I kept seeing Chatbooks, a photobook printing service, pop up in my Instagram feed and finally decided to order some for myself. I’ve been using it for a couple of months now to print my Instagram pictures and wanted to write a review. I love its ease and affordability, and I’d probably never get around to printing pictures otherwise!

I N S T A G R A M  S E R I E S

First you have to download the Chatbooks app (there is no desktop interface). Once it’s downloaded, open up the app and decide which of the three types of Chatbooks you’d like to create. If you want to print all your Instagram pictures at once, it’s easiest to use the “Instagram Series” feature which will automatically suck all your images into the Chatbooks app. Your pictures appear chronologically and you cannot edit the order. Each book is $6 and 60 pages, and you have the option to purchase them all at once or spread them out. 

Chatbooks is an ongoing printing service — once you reach 60 images, they send you an email giving you a 3 day window to make any edits to your latest book. You can select a title, the cover photo, delete images, and show/hide captions, locations, date, and time.

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C H A T B O O K S  S E R I E S

This is the same as the Instagram Series except you can add multiple contributors. For instance if you have multiple accounts, your spouse has an account, or for special events like weddings (you can add images by hashtag). These also ship automatically once you hit 60 images and only the Chatbook creator has the ability to edit the book.

C U S T O M  B O O K S

“Custom books” allow you to have anywhere from 30 – 300 images from Instagram or your phone’s camera roll and you can arrange them in any order you like. I created custom books as Christmas gifts for my family, and you can even have multiple accounts contribute images to the books. It was a little tricky to figure out how to add pictures from my “Instagram Series” to a custom book. You go into your Instagram Series book and select the photos you want to add, and at the bottom there is an “add to” button where you can create a new custom book. These start at $6 for a 30 page book, and $1 for every 10 images after that.

A couple of things I noticed:

  • If you want to order multiple copies of a book you have to place separate orders for each one
  • If you have super long captions it prints on a second blank page (but this will show up in your preview so you can delete that caption if you want).
  • The cover photo of a video will print so if you don’t want those included, you have to delete them.
  • If you delete pictures from your Instagram feed, they will disappear from your Chatbooks account even if you’ve already printed them. So be sure to back up your images with a free service like Instaport if you want them saved in one easily accessible place.

  • They have amazing in app customer service.  

I love how it ships automatically and I don’t even have to think about it. The kids love going through them too! If you’d like to give Chatbooks a try, use my referral code QMMRGH6J for 1 free book!

Have you tried Chatbooks? Or do you have another go-to photo printing service?

* This is not a sponsored post, and I didn’t receive any products or payment for writing this review. If you sign up with the referral code above, you get a free book and I earn a $1 credit.