Lulu Calendar Creator vs Shutterfly

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.

Shutterfly is a service for creating customizable photo books and ordering printed photo products. Projects can be made on the web, iOS or Android, using layouts, backgrounds, stickers, frames and professionally designed idea pages. The Create Your Own option includes AI-powered autofill to place photos, and a free 24-hour designer service is available for photo book design. Books require at least 20 pages and support up to 111 pages. Cover choices include softcover, glossy or matte hardcover and premium leather, with standard or layflat pages. Listed starting prices are $24.98, paid once for an 8×8 softcover, $33.73, paid once for a 10×10 softcover, and up to $193.73, paid once for a 10×10 premium leather layflat book. Additional-page charges vary by format. Active accounts with at least one order every 18 months receive unlimited photo storage, sharing and downloading. The app supports iPhone, iPad and Android devices, but not Kindle Fire. Shutterfly describes the books for memories, travel, baby books, recipes, portfolios and everyday projects.