Is Zenfolio the only site that links to Mpix for prints?

[Joe Copalman]

My wife has hit a wall in looking for a simple, low-cost way of hosting photos of our kids online and allowing family members to print.  We've been using Wal-Mart, but have been consistently disappointed with the quality of the prints and the mismanagement of print orders.  Most other consumer-grade services seem equally disappointing.  We're both impressed with the quality and pricing of images offered through Mpix, but as far as we can tell, the only hosting site that links directly to Mpix is Zenfolio, and we're not wanting to spend $50 a year just so family members can get decent prints. 

Anyone know if there are any other hosting sites that link to Mpix?  If not, any suggestions based on your experience for hosting services with good print quality and customer service?  Thanks!

[Jay Beckman]

I don't know much about their service (or who they partner with for printing) but I'm pretty sure you can also buy prints off SmugMug as well.

The problem is that just about any sharing service that offers print ordering is going to take a cut as a service fee with the assumption being that you'll mark up your own prices to cover this expense.

The nice thing with Zen is that you can apply a custom price list site-wide, gallery by gallery or even image by image (something I'm working on right now on my site in order to prevent people ordering 8x10s of images that don't fit the 4:5 aspect ratio.)

You can set custom prices that are "bare bones" and don't cost your family "customers" anything over the actual cost of the print.

If you think you'll only be doing onesies and twosies, you're probably better off buying your own printer and rolling your own...

[Chris Kennedy]

I don't know anything about it, but you can order prints directly from Flickr using a service called Snapfish.

[Jay Beckman]

Sorry for pulling a "Lazarus" here but it occurred to me that you can establish an MPix account and upload to them directly for printing.

If it's a sale, you simply bill for the service plus taxes and mark up...

[scottcolbath]

Joe, spend the money and get a Smugmug account. I've had one since 2005 and love it.

S.C.