Walgreens Photo Review (2024)

Your local Walgreens is not just for prescriptions, cough syrup, and toothpaste—it's also a convenient place to pick up your pictures. The drug store chain's same-day photo printing service offers near-instant gratification at thousands of store locations across the US, and if you're not in a rush for your prints, the company can mail them to you instead. Walgreens Photo offers a good selection of print sizes, and its print quality bests the other pharmacy photo provider, CVS Photo. You do pay more for the convenience, however. Regardless, for same-day photos, Walgreens Photo is our Editors' Choice winner for same-day delivery. When it comes to getting your photos by mail, our top pick for high-end photo printing is Nations Photo Lab. For the best low-cost option, we recommend Walmart Photo.

How Much Does Walgreens Photo Cost?

Walgreens charges 39 cents per print for the first 74 4-by-6-inch photos you print and 29 cents each beyond that number. By comparison, Snapfish still charges only 9 cents per 4-by-6 print-by-mail order. That puts Walgreens Photos on the high end of the photo printing price spectrum—you pay for the convenience of local pickup. Even with one-hour pickup, Walmart charges much less, just 14 cents for each 4-by-6 print. CVS Photo charges 42 cents per print for local pickup. Target and Rite Aid no longer offer local photo pickup. Discount behemoth Amazon Photos charges 17 cents per 4-by-6, but those prints are mailed.

Even higher-end photo finishers charge less per print than Walgreens (and CVS Photo) for a 4-by-6. Mpix charges 36 cents, Nations Photo Lab charges 36 cents, and Printique charges 32 cents. Those services don't offer same-day pickup unless you happen to live in the area where their facilities are located.

For larger print sizes, Walgreens charges $2.99 for a 5-by-7 and $4.49 for an 8-by-10, matching CVS's prices for those sizes. Walmart Photo charges $1.09 for a 5-by-7 and $2.94 for an 8-by-10. Like CVS Photo, Walgreens Photo charges the same for mail orders as for same-day store pickup.

Setting Up Your Walgreens Photo Order

You need to create an account on Walgreens' site before you can order photo prints. Surprisingly, this is not universally the case with photo printing services; some let you add pictures and create print jobs without asking you to log in until the last moment before purchase. I prefer having an account for easy access to uploaded photos and previous orders. With Walgreens Photo, you can optionally specify your local store branch and join the company's loyalty program.

(Credit: Walgreens/PCMag)

To upload your photos, you first need to create an album. By default, album names are simply the current date, but you can name them whatever you want. You can either upload photos directly from your computer or import them from Facebook, Google Photos, and Instagram. Uploading is simple via a standard file-picker dialog box or by drag-and-drop, and you can select multiple files to upload in one fell swoop. You can upload JPG, HEIC (aka HEIF), and PNG formats—but no TIFFs. Still, that’s better than some competitors that only allow JPGs. I also applaud the support for HEIC/HEIF, a format that saves significant space on phone storage without reducing image quality.

Walgreens Photo's interface is remarkably similar to Snapfish's and CVS Photo's, so I suspect they use the same underlying technology. That’s fine since it’s not a bad interface, though it lacks the tools and slickness of Mpix or Printique. As with Snapfish and CVS Photo, ordering multiple print sizes in Walgreens Photo is a simple matter of entering numbers in boxes on the order page, ranging from wallet-size to 8-by-10.

(Credit: Walgreens/PCMag)

When it comes to image editing, Walgreens is nearly identical to CVS Photo and Snapfish. The editing tools consist simply of sliders for brightness and contrast and auto-correct switches for color correction, contrast, and fill flash. You can also crop and rotate. Walgreens only offers two filters—B&W and sepia—whereas Snapfish and CVS add a few more tints, but they’re nothing to write home about.

Walgreens Photo’s editing tools work as expected. You can crop and reposition the image to be printed, but you don't get a selection of borders like Nations Photo Lab's white and black border options. You can choose matte paper, but that's only available through mail order. One interesting option is the ability to add an 8-by-10 collage based on photos in your order. For my order, a good-looking five-image collage added $4.49 to the price.

(Credit: Walgreens/PCMag)

In addition to letting you order prints, the Walgreens Photo site lets you share online photo galleries—not all photo printing services do. The shared galleries allow full-browser-window slideshows but no commenting or liking. Still, for a richer photo-sharing experience, including public sharing to interest groups, head over to Flickr.

Pickup or Shipping

Right after checking out, I received an email with my estimated pickup time, which was an hour after placing the order. In truth, my order was ready 40 minutes after I placed it. There's a good chance you can order and wait for your prints on the spot. That's tough to beat. If you need your photos fast, Walgreens is a good bet.

For pickups, you pay in the store when you get the photos; the credit card info you enter on the site is just to secure the order. If you can’t get to the store, you can designate someone else to pick it up or switch to home delivery for a reasonable shipping charge (my order would have cost an extra $5.99 for shipping).

Walgreens Photo’s Mobile App

(Credit: Walgreens/PCMag)

Walgreens' mobile app lets you order prints from your camera roll, Facebook, Instagram, and Dropbox. Print ordering for local pickup from the app is limited to 4-by-6, 5-by-7, and 8-by-10 sizes. If you go for mail delivery, you can order large canvas décor, cards, and collages from the app. Snapfish's mobile app is better designed, however, and it lets you select multiple print sizes per image. Like the Shutterfly app, the Walgreens app offers no editing tools at all—it's strictly for ordering.

Gift and Card Printing

As with most consumer photo printing services, Walgreens offers more than just paper prints. The drugstore can print photo books, calendars, posters, and canvas wall art, too. Many of these are available the same day at a retail branch. Pillows, blankets, mugs, and face masks are available for shipping. The selection is extensive, with pet bowls, playing cards, and tablet cases among the choices. Snapfish goes even further with printed shower curtains, and Shutterfly adds photo-printed socks to the list.

Custom photo greeting and holiday cards start at $1.29 each for flat cards (that goes down to $1.19 for orders of 100 or more) and $3.49 for folding cards at the 5-by-7-inch size (which goes to $2.49 for 20 or more pieces). If you're unable or unwilling to go to the post office, Walgreens Photo’s Mail-for-Me option is for you. With this service, the store mails the card to your recipients for you, starting at $2.99 for a 5-by-7 postcard. Premium options include 120lb cardstock and foil printing. A good selection of card types is also available for local store same-day pickup.

Photo Finishing Results

My photo prints from Walgreens are impressive, with balanced colors and fine sharpness, especially in the smaller 4-by-6 prints. I see minimal streaking, unlike some of my test prints from CVS, which nevertheless have good detail and rich color. Here, you can compare photos from three local pickup orders:

(Credit: Justin Pietropaoli/PCMag)

Below is a grid of scanned 8-by-10 prints from tested services. For these larger prints, Walgreens has better color reproduction than CVS, which oversaturates the blue sky. The Walgreens print also has more contrast than the (less expensive) Walmart Photo print, resulting in a sharper look.

(Credit: PCMag)

In the 4-by-6 portrait test below, The Walgreens Photo print also has truer colors than the one from CVS Photo and a sharper image than Walmart's Photo print.

(Credit: PCMag/Justin Pietropaoli)

Here's the original image file for comparison:

(Credit: PCMag/Justin Pietropaoli)

Get Your Photos Printed—Now!

If you need your photos today, Walgreens is an excellent option and our Editors' Choice winner for photo printing services with local pickup. It's not the cheapest, though. You can save money if you order at Amazon or Snapfish, and you'll get higher-quality results from Nations Photo Lab, our Editors' Choice winner for print quality. For the lowest-priced but still good prints, Walmart Photo is our top pick.