Lulu Calendar Creator vs Mixbook

Lulu Calendar Creator is a web tool for designing custom calendars for printing, including art, photo, and memory calendars. Users can build a project in the creator or upload a print-ready PDF. Calendars may cover 12 or 18 months, or a custom period, and can include national events, custom events, or imported dates from an ICS file. The tool accepts images for covers and individual months and offers four themes.

Printed calendars are US Letter landscape, 11 × 8.5 inches, with wire-O binding along the 11-inch edge. Creating a project online is free; users pay when ordering printed copies. Calendars can be printed for personal use, sold through the Lulu Bookstore, or linked to an ecommerce store through Lulu Direct. Lulu lists Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, and its Printing API as selling options. It recommends sRGB images at 300 dpi. The company says its printer network generally takes 3–5 business days to produce an order, with the cart displaying an order-specific estimate.

Mixbook lets people create customizable printed photo books and other personalized photo products on the web or through its iOS app. Story Mode uses AI to organize photos, create layouts, optionally write captions, and generate three book versions. Mixbook Studio provides controls for fonts, backgrounds, colors, shapes, stickers, layouts, and text. Projects can import photos from Facebook, SmugMug, and Google Photos. Standard softcover and hardcover books support up to 400 pages; Signature Hardcover Layflat supports up to 100, and Premium Hardcover Layflat up to 90. Mixbook says every created photo book is backed up for later reprinting. Users can invite collaborators, who must have Mixbook accounts. The app supports iPhone and iPad and runs best on iOS 16.0 or later; Android is coming soon. Listed starting prices are 14.99 USD one-time for softcover, 29.99 USD for hardcover, 74.99 USD for Layflat, and 99.99 USD for Luxe Album. A Mixbook+ plan costs $9.99 a month through Apple for U.S. customers.