Costco Photo: A Kirkland Signature Perk Gets the Boot (2024)

FAQs

Is Costco discontinuing photo printing? ›

Costco Photo Center Closing

On January 28th, 2023, the Costco Photo Center website alongside its sister website, CostcoBusinessPrinting.com, shut down and stopped receiving orders for photo products such as custom canvas prints, acrylic prints, metal prints, banners and yard signs.

Adding a Costco membership number to a Shutterfly account automatically applies a 51% discount to the cart on all Shutterfly orders and free shipping on orders over $49. Costco exclusive discounts only apply when connected to an active Costco membership.

While prints are often available the next day at your closest Costco Warehouse, others may take five to seven business days for delivery. You can pick up many items at your Costco store or have them shipped to your home. You can keep track of your photo order status from within your Costco Photo account.

You can upload photos directly from your phone for printing. With the Costco app (iOS or Android), you can order traditional prints, canvas prints, photo books and more on the go right from the palm of your hand — using the pictures you've already got stored on your phone or on your social media accounts.

Costco has recently ceased operations of its online photo center, so you must transfer your digital photo collection to Shutterfly to avoid losing your images. The deadline for this transfer is January 31, 2024. Here's what you need to do: Visit Costco's website and navigate to the 'Photos' section.

Like other big-box retailers, Target offers a reasonable selection of photo printing options for images you upload to its online service, but unlike some competitors, the company doesn't let you pick up prints at a local store anymore. The good news is that print quality has improved since it stopped that service.

For our Costco Photo Center review, we awarded it 3.5 stars overall because of the premium we put on top quality. But depending on your budget, you may rate it even higher.

Costco will scan your slides for $0.32/slide, with a minimum cost of $19.99. For that price, you will get scans that have a resolution of a bit less than 2200 DPI - or to put it another way, it's the equivalent of converting your slides to 6MP images. We digitize slides at about 4200 DPI (24 MP images).

Costco members receive an exclusive discount of 51% off regular-priced Shutterfly orders (automatically applied at checkout), plus free shipping on orders over $49, every time you shop at Shutterfly.

Who does Costco use for photo printing? ›

In its letter to customers, Costco wrote: “On January 28, 2023, products and services previously available from CostcoPhotoCenter.com, CostcoDVD.com, and CostcoBusinessPrinting.com will no longer be available. Costco members are being offered the opportunity to transfer their photos and address book to Shutterfly.”

For its low price, Shutterfly delivers acceptable small prints with decent color fidelity. The pictures suffer from graininess, however, making them less sharp than the output we see with competing services.

In January 2023, Costco ceased operations of its Photo Center and no longer offers canvas prints or other print-on-demand photo products. You can continue to order the same high quality canvas prints JONDO has produced for Costco at Canvaspop.

Pros – Costco Photo Center [costcophotocenter.com] has online ordering for digital prints and easy to use an in store Kiosk for prints (they no longer develop film). Print quality is reported to be pretty good. Cons – Costco no longer develops film. Requires membership.

Please visit your local warehouse membership counter to update your photo.