Is Sam's Club Photo a Good Deal? Here's Our Review

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One interesting perk you may not know you have as a Sam's Club member is access to Sam's Club photo printing services. You can upload your photos online and order anything from a standard 4x6 to poster-size 24x36 prints.

Of course, it's hard to trust just anyone with immortalizing your treasured memories. So I took the plunge and tried out the service for you. (You're welcome.) Here's what I found.

Prices can be less than half as much as other services

From the perspective of my budget , I really liked what I saw. Most items I looked at were cheaper at Sam's Club Photo than other sites, but it was especially clear when I compared print prices with another popular competitor:

Sam's Club is charging less than half of what Shutterfly charges for many of these print sizes, especially as you get into larger photos. (That means you're paying more for many items on Shutterfly, even with the 51% discount to the site you can get with a Costco membership !)

Shipping is free for Plus members

If we're talking about getting a few 4x6 or 5x7 photos for holiday cards or scrapbooks, then the bigger issue isn't necessarily saving $0.10 per photo -- though that definitely does add up. No, it's the shipping.

I ordered 20 photos, between 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 sizes. Not only did Shutterfly want to charge me more than twice what Sam's Club did for the photos, but Shutterfly wanted $17.99 (?!?) to ship them .

As a Sam's Club Plus member, my free shipping benefits extend to my photo purchases. So I not only paid half price for the photos, but I also saved that twice over again with free shipping. (FYI: You need to spend $49 to get free shipping with Shutterfly via your Costco discount.)

Order to delivery is relatively quick

I placed my order on the evening of Wednesday, July 3, 2024, and it arrived in the evening on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. This feels like a long time, but it was actually pretty good when you consider I placed the order over a major holiday weekend.

In fact, it was only three business days between order and delivery. This is very reasonable for a custom order of pretty much anything.

Quality of standard prints is good, but not fantastic

So, here's the shoe dropping. Sam's Club produces the standard prints on thinner photo paper. It still has the look and feel of a typical photo, don't get me wrong, but it is definitely more flexible and somewhat flimsier than photo prints from other sources.

I wasn't 100% impressed with the quality of the packaging, either. While I appreciated that shipping was free, the photos were mailed in a paper envelope with only a insubstantial piece of cardboard to protect them from bending. The 8x10 had a noticeable wave to the edges when it arrived.

The quality of the photo itself is fine. The color is pretty good and the finish looks like a typical matte photograph. In fact, I'd say the picture quality is better than the ones I purchased from Shutterfly several years ago. (More on par with my Snapfish prints , also from several years ago.)

Once I popped the photos into frames, they looked just as good as any other photos I have around the house.

Overall impression: Good deal for most use cases

All in all, I'm perfectly content with the prints I received and I will happily use Sam's Club Photo again in the future. The photos worked great for my purposes (decoration in a frame), and I didn't have to pay more than the cost of the photos just to get them shipped to me.

If you like to scrapbook, make collages, or otherwise print a lot of photos, this is definitely a service to explore. Depending on your use, it could even make sense to upgrade to a Sam's Club Plus membership for the free shipping.

We're firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team. Brittney Myers has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .