The Best Holiday Photo Cards

Our pick

Simply to Impress

Best holiday photo cards

Simply to Impress delivered our favorite prints, and its good-looking templates, easy-to-use site, and beautiful packaging sealed the deal.

Buying Options

Buy from Simply to Impress

Simply to Impress made it easier to create a beautiful custom holiday photo card than other services we tried. It offers an exceptionally wide selection of designs, with filters that efficiently narrow the results, so you won’t spend ages scrolling through unsuitable options. Once you’ve found the right one, you can customize it with simple editing tools and choose from ample paper, finish, and trim options. Turnaround is brisk, you get a variety of options for shipping speed, and, if you prefer, the service can do the busywork of addressing and mailing your cards (at extra cost).

Budget pick

Nations Photo Lab

Good-quality holiday photo cards at a great price

Although Nations Photo Lab has fewer options than top competitors and the site is harder to use, no other service we tested offered such high-quality cards for such a low price.

Buying Options

Buy from Nations Photo Lab

If you’re on a tight budget, the holiday photo cards from Nations Photo Lab look nearly as good as those from Simply to Impress. The site’s limited search options mean you’re stuck scrolling through pages of designs to find the one you want, and Nations Photo Lab offers neither an addressing service nor a card-mailing service. But the company’s per-card prices are less than half those of the most expensive services we tested, and shipping is free on orders of $49 or more.

Also great

Staples

Best same-day holiday photo card pickup option

If you need last-minute cards, Staples will give you decent prints in less than 24 hours.

Buying Options

Buy from Staples

If time isn’t of the essence, go with one of our other picks. But if Christmas is fast approaching or you’re stuck with a last-minute assignment from your boss, Staples provides the best mix of quality templates, ease of use, and quick turnaround at a reasonable price. Our Staples cards came out darker than those from our top pick but had comparable sharpness and color fidelity—not the best, but definitely good enough for display on a fridge. While all employees and customers were masked as required by Staples’s Covid-19 protocols when we picked up this year’s cards, we can’t attest to how well your local store is aderehing to those safety measures.

Also great

Costco Premium Stationery Cards

Best custom photo cards for Costco members

If you’re already a Costco member and you have a lot of people to send cards to, these cards provide stellar value.

Buying Options

Buy from Costco

Costco’s holiday cards look great and are exceptionally budget-friendly. Return-addressed envelopes are even included in the price, and you can pick the cards up from your local Costco store to avoid having to pay for shipping. That said, despite these cards’ incredible value proposition, we don’t recommend them for everyone. Why? There are no paper options or fancy envelopes, Costco doesn’t offer mailing service, the 50-card minimum order size for customized templates is awfully large for most families, and, of course, you have to be a Costco member to buy these cards.