Shoebox vs Mootsh two print subscriptions
Every other company on this site is a different shape — a book, a bulk lab, a free app. Mootsh is the same shape we are: $18 a month for ten prints, shipping included. So this is the comparison worth reading, and the one where we lose the most rows.
Side by side
| What | Shoebox | Mootsh |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14 a month, shipping included — $1.40 a print, whatever kind of month you had. | $18.00 a month, free shipping, cancel anytime — $1.80 a print.1 |
| Ten prints, all in | $14, mailed. | $18, being the whole membership: ten prints is what it buys.1 |
| A year of it | $168: twelve months at $14, shipping in it. | Our arithmetic on their price: $216 for twelve months, shipping in it.1 |
| Shipping | Included, within the United States and Canada. | Free, in the membership. Their pages do not say which countries.1 |
| Sizes | 4×6 prints, one size, nothing else. | Six: 4×6, 5×7, 5×5, 3.38×6, 4.5×6 and 3.75×5, with 8×10 as a $9 add-on. More choice than we offer.1 |
| Paper | Photo paper from a professional lab, lustre finish. | Archival photographic paper, in an acid-free glassine envelope and a paper sleeve. Better made than ours.1 |
| Turnaround | Locks on the 10th; prints arrive within about a week. | Their pages describe a monthly rhythm but do not state how long printing and post take.1 |
| Who chooses | You do, from a shortlist of about a hundred, in two minutes. | You do, by uploading what you want printed.1 |
| Getting photos in | Connect Google Photos once. Nothing to upload again. | Upload from your phone or computer each month.1 |
| A month you do nothing | Nothing prints and the membership still bills. Cancel in Settings if you want the charges to stop. | They send a reminder, and unused credits roll over for up to twelve months. Better than ours.1 |
| Commitment | $14 a month until you cancel. | $18 a month, cancel anytime.1 |
| Where photos go | Sorted by a model on our own server. No photo goes to an AI company; print copies are deleted once the lab confirms it has them. | Uploaded to their service. Read their privacy terms before you decide. |
Checked 30 July 2026. Their column comes from their own pages. 1. Mootsh membership page (mootsh.com).
What it is
A monthly membership that posts you ten prints. You upload the photos you want printed, from a phone or a computer, and they arrive on archival photographic paper in an acid-free glassine envelope with a contact sheet. Unused credits roll over for up to twelve months.
That is close enough to what we sell that the honest question is not which is a photo subscription. It is who does the choosing, and what the paper is worth to you.
Where Mootsh is better
- The paper. Archival stock, an acid-free glassine envelope, a paper sleeve and a dated contact sheet. Ours is lustre photo paper from a professional lab, posted flat. Theirs is the better-made object and we would not pretend otherwise.
- Six sizes to our one. 4×6, 5×7, 5×5, 3.38×6, 4.5×6 and 3.75×5, with 8×10 as a $9 add-on. We print 4×6 and nothing else.
- A month you ignore is not a month you lose. Their credits roll over for up to twelve months. Ours do not: skip a month with us and the charge still happens and no prints do. That is the worst row on this page for us and it is a real difference, not a quibble.
Where we are different
- Nothing to upload. You connect Google Photos once. After that a shortlist comes to you each month and you approve ten. With Mootsh you go and find the photos and upload them, every month, which is the same job that leaves most camera rolls unprinted in the first place.
- Price. $14 a month against $18.00. Over a year that is our twelve charges against about $216 — our arithmetic on their published price.
- Where the photos go. Ours are sorted by a model running on our own machine, and no photo goes to an AI company. Theirs are uploaded to their service; read their privacy terms and decide for yourself. Neither of us is doing anything underhand — we just make a promise about it that we can be held to.
Which to pick
If you already know which photos you want printed and you care about the paper, Mootsh is the better product, and the difference in price buys something real. Both figures are in the table above.
Pick us if the deciding is the part that never happens. The whole design of Shoebox is that you are shown a shortlist and asked to approve ten, because a subscription that waits for you to upload is a subscription that quietly bills for nothing. What the membership covers sets out the rest.
Start this month
Ten prints a month, chosen from a shortlist rather than uploaded.
$14 a month, shipping included, within the United States and Canada. Cancel any month.
Prices here were read from the companies' own sites on 30 July 2026. They change their prices and their products, so check theirs before you decide. Every name belongs to its owner and we are not connected to any of them. If we have got something wrong, write to hello@shoeboxprints.com and we will fix it.