Snapfish vs Shutterfly: Head To Head Comparison Between Them
If you have ever needed to print out digital photos online, you must have come across the platforms of Snapfish and Shutterfly. They both are veterans in this field who have gained a loyal customer base by serving over 20 years!
But how do they serve against each other?
Are they really equal in terms of photo quality, shipping and costs?
Let’s find out the answers together! Welcome to the glorious battle of Shutterfly vs Snapfish!
Table of Contents
What is Snapfish?
Snapfish is one of the most popular online photo printing and sharing services. It operates under the ownership of District Photo from its headquarters in San Francisco.
They did not reach their current popularity and reliability status in a day!
Their journey began long back in 1999. At the dawn of a new millennium and anticipating the upcoming surge of internet, four visionary business partners decided to officially launch their brand of Snapfish.
Since then, Snapfish has been owned by District Photo, as well as the globally renowned brand of Hewlett-Packard for a while.
Right now, you can use the platform of Snapfish to print out your most valuable digital photos and make personal gifts out of them. Be it placemats, diaries, pillows or drinkware - Snapfish has got it all!
Advantages of Snapfish
International Reach
Over its two decades of existence, Snapfish has established itself as a global brand and has reached across the globe! Even though their headquarters are in California, the brand caters to customers all over the world including the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Italy, France, New Zealand and Ireland.
Free Prints
Snapfish offers an impressive number of free prints to its customers. It can range from 600 to 1200 depending on the country you are taking the service from.
For instance, the USA users can get 100 free prints of 4x6 size every month for the next year. On the other hand, users of the UK or New Zealand will get 600 such prints throughout the year.
These will be awarded to you for free once you download the official Snapfish app from Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store. However, this offer is only applicable to users who are downloading it for the first time. It will not work if you are re-installing the app or have already used up the offer.
Easy Upload
It is very easy to upload the photos on your Snapfish account for printing or further editing. If you are a desktop person and prefer PCs or laptops, you can just upload the photos here directly from the device.
Alternatively, you can do the same while running an errand through your mobile device. Just log into your Snapfish account from the official app and transfer the freshly clicked pictures from your smartphone at once!
For even more convenience, you can link your Snapfish account to your social media accounts and upload the photos from there. This way, you don’t have to do the same job twice! The best photos will be shared with your closest ones and uploaded for printing at the same time.
Popular Payment Methods
Once you are all set, you can proceed to make payments for finalizing the orders. Snapfish has all the popular payment methods in store for you including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. These are globally renowned and reliable methods for online transactions. So checking out of your cart should be no hassle.
Official App
Having an official app is an important step for any established brand of this millennium. Snapfish understands that completely which is why you can rely on their mobile app to order photos and relevant items anytime. Its clean layout introduces the functionalities well and organizes the photos better.
Besides, you can get up to 1200 free photo prints for the year by downloading it. This app is compatible with the two most popular mobile operating systems of Android and Apple.
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Disadvantages of Snapfish
Oversaturated
The resulting prints of Snapfish tend to make the photos more vibrant than the original. While this feature can highlight the beautiful colors even better, sometimes it can lead to oversaturation. So if you are not interested in making the photos any brighter than they are, this can be an issue.
Limited Photo Book Size
Snapfish offers a decent range of photo printing sizes starting from just 2x3 and up to 20x30. The custom photo book sizes offered here are 5x7, 6x8, 8x8, 8x11, 12x12 and 11x14 inches. However, there is no option for 10x10, 11x8 and 7x9 sizes for photo books here which are often in demand.
What is Shutterfly?
Shutterfly is one of the biggest competitors of Snapfish. It is also a digital printing platform offering a wide range of services related to this field. This brand too began its journey in 1999.
Since their inception, they have been operating in three distinct divisions to protect your memories in digital and tangible versions forever.
You can incorporate your favorite memories in photo books, cards, gifts, stationery items and home decor. Let your most treasured photos transform into smartphone cases or wall art so that you can see them more often. For special occasions, you can utilize these pictures to create custom invitation cards.
Advantages of Shutterfly
Natural Colors
Shutterfly prefers to retain the original color palette of your photos. But don’t get worried about the pictures coming out bland and unpleasant as a result of this.
While the platform does make the photos come to life with certain enhancements, they don’t take away their main essence and maintain the natural shades as much as possible. So the accuracy of original colors is your priority, Shutterfly would be a fitting choice.
Wide Range of Selections
There are many ways you can preserve your precious memories and utilize them to create beautiful DIY pieces. With Shutterfly, you can print the digital pictures to make photo books, calendars, cards, wall art and stationery items. Besides, you can order gifts and similar items for special days like weddings and birthdays.
The sizes available here include 4x4, 4x6, 5x7, 8x8 and 8x10 for general prints and posters. In the case of photo books, the sizes for bulk photos offered here are 8x8, 8x11, 11x8, 10x10, 11x14 and 12x12. Along with these, you will have a lot more options in quantity, cover type, page numbers and more.
Unlimited Free Prints
You can make the most of your Shutterfly account by getting an unlimited number of free prints!
All you have to do is download their official app and order the prints in 4x4 or 4x6 sizes from there. There are many more lucrative offers and discounts waiting for you on their “Offers” page.
Unlimited Storage
Their official app brings in an irresistible package of multiple benefits. Along with the unlimited free prints, there is no limit to the storage on this app. You can save as many photos as you need here and access them from any device.
So if your phone or card is running out of memory, this app can be a safe place to store the photos. You can download it from Apple and Android app stores.
Fast Delivery
Shutterfly can fly out the printed photos to your doorstep within a very short time. You can order home delivery or pick up the completed orders from the authorized stores nearby within 5-7 business days.
If you need the photos faster than this standard delivery time, you can also choose their Expedited, Rush and Super-Rush plans. They deliver the items within 4-5 business days, 3-4 business days and 1-2 business days respectively. Remember to check out the eligible products for these plans beforehand.
Local Pickup
You don’t have to rely on the online order deliveries for Shutterfly prints. To check out the finished items face-to-face, drop by the local stores offering Shutterfly services.
In the USA, you can pick up only 4x6 glossy prints within just an hour from Target, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens outlets in your area.
Disadvantages of Shutterfly
Mediocre Quality
While the photos printed by Shutterfly maintain the original color tones well, their overall quality can be a little disappointing. The photos can come out slightly blurry at times.
Besides, you will not have an impressive amount of options here while editing your photos online.
High Price
Compared to its competitors, Shutterfly offers similar services at a little higher price point. The printing service itself costs a bit more.
Additionally, the corresponding shipping charges can seem quite a lot to many customers as well. That is why we don’t recommend Shutterfly for the people on a budget.
Comparing Snapfish vs Shutterfly
Photo Books
Both Snapfish and Shutterfly offer to print out digitally clicked or saved photographs. You can get them organized as photo books to print the pictures in bulk.
Photo books of Shutterfly can contain 20 to 110 pages whereas the Snapfish ones can have 22 to 150 pages.
Shutterfly allows a maximum of 500 pictures in one book with 4 photos per page for Simple Path and up to 1000 photos per book with 30 on each page for Custom Path. In comparison, Snapfish can publish up to 2000 images in one photo book.
Gift Items
You can use the photos of both Shutterfly and Snapfish to prepare unique gifts like mugs, water bottles, coasters, notebooks, smartphone cases, laptop covers, blankets, pillows, mousepads, etc.
Shutterfly also prints out the photos on items like hoodies, tote bags, jewelry, key rings, paperweights, candles and magnets.
Others
You can rely on either of them to deliver wall art, decorative items and calendars with your photos.
There are exclusive products on both the platforms for special holidays like Christmas, Halloween and similar occasions. You can collage multiple photos and publish them all as a singular one.
Shipping and Delivery
Snapfish has four delivery schemes to serve all kinds of customers. The slowest of them comes at the lowest price which takes up to 8 business days in the USA. Other plans include:
Ground (up to 6 business days)
Expedited (up to 5 business days)
Rush (up to 4 business days)
On the other hand, the slowest delivery scheme of Shutterfly can take 6-10 business days at most. This is the most economical option available here. They also offer other delivery plans like:
Standard (5-7 business days)
Expedited (4-5 business days)
Rush (3-4 business days)
Super Rush (1-2 business days)
Image Quality
Both Shutterfly and Snapfish have their perks and quirks when it comes to image quality. Snapfish is known to offer better clarity which is often the highest priority for users.
In contrast, Shutterfly can help in retaining the original color scheme of your photos better by keeping them at a minimum saturation.
Frame Sizes
Shutterfly offers printing photos in three categories of sizes:
Standard: 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, wallet
Square: 4x4, 8x8, 12x12
Large Format: 11x14, 16x20, 20x30
Photo Books: 7x9, 8x8, 8x11, 11x8, 10x10, 12x12, 11x14
The sizes available on Snapfish for printing photos are:
Standard: 4x4, 4x5.3, 4x6, 5x7, 8x8, 8x10, wallet
Large: 11x14, 12x18, 16x20, 20x30
Photo Books: 5x7, 6x8, 8x8, 8x11, 12x12, 11x14
As you can see, they do have some unique frame sizes although most of them are common for both.
Free Prints
The two platforms offer free photo prints if you download their official apps. Snapfish allows 600-1200 photos in 4x4 sizes for the next year depending on your area.
On the other hand, Shutterfly claims to offer unlimited free prints while limiting each order to 250 photos. Keep in mind that you do have to pay for shipping, handling and taxes.
The eligible sizes for this offer are 4x4 and 4x6. Each unique photo can have up to 9 prints, which is a bit of a bummer.
Bottom Line - Which One is For You?
Initially, it may seem quite confusing to choose the winner of Snapfish vs Shutterfly competition. However, going deep into both of their services and offers, we think Snapfish holds the higher ground.
Although it puts a limited number of photos for free printing, the shipping cost is not so high.
Shutterfly imposes a heavy shipping cost which makes their “unlimited free photos” claim a little misleading. Besides, Snapfish also offers clearer photos and a wider range of sizes.
The only department Shutterfly shines is fast delivery. It can get you the photos printed within just a day while Snapfish will take 4 days at most. Thanks to visiting PolaroidFotoBar
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