I Ordered 111 Prints From 10 Photo Companies — Here's What I Found

If you've ever stood in front of the CVS photo kiosk wondering whether it actually matters where you print, this post is for you.

I finally started my daughter's photo album this spring. And because I apparently cannot do anything the simple way, "starting her album" turned into ordering 111 prints from ten different photo printing companies so I could figure out — once and for all — where those photos deserved to be printed.

The short answer

• Best overall: Printique — the most accurate color of anything I tested, a wide range of finishes, and prices starting at $0.32 a print.

• Best true fine art print: Mpix — lots of options for photo printing, and they had the only true fine art print

• Best black and white: Printique/Nations Photo Lab — truest to what I sent in.

• Best for convenience: CVS same-day pickup — genuinely fine quality, and pickup beat their own shipped prints.

• Skip for everyday album prints:Artifact Uprising at $2.00–$2.80 each. Beautiful, but save them for books and gifts.

Want to watch me go through all 111 prints in real time? The full video is below — including the print that made me tear up a little.

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How I tested

Same four photos across every company: one shot on my DSLR, the same moment shot on my iPhone, plus black and white versions of each. Identical crops, same 4x6 size (with the exception of Chatbooks which only offered 5×7), every finish each company offered. Then I laid them all out on my table and compared them side by side with the labels hidden — no peeking, no brand loyalty.

Every print got judged (and held — I took the gloves off) on the same four things:

Color — does it match what I sent in? Are skin tones warm and natural, or drifting orange or washed out? Can you still see detail in the shadows?

Sharpness — crisp edges, fine detail like fabric texture and tiny fingers.

Paper — weight, thickness, and how does it feel to hold?

Black and white — true blacks or muddy grays, and the tonal range in between.

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What a 4x6 print actually costs

Per print · before shipping · April 2026

Company	Per print	Worth knowing
Shutterfly	$0.29	Shipping cost more than the photos
Printique	$0.32 – $1.20	Range across finishes · $7 shipping
Mpix	$0.36 – $1.08	Most finish options · watch the upsells
Walgreens	$0.39	Shipped or same-day pickup
CVS	$0.42	Same-day pickup · pay in store
Social Print Studio	$0.83	24-print minimum
Nations Photo Lab	$0.88	Luster only · high shipping
Parabo Press	$1.20	20-print minimum
Chatbooks	$1.20	5x7 only
Artifact Uprising	$2.00 – $2.80	Premium paper · high shipping

Category winners from my side-by-side test. Prices reflect what I paid in April 2026 and don't include shipping — which changed the real math significantly for several of these.

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A quick decoder for finishes

If you've ever frozen at the "choose your finish" dropdown, here's what the words actually mean:

• Glossy is the smooth, shiny standard. The most vibrant color and contrast of any finish — the tradeoff is glare and fingerprints.

• Matte is completely flat with zero shine. Softer, slightly more muted color, but no glare from any angle.

• Luster — sometimes called pearl — sits in the middle: rich color like glossy, minimal glare like matte, with a soft pearly sheen. It's the industry's "best of both worlds" pick.

• Metallic is a luminous, pearlescent finish with visible shimmer, especially in highlights. It's not metal-plated like I imagined — but it does have a metallic sheen to it

• Fine art / textured paper isn't photo paper at all. It's a fiber-based paper closer to what gallery prints use — no coating, visible texture, a heavier and more tactile feel. Comparing it to regular matte is like comparing canvas to glossy: related, but not the same category.

One thing worth knowing before you order: matte and deep matte seemed like genuinely different products. Deep matte is truly non-reflective; regular "matte" usually has some sheen — several companies' "matte" prints had noticeable glare. If you want zero glare, for frames near windows or bright rooms, deep matte is the word to look for.

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The company-by-company breakdown

• Printique — the surprise winner

  I'd never used Printique before this test, and they quietly won almost everything. Their glossy (printed on Fujifilm paper) was the single most beautiful print of the whole experiment — the closest to the photo I actually sent in. Their deep matte won that category. Their metallic was the most distinctly metallic of any I ordered, and their luster edged out everyone in my final side-by-side. Prices run $0.32 (luster) to $1.20 (deep matte) with $7 shipping, and — a small thing I appreciated more than I expected — every print arrived clearly labeled with its finish. If you take one recommendation from this entire experiment, it's Printique.

• Mpix — the most options, and the best fine art print

  Mpix offers more finishes than anyone: e-surface, glossy, semi-gloss, deep matte, metallic, fine art, and lustre coatings on top. Their fine art print ($0.89) was my favorite paper of the whole test — deep blacks, beautiful contrast, gallery feel at a fraction of premium prices. Their deep matte was a very close second to Printique's. Two honest cautions: the checkout is full of upsells (retouching, cropping, coatings), and I could not tell the difference between their metallic ($0.59) and metallic with lustre coating ($1.08). Save yourself the fifty cents. Their labeling could also be clearer — "e-surface" means nothing to a normal person, and I genuinely struggled to tell some finishes apart.

• Nations Photo Lab — the luster specialist

  Nations only offers one finish for 4x6 prints: luster, at $0.88. And maybe that focus shows, because it came in a very close second in the luster category and produced my favorite black and white of the whole test — the truest to what I sent in, where others drifted too warm or too cool. The catch is shipping: the per-print price looks reasonable until the shipping cost lands. Worth it if you're ordering enough to spread that cost out.

• Artifact Uprising — beautiful, heavy, expensive

  I love Artifact Uprising and use them for legacy photo books, so I wanted their prints to win something. At $2.00–$2.80 per print plus the highest shipping of the test, they're in a different price universe — and honestly, the prints didn't justify the gap for everyday album photos. Their paper is gorgeous and noticeably heavy, and their "Everyday" line is that fine art / textured style. But the color ran a bit desaturated compared to what I sent in. My take: keep them for the special things — books, gifts, prints meant to be displayed — not for filling an album.

• Chatbooks — the 5x7 wildcard

  Chatbooks only prints 5x7s, which was disappointing since my albums are 4x6 — so they couldn't compete head-to-head. But their smooth, in-between-photo-and-fine-art paper is lovely, the quality is genuinely good, and the box came with a little photo stand, which charmed me. Know going in that ordering routes you through their subscription flow, and prints run $1.20. If your project happens to be 5x7 — wall frames, a mantel rotation — they're a sweet option.

• Social Print Studio — Chatbooks' little sibling

  Social Print Studio's paper is remarkably similar to Chatbooks' smooth style, just in 4x6 — so if you love that look at album size, this is where to get it. Colors ran a touch less saturated than the original (Chatbooks held the reds better), which some people will actually prefer; it reads a little softer and more human. The real friction is the 24-print minimum: my sample order came to $28.63 all in, about $0.83 per print. Fine if you're printing a real batch, annoying if you want six photos.

• Parabo Press — the sleeper for paper lovers

  Parabo surprised me twice. Their glossy took third place behind Printique and Mpix, and their paper turned out to be the thickest of the entire test — thicker even than Artifact Uprising, which positions itself on exactly that. At $1.20 per print with a 20-print minimum, they're mid-premium. Two quirks: the site didn't seem to save my uploaded photos between sessions, and they only offer matte and glossy. But if substantial-feeling prints matter to you, they punch above their reputation.

• Shutterfly — cheapest per print, with an asterisk

  At $0.29, Shutterfly has the lowest per-print price of the test — and then shipping cost more than the photos themselves. They also appear to fulfill same-day pickup through CVS and Walgreens, which would explain why those three sets of prints looked related. Quality was fine-not-special: middle of the pack, with one order arriving slightly miscut. If you use Shutterfly, the move is probably their same-day pickup option so the shipping math doesn't eat you.

• CVS — my most interesting discovery

  Here's the finding I didn't expect: I ordered the same photos from CVS twice — once shipped, once for same-day pickup — and they came back noticeably different. The pickup prints had better, more accurate color; the shipped ones ran warm and looked like a different order entirely. Same company, same photo, different result. My guess is they print in different facilities, and results probably vary by store. At $0.42 with same-day pickup and pay-in-store, CVS remains my convenience pick — I use them constantly for quick needs. One ordering quirk: you can't put glossy and matte in the same order, so it takes two separate transactions. And their "matte" has real glare — it's not a true matte.

• Walgreens — the other drugstore

  Walgreens came in at $0.39 with the same shipped-or-pickup flexibility. Quality landed right alongside CVS and Shutterfly — totally fine for everyday needs, not what I'd choose for the album meant to last decades. Packaging was the flimsiest of the test, just a thin cardboard insert. One small ordering oddity: the confirmation indicated matte but never confirmed glossy, so I wasn't sure what I'd ordered until it arrived. Their "matte" also reads glossier than the word promises.

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Does a DSLR actually beat an iPhone in print?

I shot the same photo both ways specifically to answer this, and here's the honest result: you probably couldn't tell them apart in print. A DSLR gives more control over depth and lighting, but a well-lit iPhone photo held its own across every single company I tested.

If you've been waiting to start printing until you have a "real camera" — please don't. The camera you have is enough. It always was.

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So where should you print?

For the album that matters: Printique, with Mpix right behind

For beautiful black and white: Printique or Nations Photo Lab's luster.

For right-now convenience: CVS same-day pickup. Pickup, not shipped — trust me.

For everyday extras: the drugstore tier is genuinely fine, and only barely cheaper than the good stuff. That was my biggest takeaway from all 111 prints: the gap between "convenient" and "beautiful" is often less than fifty cents a print. For photos going into an album my daughter will hold someday, that's the easiest fifty cents I'll ever spend.

And one last thing, because it's the real reason I did any of this: somewhere in the middle of sorting 111 prints, I picked one up and it made me want to cry. Not because of the paper stock. Because holding it, it felt so real and made me feel like I was seeing it in a different way.

That's the whole point of printing anything at all.

Your photos don't need the perfect printer. They just need to make it off your phone.

Prices reflect what I paid in April 2026 and will change — check current pricing before ordering. I paid for all 111 prints myself.