The best photo calendars not only help you keep on top of important dates, birthdays and special occasions, but they're also a great way of exhibiting your favorite photos. There are plenty of styles to choose from including family planners, photo calendars and daily appointment calendars. We've put together a list of the best photo calendar printing services to help you get a head start on your new calendar.
As each year comes to an end, it's time to start preparing for the new year and what better way than investing in a personalized photo calendar. There's no need to buy a generic calendar filled with someone else's work when the cost of printing your own is pretty affordable. Instead, why not create a unique photo calendar full of your own amazing images and memories so that every month you can be reminded of some of your favorite moments.
The best photo calendars also make amazing presents and are a great way of injecting a bit of personality into a gift. After all, what's better than giving someone a gift that will make them smile every time they write down an appointment or check the date?
Whether you're looking to create something entirely from scratch or if you'd prefer to use a pre-made template, the best photo calendar services will make it quick and easy. Most services have an online editor where you can easily upload or import images from Google Drive, Facebook, Instagram or Flickr. A few of the services listed below recommend you download purpose-made software but if you're not tech-savvy don't worry, there is an online editing option.
There are lots of styles, sizes and designs to choose from but the hardest bit will be selecting the best photos to include! Regardless of whether you print photos of friends and family, beautiful landscapes or majestic birds, you can it will be a high-quality finish.
If you're wondering where to go to get the best photo calendar printed don't worry, we've put together a list rounding up the best companies that offer this service. Prices vary depending on size and style and many of the companies below will have optional extras such as better quality paper.
To find out the best photo calendar printing services, read below.
The best photo calendars in 2024
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Cewe recommends that you download its software to design your calendar, but we designed one online and found the editor super easy to use. Once you've chosen which style you want from the 11 options available, it's time to choose the design. Each style has a fully customizable option in case you want to make it from scratch but if not, there are lots of templates you can pick.
Some calendars come with options you can pay extra for such as premium quality photo paper or a bigger size calendar and these can be selected after you've chosen your design.
You can upload your images directly from your device and then drag and drop them into place. You can also select different layouts so if you want to have more than one image in a month, that's completely doable. The most images you can have on any one month is four which is great if you can't decide exactly which images to include!
Once you've added your images and organized them how you like, you can add text, choose which font you want (there are lots to choose from) and what colour you want the text to be. You can pick a colour scheme and add any clip art should you want to fill out certain dates in the calendar such as birthdays or important events in 2022.
When you're happy you'll be taken to a preview screen so you can make sure everything looks right and is spelt right! It says to allow up to 8 working days for calendars to be printed and dispatched, but when we designed one our expected delivery date was only 5 working days.
The one downside to Cewe is they're a little bit sneaky with extra charges. While delivery is pretty cheap at £2.99, you're charged £3.99 to use one of the templates so the prices displayed on the calendar home page, isn't actually the final price.
If you're looking for a budget-friendly photo calendar printing service, Vistaprint has you covered. Prices start from just £11.99 for a wall calendar and can be as cheap as £3.99 if you're just after a simple poster-style calendar.
There aren't as many different sizes or styles to choose from compared to other calendar printing services but it covers the basics. The wall calendar or desk calendar would be the best way of displaying photos and you can either use one of the 31 templates or use the blank template and design it yourself.
The editing software looks very similar to any other photo calendar design software. There is a sidebar that contains all the tools and images you would need to create your masterpiece. You can add frames and masks to your pictures if you feel like jazzing up your images up and you can also select different layouts to display your images.
You can whether you want to have a plain coloured background or a textured effect such as sand, snow or wood. If you're including lots of images it's probably best to go for something a bit simpler so that your images are the main attraction.
Considering these calendars are so well priced, there are a lot of customizable options that mean you can design every aspect of the calendar. There are also no hidden costs except for a delivery charge which is a very reasonable £2.99 for economy or £9.99 for express 2-day delivery.
We were very impressed by Mixbook's photo calendar service. Once you've selected which option you want, a separate window opens. After you've chosen which photos you want to upload, you can begin arranging your images on the calendar (you don't even have to wait for all the shots to have finished uploading),
Arranging photos is simple and easy, as you can swap shots around without any hassle at all. You can also edit your photos on the page by zooming in, adjusting Brightness, Saturation and other useful controls or by applying a filter (some are pretty gimmicky, but there are a couple of useful ones). You can even add photos to individual date boxes, which is a nice touch.
While most of the other calendars on this buying guide don't have back covers, the Mixbook offering does. This means you can stuff as many images into your calendar as possible.
With a wide range of color and font options, you can also add text to your calendar anywhere you like - whether that's on the front cover or in an individual date box. This is the perfect opportunity to manually add in special dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries.
While we found the Mixbook platform really easy to use, our only niggle is that once you've used a photo in the calendar, it disappears from the Photos window. However, this is really only a problem if you wanted to reuse a shot (for, say, the front and back cover). Plus, it's easily remedied by just quickly re-uploading the image.
Considering it was shipping from the US to the UK, the photo calendar arrived pretty quickly - which is perfect if you've got some last-minute ordering to do before Christmas.
The quality of the calendar was also very good. All of the images printed sharply and clearly, and all the colors were true to life as well. The paper felt reassuringly heavy and the design of the calendar section itself was nice and clean with plenty of space to write.
• Order a calendar from Mixbook
A close contender to Mixbook's No.1 photo calendar crown, Snapfish's offering has ultimate customization power and a plethora of templates and designs to dizzy and delight you. From delicate seasonal illustrations to specially designed family-orientated templates, Snapfish is the perfect company to choose if you're looking to print family snapshots.
However, what makes Snapfish such a strong option for family photos also lets it down for more serious photographers. Our only real problem with Snapfish is that amidst all the various templates and illustrated designs it can be difficult to create a simple and clean calendar that lets the focus shine on the photos themselves. While you can fudge the effect you want through customizing the design, this is what nudges Snapfish to our number two slot.
That being said, we really did enjoy using Snapfish's calendar service. One of the small touches that we particularly liked was the fact that you can add a photo to a particular date box and then add a stylishly designed caption on top - such as "The day we first met" or "Helen's birthday", etc.
All in all, Snapfish is easy to use and has plenty of customization options - if only there was a really beautifully designed classic option for more serious photographers, and Snapfish would have grabbed our number one slot.
• Order a calendar from Snapfish
Bonusprint feels very similar to Mixbook in how you design your calendar but is a much better option for those based in the UK and Europe as the delivery costs are cheaper.
The online editing system has lots of customizable options that enable you to edit photos by zooming in, flipping, rotating and adding filters. You can also add text and edit text, add a cute frame to your pictures such as snowflakes (perfect for the winter months) and choose a color scheme.
If you're after a photo calendar that allows you to add multiple images to each month, there are plenty of layout options where you can add up to eight images. Of course, each image will be smaller, so we recommend choosing no more than 4 - 6 so you can still see some of the small details.
The one tiny complaint we have is that in order to find out if you like the design software, you need to register for an account. It's simple enough to sign up, just an email address and password are required and why this is a little annoying, it really isn't the end of the world.
Bonusprint is only available within the UK and Europe so if you want to send it to friends and family further afield, you'll have to get it delivered to you and then ship it yourself. Creating a calendar with Bonusprint is fun, easy and won't cost the earth.
• Order a calendar from Bonusprint
You can be sure the quality of photo calendars printed by Boots Photo will be excellent as they use Cewe printing. Since there are so many Boots stores dotted around the UK, they are really easily accessible. The service itself costs the same as Cewe's online service, only there is an option to pick it up in-store instead of having it delivered. If you're at all worried about your calendar being bent or misshapen, it might be a good idea to have it sent to the store!
The only other difference between ordering via Boots or ordering from Cewe direct is that you can import photos using the Boots photo app.
Social Print Studio is the place to go to if you want a clean, simple, streamlined process without any superfluous frills. While you don't have many options regarding calendar format or size (okay, you have precisely one singular option…), what you are able to work with is beautifully designed.
Besides a weird quirk where you have to upload the photo for the cover and the images for the inside pages separately, Social Print Studio's system is really easy to use. While their website automatically fills each month's photo for you, you can easily change the order by clicking two frames to make the shots within them swap.
Unfortunately, unlike Mixbook's service, you're unable to add a photo to the back of the calendar as well. However, you are able to choose whether you want national holidays in your calendar - although be aware that you can only select holidays that are applicable in the US.
Overall, Social Print Service is a great option if you're not too bothered about customizing your calendar with lots of extra options.
• Order a calendar from Social Print Studio
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