Mixbook vs Picaboo Photo Books Comparison

When it comes to picking a photo book service there are usually two companies that stand out the most: Mixbook and Shutterfly. As a matter of fact, Mixbook is one of the best photo services on the market, since it provides virtually unlimited customization options all for cost-friendly prices. With this in mind it might seem as though competitors that try to go up against Mixbook have no chance at all. Or do they?

Enter Picaboo, a photo printing company with an equally good online photo book builder that also provides plenty of ways to customize your book in whichever way you want. And if that’s not convincing enough, Picaboo operates with cheap prices and provides fast and affordable shipping to any destination in the world. So how, exactly, could you pick between the two?

The company’s editor – which became even better after the overhaul in 2017 – is simple yet straightforward, providing an insane amount of versatility regarding customization options. For instance, there are more than 300 themes to choose from – that can even be changed during the editing process – but Mixbook’s builder also has plenty of layouts, backgrounds and other embellishments too.

And these are just the basic aspects of the service. Mixbook is also automatically saves projects, can autofill the book with photos, spellchecks text, and warns of any low-resolution photos. In addition to that, the software allows other users to contribute to your projects via invitation.

As for the physical attributes of Mixbook’s photo books – which can be combined freely with each other before editing – they are available in three shapes, with seven cover types and can be ordered with up to 399 pages with a standard or layflat binding. All this comes at a cost as low as $15.99 and is quickly shipped to anywhere in the world from $5.99.

For starters photos can be added to the project from a variety of sources and then placed into the book manually or with the autofill feature. As is expected from any modern photo book builders, everything can be modified to your liking, from the background, layouts and embellishments to the photos themselves, which can be further adjusted according to various criteria. To make sure the book is printed the way it appears in the editor, Picaboo immediately warns you if pages are bigger than the crop zone or if the text has to be spellchecked.

Although the list of themes is a bit limited – and the preferred theme has to be chosen before the editing process begins – they can be freely combined with all four types of photo book that are offered by Picaboo. These types cover many different sizes, two shapes and three covers, and have the option to either upgrade to layflat binding. However, it’s worth noting that certain book types like Seamless Lay-Flat and Premium Mini Books come with layflat binding by default, regardless of cover, shape or size.

The cheapest photo book of Picaboo costs $19.99, while shipping – which requires two weeks max – starts from $4.99.

Conclusion

It’s really hard to go against a photo book giant, especially if that happens to be Mixbook. It’s understandable why that is such a gargantuan task, since there are very few photo book editors that provide this many customization options and such a great variety where the size, cover and binding of the books are concerned. Not to mention that Mixbook has great prices that, combined with the cheap and timely shipping, makes this company virtually unbeatable.

Still, Picaboo has nothing to be ashamed of since it is worthy of comparison to Mixbook. The company’s online editor perfectly serves its purpose, plus it provides such extras as a visible crop zone and many customization options for photo book pages – like the advanced adjustment of attached photos. And even if certain photo book attributes cannot be freely combined with each other, it’s guaranteed that you can still create the photo book of your dreams for affordable prices and have it shipped quickly and for a song.