Honest Chatbooks Review (after using for it for 4+ years)

If you’re a parent who takes a lot of photos (I easily hit 2,000+ a month between work and everyday life), you probably have good intentions about printing them… and then never do. That’s exactly why I subscribed to Chatbooks when my first kiddo was about a year old ago. It felt like the only way I’d actually get our family memories off my phone into a place where we’d see them. (We also have a Skylight digital frame, but we look at the Chatbooks more often, and I like having something that isn’t a screen for my boys.)

What is Chatbooks?

Chatbooks is a photo book service that makes it incredibly easy to turn your everyday memories into keepsakes. It’s my favorite way to get photos off my phone and into something we can actually enjoy as a family. It pulls your pictures straight from your camera roll and turns them into affordable little books and it only takes me about 10 minutes to make one.

Honest Chatbooks Review (after using it for 4+ years)

After using Chatbooks consistently for over four years, here’s my honest review, including what I love, what drives me crazy, and whether I think it’s worth it.

The #1 Thing That Made Me Subscribe to Chatbooks

I wanted to see the photos that we take! I’m not a baby book kind of person, and I’ve even been guilty of frames sitting empty for 2+ years without printing a picture to put in them. Chatbooks’ “monthbooks” get photos off my camera roll into a durable book that everyone in my family (and even visitors!) love looking at. 

But because I take so many photos, I run them all through the GetSorted app first. It helps me narrow everything down, so Chatbooks’ auto-select tool has much better results. Their auto-select is good, but since my camera roll is chaos, I still do a final review before it prints. The auto select saves me time and gives me a solid starting point as long as I do a little camera roll clean-up first.

You can see my process of GetSorted + Chatbooks in this reel. 

Monthbooks

Monthbooks are my favorite Chatbooks product because they create an ongoing record of our lives, especially the little moments that might otherwise be forgotten. 

Pros

• The pages are extremely sturdy.
  
  My boys are rough with books, and they’ve never ripped a single page from our monthly Chatbooks. Truly impressive.
  
• They make great gifts.
  
  Grandparents love them, and they’re an easy, non-toy birthday gift when you want to give something personal but not add clutter. It’s also a great suggestion for grandparents to get so you don’t end up with yet another toy.
  
• Subscription keeps you consistent.
  
  If I didn’t get the monthly reminder, I’d forget to print photos entirely. The structure really helps me.
   
• Encourages me to clean up all my photos
  
  The Chatbooks reminder also reminds me to clean up my photo roll, which just feels good! 

• Affordable
  
  It’s $12.99 a month, which adds up, but it’s worth it to me since my whole family loves them. 

You can use code TERILYN for 20% off your order.

Cons

• Layout customization in the mini Monthbooks is limited and not intuitive.
  
  Changing layouts feels harder than it should be. I still don’t really know how to format multiple photos on a page

Custom Books: Classic Photo Books

These are the larger, more curated books, great for trips, holidays, or year-in-review albums.

Pros

• Chatbooks will design the book for you.
  
  If you’re overwhelmed by hundreds (or thousands!) of photos from a big trip, letting them auto-design it is a huge time-saver. But you can also customize it yourself if you prefer more control. I’m picky about layouts and storytelling, so I usually tweak their designs.

Cons

• Special occasion books can get pricey.
  
  Once you start adding more pages, the cost climbs quickly.

My sister-in-law actually uses Snapfish for these bigger albums because she said the quality is the same and much more affordable. I plan to try that for our next big project.

Pricing

Chatbooks is affordable for the subscription-style Monthbooks, but less so for large custom albums. The base price is fair, but add-ons (extra pages, upgraded covers) add up quickly.

If you’re printing a big trip or a family yearbook, compare the price to Snapfish or Shutterfly. 

Quality

Overall, the quality is excellent, especially for the Monthbooks.

• The pages are thick and durable.
  
• Colors print true-to-life.
  
• The binding holds up (even with toddler hands).

Final Thoughts: Is Chatbooks Worth It?

Yes – for everyday photos and monthly memory keeping.

The convenience, durability, and ease of staying consistent genuinely make it worth the cost.

For big, high-page-count albums? Probably not.

Those get expensive fast, and there are more affordable options with similar print quality.

But if your phone is overflowing with photos and you want a system that actually gets them printed, Chatbooks is one of the easiest solutions out there.

Don’t forget to use code TERILYN for 20% off your order.