artscow vs. shutterfly

B

beckyritchie04

New member
Which do yall like better for photobooks? I want to make an 8x8 photobook with about 80 pages. I was wondering which company you like the best as far as quality and price.

Thanks
 
I used a free promotion from ArtsCow for an 8x8 book, and had to pay a lot for the shipping.... I was really dissapointed by the quality & colors of it.. The faces were orangy and some of the colors (mostly the greens) looked faded... There were also very weird white borders everywhere, and I followed the guidelines they have on the site to prevent it... it didn't work :(

I had a book made from Inkubook which came out fantastic! With gorgeous rich colors and no white borders anywhere! I would totally recommend Inkubook. (I've never had anything printed with Shutterfly before.)

Inkubook really isn't that bad on the price, either. A 120 page book is only about $25-55 (average of all the sizes).
 
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Shutterfly Hands DOWN!

But, I've heard great things about viovio.com and I'm in the process of trying my first book with them.

Might be worth looking into.
 
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I couldn't even get to the point of making a book with Artscow because I'm on an older Mac and their software was incompatible. I got really rude and snippy customer service in response to all my inquiries, so they can offer me free stuff until the cows come home and I'll never use them. Some people love them but, to me, even the positive reviews seem to like their product "for the price."

I've been pretty pleased with Shutterfly, but unless they're running a deal or sending out free 8x8 codes, they're not the best option price wise. Their quality hasn't seemed as consistent in the last year or so either, but they do tend to back up their product and will re-do it for you.

There seems to be more and more options out there all the time, and I'd recommend doing searches here, DST and other places to get a wide range of opinions and options. :)
 
Quality wise -- shutterfly hands down. Artscow is nice because it's so cheap, especially with all those free coupons they keep sending out. But, I'm not convinced on using them for my books. I have ordered a few gift books and they're just OK.
 
First, Artscow can only do 39 page books, max. That's a real downfall for them. I have printed 8 books through Artscow and 1 through Shutterfly. My only issues with Artscow has been that occasionally I forget to shut off the page numbers on 1 or 2 pages and in the one book that I made for a friend a couple of the faces were really red, but it seems like that only happened on the people who were really red to begin with, drunk and using a cheap camera (wedding dance photos).

As far as customer service, you have to remember they are in Hong Kong so English is not a first language and the time change is really big. I usually only spent $10-$15 a book including shipping. I think thats worth it. Shutterfly is a lot more money. I don't think I have the patience to figure out Vivivo's amazingly confusing software, so I won't be trying that one. I currently have 2 more photobooks coming from Artscow. The more I buy from them, the more free/discount coupons I get. I have loved a lot of the other products I have gotten from them, too, playing cards, puzzles, dog tags, lots of cool things. I am going to be ordering a door mat and a canvas this week cause I got discount coupons for them, too. HTH!
 
I have 2 8x8 books from shutterfly. I was really happy with the quality. Really clear and the colors looked good. Shipping only took a few days also. :)
 
I prefer the binding on the Artscow book, and was happy with the quality. Shutterfly is great too, but the prices (and freebies) at Artscow keep me shopping there.
 
One more thing I wanted to say is that Shutterfly is really great if you don't mind the price, I've printed I believe 10 12x12 books and 12 8x8 books with them and I've had no issues.

I just order my first book from VioVio, just a 20 pager to see if I like them or not. I'm excited to see if I do, because they're about half the price of shutterfly. Once you start ordering more than 20 pages.
 
Oh Vanessa, ignore my pm then... I see you just ordered yours. I hope you like it.

I did have problems with my shutterfly book. Two of them. One had someone else's 20 pages in front of mine and another had red streaks on a few pages. They gladly (and quickly) replaced them and I didn't mind too much, but still--it should have been avoided with quality check.

I loved my hardcover viovio book and the printing was super crisp and clear. I printed some softcover ones and I don't know if it was a different printer or paper or what, but it wasn't quite as crisp. It was still at least as good (to me) as shutterfly's but not as good as my other book. Anyway, sorry to hijack this thread... I haven't tried artscow!
 
I have been looking at Viovio and Inkubook for my first photobook. I have used artscow and shutterfly for calendars and liked the paper and photo quality of shutterfly much better, but it was more expensive. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Advice is appreciated!
 
I don't know inkubook's pricing (but I hear it's good) but I just wanted to say I'm about to order a book from viovio--129 pages for about $55. Through shutterfly (which won't go about 100--but if it did) the same book would cost $140 (with no free offers, 110 with a free one). So that's an amazing difference. I won't knock shutterfly at all, but I have been very pleased with viovio.
 
I used Viovio but had such a hard time figuring out how to do the cover. It wasn't very user friendly at all(or I'm just stupid - which is how I felt trying to do it). It made me so crazy I ended up just buying the printed pages and then bought my own album to put the pages in. I was very happy with the pages though. Great colors and the pictures didn't come out grainy at all. I've heard that on Shutterfly, the pictures sometimes come out grainy. However, I ordered a calendar from them last year and the pictures were crisp and clean.
 
I just wanted to clarify that I did realize ArtsCow is in Hong Kong where English isn't the first language and that there is a time difference. I have Asian relatives, and my brother spent 10 years in Taipei teaching English. :) My questions were polite and straightforward, and I didn't expect immediate responses. Their English is quite good. I just think they probably stretch themselves way too thin with all the free offers and number of products they try to offer, so CS is bound to suffer.
 
Maybe you got a bad person and I have gotten good people. I have had a few issues since I do order monthly, but never had anyone give me bad customer service. Thats too bad.
 
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