Below are three websites that we think will help you create the best custom holiday cards to send to your friends and family this year. Between these five companies, you can find nearly any photo and personalized message holiday card design. One company will even address your envelopes, put a stamp on it and mail it out for you!
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The Top 5 Sites To Create Custom Holiday Cards
5. Papier
Papier offers over 200 illustrated custom Christmas cards that allow you to personalize the inside with your message and name. If you’re looking for festive, creative or funny illustrated holiday cards this year, this is probably going to be the place that’s going to have what you want.
With that being, there are still 60 custom photo holiday card designs if that’s what you’re looking for. While listed as the Christmas card category, the collection still contains general holiday cards as well as New Year cards.
One of the unique characteristics of Papier’s card designs are the ones folded horizontally so that they can be propped up. This gives those who receive your card an option other than the usual refrigerator door or being put in a stack of others.
Here is why we recommend Papier for your custom holiday cards:
Free Recipient Addressing: Along with free white envelope, you can upload your recipient addresses and Papier will print them neatly for you for free! However, it does cost extra to have the return address printed.
Folded Prop Cards: Don’t get buried in a stack with other holiday cards or tossed up into the crowd of other cards stuck on the refrigerator door. With the ability to stand on its own, your card can be both a beautiful photo of your family and an easel! This folded design makes it more likely that you get space all to yourself on a counter or table instead of being hidden with all the other holiday cards.
Illustrations: Other than some illustrated business holiday cards discussed below, Papier is really the only company on this list that offers an ample number of custom illustrated holiday cards.
4. Chatbooks
Chatbooks specializes in everything photo and this includes custom photo holiday cards. With more than 100+ card designs to choose from, Chatbooks also provides a lot of desired features for free. This includes free envelopes, free printed backs of photo cards and free return addressing.
Even with these free features, the pricing for all of their cards are competitive and often better than most of the other companies on this list. Chatbooks also keeps it simple when it comes to filtering down card choices with three primary holiday categories:
- Religious Holiday Cards
- Christmas Cards
- New Year Cards
Chatbooks also makes it very easy for you to understands some of the customizable features without having to click on each individual card. Some cards show color options for text and the card while also allowing you to click to immediately see the change. Also, cards that have premium foil as an option are indicated as so. Overall, Chatbooks has made it easy to quickly tell whether or not a card is what you are looking for.
As previously noted, Chatbooks specializes in everything photo, but the company is most well-known for its line of photo books. If you post photos on social media, you’ll likely be interested in one of the more popular photo book options that allows customers to create a photo book straight from photos on their Instagram and/or phone.
Here is why we recommend Chatbooks for your custom holiday cards:
Included Features: As mentioned above, Chatbooks has a competitive price while also including free envelopes, free printed back and free return addressing. These are awesome inclusions that other companies often increase the price per card if you want them.
Custom Printed Back: You can also choose what your free printed back looks like! With up to four different basic text layouts, customers can choose what best fits what they want to communicate to loved ones this holiday season. Keep it simple with a couple lines or include a few paragraphs – it’s all up to you!
Colorful Selection: While the others have cards that aren’t just on a white background, Chatbooks seems to offer more colorful holiday cards in comparison.
3. Basic Invite
Basic Invite definitely exceeds the expectations as it gives customers the most options to modify their cards. From the shape of a card to the coloring of an illustration, you really do have the ability to personalize a card design to be your very own.
Offering primarily photo and personalized messaging cards, Basic Invite offers 1,000+ customizable designs to choose from. They also are the only company on this list that offers a notable amount of custom holiday cards for businesses. Customers can sort all holiday cards by size, holiday, color, orientation and themes. Below are the specific holiday categories offered on the Basic Invite website:
- Christmas Cards
- Corporate Holiday Cards
- Hanukkah Cards
- Basic Holiday Cards
- New Year Cards
- Valentine’s Day Cards
Here is why we recommend Basic Invite for your custom holiday cards:
Mailing Service: Basic Invite is the ONLY card company listed that will literally address, stamp and mail your holiday cards for you. Besides saving time, this deal is so great that it costs less to do all three things than what most card companies charge to simply address the envelopes for you. With a price of $0.35 per card, you’re saving a lot of time while paying less per card than what a regular postage stamp costs!
Abundance of Customizable Features: Basic Invite lets you customize so much more about the card than any card company that we could find. Here are a few features you can modify that are pretty neat and unique:
- Card Shape – Square, Rounded, Bracket, Ticket
- Type of Paper Used – Smooth Coated, Signature Matte, Premium Shimmer, Luxe Velvet, Double Thick Matte
- Card Color – You don’t have to settle for white
- Illustration Colors – Want purple berries in your wreath instead of red? You can change that.
- Text Color – It doesn’t all have to be the same and there is also an option for foil!
Business Holiday Card Collection: Send some holiday cheer from your company and choose from a selection of 162 holiday corporate cards offered by Basic Invite. Whether you’re looking for a design that is clean-cut or looking for a more jolly style, Basic Invite extends a variety of customizable business holiday cards that are sure to meet your desires.
2. Artifact Uprising
Artifact Uprising doesn’t quite have the same large selection as some of the other custom holiday card companies on this list, but they do offer a clean collection of cards that still offers a wide variety of photo and personalizable messaging cards. In some ways it is actually nice to have roughly 90 card designs to choose from rather than drowning in thousands of designs that seem to complicate your holiday card creation more than it should.
One of the primary factors that sets Artifact Uprising apart from other custom holiday card companies is the priority it gives to being Eco-friendly. By only printing on 100% recycled paper, this company is doing its best to lessen its ecological footprint while still helping others spread holiday joy through fun, creative custom holiday cards.
Customers can narrow down the selection further by choosing a particular holiday card category or even just by the style of card:
- Christmas Photo Cards
- New Year Photo Cards
- Foil-Stamped Cards
- Hand-Lettered Cards
- Multi-Image Cards
- Collaboration Cards
- Holiday Envelope Seals
- Design Your Own Cards (Folded/Flat)
While Artifact Uprising appears to only sell Christmas cards and New Year cards, most of the customizable card designs don’t have Christmas-based theme and could pass as any holiday card. Plus, customers the ability to customize basically every single element making it very easy to personalize it to whatever holiday they want.
Along with its exceptional custom holiday card selection, check out Artifact Uprising’s modern die-cut cover photo book. This unique photo book can be one of the most intimate gifts you give a loved one or yourself this winter.
Here is why we recommend Artifact Uprising for your custom holiday cards:
Eco-Friendly: As mentioned above, Artifact Uprising prints on purely on 100% recycled paper while still delivering affordable and high quality holiday cards. These reasons make it the best choice for those especially wanting to choose a green company.
Foil Color Option: For those who don’t know, foil [link to foil page] is a great way to make your Christmas, Hanukkah or general holiday card really pop. Replacing ink with colorful foil that shines in the light can really set your card apart from the rest. Artifact Uprising makes adding/selecting foil easy as it separates the foil color options from regular ink colors within on the customization menu.
Print Addresses On Envelopes: Save time and hand cramps by having all of your return and recipient addresses printed right on the envelope. However, this feature is a little pricey as it costs $0.40 per envelope.
Envelope Colors: Rather than being subjected to a particular envelope, Artifact Uprising is the only personalizable card company out of the three listed that gives you a selection of several envelope colors to choose from.
1. Zazzle
Zazzle has entrenched itself as one of the go-to markets for designers and customers to create and sell their own products through independent manufacturers. This marketplace has helped cultivate one of the largest, if not THE LARGEST, selection of customizable holiday cards. Don’t believe us? Go see for yourself and browse its collection of 166,500+ different custom holiday card designs currently listed on zazzle.com at this moment.
Before worrying about scrolling through thousands of custom card designs, Zazzle has made it very easy to narrow down the selection through its filtering system. Start by choosing from one of the following customizable holiday card categories:
- Christmas Cards
- Hanukkah Cards
- Holiday Birth Announcements
- Holiday Pregnancy Announcements
- Moving/New Home Announcements
- New Year’s Cards
- Thanksgiving Cards
- Valentine’s Day Cards
After selecting the category, you can then choose from a selection of card formats, including folded, foil, trifold, magnetic, postcard or flat. Or, you can go directly to selecting a theme such as pet, photo, funny, business, year in review, etc. This will help you reduce the number of choices even more.
Once you’ve found the personalized holiday card that you absolutely love, you can start customizing it with text and/or photos right on the spot.
Zazzle hosts massive collection of various personalized holiday items other than just cards. One of the more popular and unique Zazzle marketplaces during the holiday season is its huge selection of customizable gift tags.
Here is why we recommend Zazzle for your custom holiday cards:
Largest Selection: Not many companies are going to compete with 166,500+ total custom holiday card designs. Zazzle has 93,000+ personalizable Christmas cards for sale alone!
Flexible Customization: Customers definitely get the most say in what their custom holiday cards look like when using Zazzle. Most card designs allow you to choose from a variety of sizes, shapes, paper types and whether you want to use standard or high definition printing processes.
Design Your Own: If you already have the perfect holiday card design in your mind, skip the hassle of trying to find something similar by creating your own card design. Zazzle allows you to customize almost everything about the card while also giving you access to a wide selection of fonts, colors, foil and paper type.
Envelopes Are Optional: You can opt out of having envelopes included with your cards and as a result you’ll save $0.15 per card!
Connect Directly To Instagram/Phone: Only have cute photos on Instagram or your phone? You can upload photos directly from Instagram or your phone through Zazzle to save you time and the potential loss of picture quality.
Editing Capabilities: Zazzle definitely has the most user-friendly platform for personalizing the holiday cards. You have the option to do basic customization right on the product page or you can do more extensive personalization with an editing system on the site that is comparable to Adobe Photoshop.
