, a set of postcards costs $55 ($2.20 per card); the Petite 6-by-4.25-inch cards go for $58 ($2.32 per card); Classic 5-by-7s cost $66 ($2.64 per card); and Grand 8-by-6 cards cost for $73 ($2.92 per card). For my test order of 25 cards, shipping cost a reasonable $9.95. Oddly, it's free to add recipient addresses to the envelopes, but printing your return address is an extra $22.

Adding foil-pressed printing costs $87 for a set of 25 ($3.24 per card) and a classy Letterpress option costs $78 for a set of 25, as does Vellum Overlay. You can get 15 tree-hangable cardboard printed ornament cards starting at $55. Personalizing text with foil adds $99 to the order. Minted has cardstock choices of Smooth Signature (recycled paper optimized for photos), Signature (thick and luxurious), Pearlescent, and DoubleThick recycled. For some card designs, though, you won’t get all those choices.

The quality of the cards is commensurate with the higher price. The test order arrived in a large box that was more protective than what competitors use, and it included a handwritten note from the staff who processed the order. The photo printing quality is on par with the better services tested, and text printing is excellent. The folding cards don't come pre-folded, but have a strong crease. One downside for detail-oriented folks is that Minted prints its logo on the back of all your cards. Other services like Mixbook don’t.

In terms of custom photo gifts beyond greeting cards, Minted sells ornaments, photo booklets, puzzles, and cushions, as well as framed photos and collages.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: $2.20
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Limited

Best Style

Mixbook Holiday Photo Cards

Starts at $1.66

at Mixbook

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Mixbook sells custom photo books as well as fine greeting cards. The card designs are stylish, and the website’s design interface is intuitive and flexible. A set of 25 flat 5-by-7-inch cards on Satin Finish costs $1.66 per card (which is usually heavily discounted). The price per card goes down as quantity rises, and up as you improve the cardstock quality with Signature Matte, Premium Matte, Pearl Finish, Cotton Texture, or Luxe Board. If you pull out all the stops for an order of 20 foil cards using the top cardstock, it's $4.87 per card. Blank envelopes are included. It costs 25 cents per card to print addresses on them. There's no minimum order.

According to Mixbook, the company "uses only the highest-quality, heavy-weight papers that are ethically sourced from sustainable forests and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance.”

I was also happy to see that Mixbook accepts HEIC/HEIF file formats, which saves storage space on your smartphone without reducing image quality. My test batch of cards arrived well-protected in a hard shipping envelope, and I was impressed with the printing and cardstock quality. Also impressive is that the company doesn’t print its name and logo on the back, so it’s all you.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: $1.66
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Limited

Best for Mailing Cards Directly to Recipients

Postable

Starts at $3.29 Per Card for 20 Cards

at Postable

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Postable’s tagline is “Really nice cards, mailed for you.” While it’s not the only service that can make those claims, it does live up to them, with a wide selection of beautiful styles. You can add your own photos to many of them, or choose from greeting cards that don't need a custom photo.

The service’s interface is clear and fast, with good customization options, though it could have more font choices and it'd be nice if you could change the type size. Postable sends cards directly to your recipients, so prices are higher than other services because they include postage, custom-printed text, envelope printing, and dropping the cards in the mail. If you'd rather mail the cards yourself, there is an option for that. Prices start at $3.99 for a single folded card, which drops to $3.29 per card for orders of 20 or more. Flat postcards cost $2.99 ($2.39 for more than 19). Removing the Postable logo from the back costs 20 cents per card.

My test cards have perfectly acceptable photo and text printing, though they aren't as sharp as Minted's. A large designer credit and branding are on the back. Packaging is less of an issue for this service, since you’re most likely to have the cards sent directly to your recipients, but it's more than adequate.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: $3.29
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: No

Best Printing

Shutterfly Holiday Cards

Starting at $2.19

at Shutterfly

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Shutterfly prints your photos on a wide and attractive selection of holiday cards. Shutterfly has good filtering and sorting to help you zero in on the options you want. Prices are midrange, with 4-by-8-inch flat cards starting at $2.19 each for a quantity of 25 (usually deeply discounted). Orders can be down to a single card, with no price increase—there's no minimum order. You can get 5-by-7s flat or folded, and 6-by-8 flat cards. Premium options include gatefold and trifold cards, foil printing, and four choices of cardstock. The priciest option costs $4.77 for a glitter-adorned card with rounded corners.

The card design interface has you enter your family name and all the family members in your photo before you even start, so there’s no chance of having the example family name mistakenly appear on your cards. When adding a photo (which you can grab from Facebook, Google Photos, Instagram, or your hard drive), you get effect choices including B&W, Soft Focus, and Saturate. But you don’t have much leeway in moving images and elements around, as you can with Zazzle. Envelope choices include five colors (mostly shades of gray along with red) and a holiday-patterned liner. Return address printing costs 42 cents per envelope, though there are no font options, just a fine-looking default.

My test cards have sharp, well-saturated photo printing on pleasantly stiff cardboard.

Shutterfly is known not just for cards, but for a wealth of products on which you can print your own photos, including drinkware, blankets, pillows, magnets, puzzles, candles, and even socks.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: $2.14
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Yes

Best Selection

Simply to Impress

$1.50 Per Card for 25 Cards

at Simply To Impress

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Simply to Impress has a large selection of holiday card templates at very reasonable rates. You can order as few as 15 4-by-5.5-inch cards for $2.14 each (usually discounted). The per-card price drops to $1.66 for an order of 25 and to $1.34 for 100. For 5-by-7s the prices are $2.06 per card for a set of 25, $1.88 per card for 50, and $1.66 per card for a quantity of 100. With Simply to Impress, you pay more for premium cardstock (required if you want folding cards), bumping the entry price up to $2.35 per card for 15. Adding raised foil printing brings the price to $3.54 per card. The final cards are impressive in their sharp photo printing quality (though text printing is less sharp), and they arrive packaged in a sturdy and cheerful green cardboard envelope. 

Simply to Impress gives you a wide selection of card shapes, but I wish you could sort them by popularity or price. The design interface for adding photos is simple and does just about everything you need. The backs of cards can sport another photo, text, or shape. The site helpfully warns you if you forget to replace the sample family name with your own or if you use the same photo twice. It's disappointing that you can't add printed text to the inside of folded cards, and you can’t change the card format after you start designing.

The company can print your return addresses and the recipient's address on the envelopes. A new choice is RealScript, in which the printing mimics your handwriting. For 66 cents per stamp, the company will even stamp and mail the cards for you. Simply to Impress no longer offers Peel & Seal envelopes, so get that wet tongue or sponge ready! Free shipping makes this service even more impressive, as it even applies to orders as low as 15 cards. While testing the service, the free shipping did not apply when a coupon code was added, however. The total price was lower with the code, but the cheapest shipping option was $8.75.

After you submit your design, professionals at Simply to Impress check and correct your photos' brightness and contrast, and the alignment of text. For $25, you can have them retouch your pictures and make other improvements—a great service for non-designers.

Beyond cards, Simply to Impress sells ornaments, stockings, journals, and self-inking stamps, but surprisingly no calendars or mugs.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: $1.66
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Yes

Best for Same-Day Pickup

Walgreens Holiday Photo Cards

Starts at $1.29

at Walgreens Photo

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If you need holiday cards now, Walgreens has you covered. It's the best custom greeting card service for local pickup. The company sells 5-by-7 folded cards starting at $2.49 each for orders of 20 or more and flat cards of the same dimensions for just $1.29 each. Walgreens can even mail your greeting cards for you, starting at $2.99 for a flat 5-by-7 card for orders less than 21 cards; over that amount the price decreases to $2.49 each. Choosing premium cardstock bumps that up by a dollar. Raised gold foil cards start at $3.19 each.

The card designs are fun and varied, but not as elegant as what you get from Minted or Simply to Impress. The design interface gives you good control over photo placement and sizing. Fonts choices for text are good with many script typefaces. Like most other custom greeting card services, Walgreens Holiday Photo Cards warns you if you leave in any dummy text. You don't want anyone to think the card is from the Johnsons when you're a Miller!

The print quality of the cards I picked up at my local Walgreens is satisfactory. The cardstock is thinner than most, though I didn't choose premium cardstock. I appreciate that my cards came pre-folded and there was no Walgreens branding on them; most other services prominently print their logos on your cards and many don't fold them for you.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: $2.49
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Yes

Best Price

Walmart Photo Holiday Cards

$0.56 Per Card for 25 Cards

at Walmart Photo

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Walmart Photo is the most value-oriented place to get custom photo holiday cards. You can take advantage of same-day pickup at your local megastore for many greeting card styles, and one-hour pickup for a few. Print quality is surprisingly good. The card design selection isn't all that elegant or artistic, and the interface for designing cards is adequate but not class-leading.

Greeting cards can be had for as low as 50 cents per card, though that’s only for prints on photo paper. Real cards start at a still-incredibly reasonable 66 cents—even for a single card. You can choose flat cards in 4-by-8 and 5-by-7 sizes, as well as 5-by-7 folded cards. The flat cards can be in square, rounded, "elegant," or scalloped shapes. Cardstock is matte photo paper, glossy photo paper, or premium cardstock. You can print your return address on envelopes, but that means you won't get same-day store pickup. Further, there's no option to print the recipients' addresses, as you can with Simply to Impress and Postable. Shipping for my test order of 20 cards cost just $6.99, making this service one of the cheapest. The printing clarity of both text and images on the cards that arrived were surprisingly among the best, too. The folded cards arrived as a flat creased sheet, but it's hardly hard labor to fold and stuff them in envelopes.

Walmart has a huge selection of gifts that you can put your photos on aside from cards—calendars, phone cases, blankets, pillows, mugs, placemats, key chains, T-shirts, yoga mats, and even pet bowls and shirts for dogs! As you might expect, these items are not available for same-day pickup, but you can get home delivery in three to six days.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: 50 cents
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Yes, large selection

Best for Total Control Over Design

Zazzle Holiday Cards

Starts at $0.55

at Zazzle

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Zazzle sells a multiplicity of customizable gifts, as well as holiday cards personalized with your photos. The selection of card styles isn’t impressively large, but prices are low, and quality is among the best. You can start your card design with a completely blank palette or use a predesigned layout. You can order a single card, though some styles have a 10-card minimum. A flat 5-by-7-inch card costs $2.42 (usually heavily discounted), but smaller 3.5-by-2.5-inch budget cards go down to 55 cents each for a minimum order of 10. If you want to get fancy, you can pay $4.52 for real foil printing (gold, silver, or rose gold) with a hand-painted background.

You have two choices when personalizing your card. The first has you replace elements in a template, and the second, called the Design Tool, is a fully customizable design interface that lets you resize and rearrange everything to taste. It's almost a mini-Photoshop. You can manipulate fonts, colors, and any design elements of the template, including layers if you’re comfortable with them. You get a huge selection of fonts—more than any other service here. One downside is you can’t change the size and placement of the Zazzle logo and branding, so it takes trial and error to make sure they don’t overlap your design.

If you need help getting your photos from your phone to the site, you can scan a QR code that lets you upload them easily. Zazzle supports a full choice of file formats: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, HEIC/HEIF, and WebP, though you can only upload one image at a time.

Lowest price per card for an order of 25: 55 cents
Offers other personalized, non-paper gifts: Yes

Touch Up Your Pics First

Sending family photo cards is a time-honored holiday tradition. But before you upload your pics to put them on a holiday card, make sure they look their best. Most card-printing services have very limited photo editing tools, so doing a little touch-up in a dedicated photo editing app goes a long way to getting the best results.

Even if you don't own expensive photo software like Photoshop, you can use a free editor that comes with your operating system (it's just called Photos on both Windows and Mac). Google Photos is another free option with good tools as well.

Here's how to do a quick photo editing job to get your best shots on your greeting cards:

1. Crop the photo so that only the important people, pets, or objects are in the shot. If you have a card design in mind, make sure you jot down the dimensions of the photo space on the card and crop to match it.

2. Adjust the brightness, contrast, and color. Don't leave your loved one's face obscured in shadows, and try to correct for any unnatural color cast. Let the photo editing app do the heavy lifting. The Auto Correct or Auto Enhance buttons may be all you need.

3. You may need to get rid of red eyes (though that's less of a problem these days than in the past), which most software can handle in a few clicks with a red-eye correction tool.

Speaking of the past, you can always scan old family photos and use the digital version on a greeting card to send some nostalgia. If you really want to get fancy, check out Adobe Photoshop Elements or CyberLink PhotoDirector, both of which make arresting, fun effects easy to create.

If you don't have a computer on hand, you can always use one of the best mobile photo editing apps instead.

How Much Does It Cost to Print Custom Photo Cards and Gifts?

With photo card printing, you get what you pay for. That said, there's a wide range of prices.

Walmart has the lowest prices among the services we tested, and the quality isn't at all bad. You pay as little as 50 cents for a small, single-sided postcard and up to $4.44 per card for a gold-foil folding card on pearlescent cardstock. For top quality, look to Minted or Mpix. They cost more but deliver the best print accuracy of the services we tested.

The results, clockwise from top-left: Minted, Mixbook, Postable, Shutterfly, Simply to Impress, Walgreens Photo, Walmart Photo, and Zazzle. (Credit: PCMag)

With Mixbook, Postable, Walmart Photo, and Zazzle, you can purchase a single card. At other sellers, like Minted, you start off with a minimum of 25 cards. You typically pay less per card as you purchase larger quantities. Even the smallest lots are cheaper per card than buying cards in a brick-and-mortar shop, and this way you get to include your own photos for a personalized touch.

Delivery vs. Mailing Options

Most services mail the finished cards and products to you, which means you have to manually add postage and address the envelopes. Some services allow you to mail cards directly to the recipients, however. Postable is notable for this option. Cards cost more at Postable, but that's because the postage, mailing, and addressing of the envelopes are included in the price. Walgreens and Walmart have in-store pickup on the same day you order your cards if you want. On the downside, printing quality on same-day products depends on your local branch's equipment and supplies.

What Can You Print Besides Cards?

Gift options from these services include not only tried-and-true customized mugs, but also framed large photos and canvas prints. You could pay anywhere from about $15 up to hundreds of dollars for a professional quality large canvas print. One service we like for large canvas prints is CanvasPop, which produces professionally color-corrected wall art from your photos. Photo books are another good gift. You can get them from most of the services here, but Google Photos, Snapfish, and Walmart sell particularly affordable paperback photo books.

Your pictures can grace an amazing assortment of objects, such as calendars, T-shirts, keychains, hoodies, and magnets. Snapfish, Walmart Photo, and Zazzle all have a wide selection. You may be surprised at what you can get your photos printed on: cloth face masks, blankets, pillows, puzzles, shower curtains, and iPhone cases. If you're going to buy those gifts anyway, why not have them personalized?

Lastly, what if you simply want to give a framed photo as a gift? See our list of the best photo printing services for more details on which one turns out the highest quality pictures.