My wife and I were gifted a vacation with a dear cousin who is a rare book dealer. We wanted to make a photo album of a quality commensurate with the gift and that would be appreciated by someone who has spent her life in the rare book world. I searched online and immediately hit on the New York Times review that selected Mixbook as the go-to vendor for a high-quality product. Their website claims "100% happiness guaranteed." I looked no further, and accepted the recommendation on Mixbook's website that a high-travel book should be 14x11 hardcover with "signature matte" paper and finish. The quoted cost was $345, but with a supplied coupon and after tax, the total was $183. I had no issues with that. When the book arrived, the first thing I saw was the back cover, which looked like dirty wet cardboard. But of greater concern was that the photo quality was mediocre, looking washed-out and with colors that didn't pop. Everything looked MUCH better on the computer screen when I was assembling the album. Photos that I have printed at my local CVS look better than this album. I have a calendar hanging in my kitchen done in small batches by a friend of her son's photos that pop more than the photos in the album. I expected it to look much better for $183. I couldn't find a phone number for Mixbook, so I used their online chat and reported the issues. The representative said (well, typed) that the cover finish was one that I'd selected. Okay, I'll accept that, but I pressed the issue of the photo quality. She said that there was nothing they could do about it because no changes can be made after 20 minutes have passed for project submission. I'm not sure how she could confuse an in-process project with a completed book I was holding in my hand. I again explained that I found the photo quality disappointing, and wanted to invoke the "100% happiness guarantee" that their emails so cheerfully promise, and would like the book to be reprinted on "Premium Lustre" paper (which, elsewhere on their website, says "combines vibrant colors with a rich texture," and "Brilliant color depth & clarity") and that I'd pay the difference, which looked to be about $50. She said no, and that the best they could do was offer me a 50% off coupon on the order of another book. Stunned, I said that I needed to speak on the phone with someone who could actually come through with the "happiness guarantee" in their emails. She gave me the customer service phone number. I called immediately, it went straight to hold, and after no one answered for an hour, I hung up. I then emailed this entire story to their support email, reiterating that someone needed to call me. No one ever has. There have been multiple emails back and forth where I've been told the same "no" and that I need to call and leave a message in order for someone to call me back. I did. They didn't. When I threatened to write this review unless, by the end of the day today, someone either sent me an email saying that a new copy is being printed on Premium Lustre paper and an invoice for the approximately $50 difference is being sent me, or called me by the end of the day (today) to discuss the problem, I received an email, a portion of which added that "We can request a refund to our team, we will let them review further your concern as a courtesy and we will get back to you within 24-48 hours to share an update." I replied: "To be clear, are you refusing to do what I'm asking, which is to: 1) Have someone call me to discuss whether reprinting the book on Premium Lustre paper will make the photos look better, and 2) Then preprint the book on Premium Lustre Paper and charge me the difference?" FOR THE FOURTH TIME, PLEASE CALL ME." I then received the following email, portions of which are excerpted: "Could you please take a picture of your actual photo book when you received it and also can visible the error from it? I will use it as my reference and proof as well. Looking forward to hear from you. Also, as of now our call line is not available we've encountered a system issue that's why we can't be able to call you as much as we want, but don't worry we're still working on it for us to be have available the call line and I will personally call you once the issue is resolved. Thank you for understanding." I have sent them photos of a sample printed page as well as the much more colorful image files that went into it. We'll see what happens. After four days of this, I received this email: "Thank you for your understanding. We would be happy to request a replacement reprint for your order. However, please be aware that our internal reprint process allows us to reproduce the order with the same specifications as your initial order. This means the paper type, cover finish, and other selections from your original design will be retained. If you would prefer to make changes to the specifications of your book, such as a different paper type, we can certainly forward your case to our refund team. They will be able to discuss alternative options with you, which may involve a refund for the original order, allowing you to create a new project with your desired specifications." In other words, FOR FOUR DAYS, I WAS CORRESPONDING WITH A BRANCH OF THE COMPANY WHO WERE NEVER CAPABLE OF ADDRESSING MY PROBLEM TO BEGIN WITH. I have requested a refund. I cannot for the life of me understand how a company that's riding high on a New York Times recommendation for a high-quality photo album, a company that promises "100% happiness guarantee" in their emails, has customer support this awful.

I was assigned a project to build a very large (85 page) photo book for a long-time client with very little time to get it done. My priorities were (1) an easy on-line interface for building the book with lots of flexibility for the layouts, (2) a high quality printed product, (3) fast delivery options.

Mixbook has a great webpage that lays out when the book needs to be submitted for printing combined with different delivery options (budget, standard, priority, express) and the delivery date. It has ALL the info I needed to set my deadlines.

The interface for building the photo book is excellent! I've been working with Adobe products (Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator) for years and consider them to be 2nd to none. (They could use some improvement but no other company comes close.) Mixbook is also 2nd to none, right up there with Adobe. Is it perfect? No. But I was never frustrated during course of building an 85 page photo book. There were tons of headshots in the book and each one had a name label. Sometimes, it was tough to grab a label and drag it a different area of the page. But a little patience got the job done. I was particularly impressed with how quickly the system uploaded my images! It was pretty fast!

Mixbook's themes are a good starting point for designing a photo book but users aren't chained to page layouts. I was able to pick out a standard frame to keep all the headshots the same size. When I loaded photos of events, I easily placed them wherever I chose on the page and readjusted the size. For the theme I selected, there were a substantial variety of page backgrounds which can be reorganized at the user's discretion.

One aspect that impressed my client was that the system allows different levels of collaboration. I was able to allow the department manager access to edit the book and the CEO to review it without giving editing permission.

Customer service is terrific. Early on in the construction process, I had a minor problem with the interface. The chat support was quick and very helpful. We got it fixed. After I ordered the book, I received a notification that the book would be delayed. Given that the book needed to arrive in time for a special presentation, I panicked a little. (I had left a 5 day margin from the delivery date to the presentation date because we aren't located in an urban area. Winter weather and delivery systems can cause delays that would have been beyond Mixbook's control.) I called Mixbook's customer service and they made sure that the photo book would be delivered on time. There was no delay.

Working with Mixbook was a great experience and I will use them again for personal and professional photo book projects.

Have used Mixbook on/off for 7+ years now. I don't know if there's been a substantial change in ownership or due to offshoring customer service teams, but in the past 2 months alone, have had 3 orders ALL with substantial, glaring issues. The first was a photo book that, when it arrived, had a piece of someone's gum stuck to the first page, and the photos were not even printed properly. Obviously that warranted a reprint, which they offer almost immediately whenever there's an issue, but even the re-print (that was said to have "extra quality control" on it) had a ridiculous amount of errors (printing streaks on the pages, still blurry photos for perfectly clear source images, etc.)
Against my better judgement, I nonetheless placed another, larger order for a different photo book and paid expedited shipping on the order. The day before it was "set to arrive" and no tracking information had been updated, I contacted them inquiring about it, and the agent claimed while no tracking was updating, she could confirm from her end that the item was set to deliver the next day. The next day, nothing arrived and I reached out again, and that agent then claimed he saw it was set to arrive the following day instead. Two days after that and still no order arrival, I contacted them again and then an agent proceeds to tell me that there was a mix-up, and the order was still sitting at the printing location WAITING to be picked-up. So all these agents "confirming" it was en route to me somehow were "mistaken" (aka LIED). Since then, it's been nothing but a headache dealing with "customer service" who continually lie about why this occurred to begin with and why I was repeatedly told that it was enroute when they could see it was actually just sitting around at the printer's office still, having not even been picked up by the courier. They offer to reprint the order (of course) and when it arrives, I notice the binding is not even intact - the pages are literally about the fall out of the spine. When contacting them about it, am of course just offered yet another reprint and claim this is a 1-time occurrence and the "quality check team somehow missed it"... or more like, they don't even HAVE a quality check team, quite clearly.
Dealing with Customer Service throughout all this, is a total headache to say the least. There's a translation issue, and they repeatedly just lie to tell you what you want to hear rather than the truth... clearly says a lot about how many problems with orders there are, in that the second you mention something wrong they immediately want to reprint it. Probably because they know how horrible their products turn out to be and are okay with it.

TL; DR = If you want to spend tons of time crafting your products, and then have them arrive with 0% effort made on quality control and then just keep being offered reprints of equally shoddy quality, then Mixbook is the company for you to use! If not, better off using an actually legitimate company who cares about the quality of the products they produce for longtime customers.

I don't know what is currently going on with Mixbook, but my recent order has been a complete and utter disaster. I placed an order on Thursday, April 28th and paid for next day delivery. The projected delivery date was Thursday, May 5th and supposedly the book was printed and shipped on the evening of Tuesday, May 3rd. When the UPS tracking details wouldn't update beyond "Label Created" on Wednesday, I reached out to Mixbook and was reassured that UPS had the package and given the volume of orders they weren't scanning all packages before shipping. I took the update at face value and assumed I would receive the package that day or the following (since it was Next Day Air). Come Thursday, there is still no sign of the package and when I speak with Mixbook I'm told by one person that the package hasn't shipped and then by another person that it is in transit. It doesn't arrive on Thursday or by Friday afternoon. I speak to Mixbook again on Friday and suggest they just reprint the book (rushing the printing to the extent they can) and send it Next Day Air again. I'm told that will be no problem and because they print on the weekend that I should receive the book on Monday or Tuesday. Now it's Monday and I was told that the book is finished, but they can't confirm when it will ship and they have no way of contacting their printers outside of emailing them to ask for a status update. I've checked in 3-4 times today and am now told that the book is "still in process" and they have no way of getting a more detailed update or moving the "process" along. They also still claim that the 1st book was indeed shipped, but we're now almost a week later here and still no sign of that book either. I'm left speechless that I may still not receive my order over a week after the original projected delivery date that was communicated. I spent many hours putting this book together as a gift for a teacher and the class has already pushed back the party where we planned to present the book by a week to allow (what we thought was) ample time for Mixbook to correct their mistake. I'm incredibly disappointed by the whole handling of this situation and would not recommend anyone use their services if they are working up against any type of deadline.

Our family was planning a surprise 85th birthday celebration for our mum. Our mum lives in England, surrounded by friends and most of her family. I live in the United States with my wife. Our four children have moved on from our family home, are happily married, and have presented us with 8 beautiful grandchildren. Over the course of the past ten years my mum has visited twice, attending two of the four weddings. Now back to the issue with Mixbook.
The centerpiece for the celebration event in England was to present our mother with a photo memory album, containing pictures of family, friends and of course special messages and drawings from her great grandchildren.
I spent the past 3 months connecting with family and friends both locally and overseas, who wanted to contribute something special to the memory book. Sunday evening, I went online to Mixbook and began the process of uploading the memory book. It looked great online. To my amazement the book arrived by UPS next day delivery on the Wednesday (day 3!). I opened the book and was horrified to see some typos on 2 of the pages.
I immediately contacted Mixbook Wednesday noon and was greeted by an online chat representative. The rep alluded to the typo errors being my fault. I sent her an image of my submission and she was able to confirm that there seemed to be an error in printing.
I was informed that the reprint was going to be handled immediately. I asked that the reprint be sent UPS Next Day. I gave the rep details of our flight to England, insisting that the book arrive by the end of the week in order for me to have our grandchildren include their submissions (hand prints, drawings and lots of kisses!). The rep understood the urgency and the Mixbook website showed an estimated delivery by the Friday. I was promised a phone call by the following day.
Thursday, no phone call! I contacted Mixbook and was greeted by a rep who spoke the same script, that they (Mixbook) understand the urgency and apologize for the error. The rep stated that the print location works on a "first-in basis" and our reprint was not first in line.
Fast forward to today (Friday), and I eventually had a call from Mixbook, informing me that the book would not be shipped until Monday and would not arrive until Tuesday at the earliest - the day we depart for the airport for our flight to England.
The upshot is we will leave for England without this special book.
Consider the time and effort put into this memory book. Family and friends composed beautiful words to add to the book. The pictures paint so many lovely memories for my mum.
All of this effort is in vain, because Mixbook use an offshore call center to handle online chat and telephone calls. I am still waiting for a member of the print team, or senior management at Mixbook to have the decency and courtesy to pick up the phone and explain why it takes longer to reprint and ship the replacement book.
I depart for England, knowing that the special words and pictures submitted by so many people will not get to be a part of this special occasion.

"Each year I publish photo calendar, and last fall, Mixbook was recommended to me. I decided to check out the Mixbook system. It did not go well.

When ordering more than 10 of anything Mixbook wants you fill out an online form to request a quote on a bulk order. What a hassle! I was pressed for time, so I chatted in to Mixbook to see what could be done. The agent said he could give me a promo code for 50% off, which would match the bulk rate. Great! Problem solved (though why you can't automate a bulk order quote remains a mystery to me).

Placing my order I discovered that the shipping charge on this order of 50 calendars was going to be $106.50! And then sales tax on top of that, so the total price was just shy of $800, roughly double what VistaPrint was going to charge. So I chatted in about the shipping. I got no sympathy and no help! If I shipped a box of 50 calendars from California to Nashville, it would cost less than $40 (the post office could do it for $10).

I sent an email to Mixbook asking for assistance. The reply offered no explanation or justification for the crazy shipping charge. Instead, it referred me to the Volume discount team. The first agent's promise -- that this discount code would approximate the bulk deal -- turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, I had filled out the bulk order quote request, giving my email address and my phone number, and checking PHONE as my preferred contact method. The website says "We will respond to your quote request using your preferred contact method." And this contact will happen within 24 hours.

Later that day, I got an EMAIL (not a phone call) with a quote. I replied, "Wasn't I supposed to get a phone call?" There were some other issues we need to discuss (getting a proof, sales tax exemption). I tried contacting the chat support, and that went NOWHERE. NO UNDERSTANDING. No ability for the only people I can contact to provide any actual help. Also, NO AVAILABLE MANAGER OR SUPERVISOR. I explained to the rep that this large order and the potential for a good deal of future business was at stake. Didn't matter. I explained that the Mixbook website asked me how I wanted to be contacted, and promised to abide by my preference. Didn't matter.

Then I got a SECOND EMAIL (not a phone call) from the bulk order guy, responding to my request for a call by SENDING ANOTHER EMAIL! Are you kidding? I replied: "I'm ready to receive the PROMISED PHONE CALL!

Finally, way past 24 hours later, I got a call from Jonathan Lee. No explanation or apology. No reason given for this strange policy of taking LONGER on a big order. No reason given for responding to my second request for a call with a second email!

After all this, I asked Jonathan to give me a sales pitch; why, after all this, should I want Mixbook to print my calendars? What's special about Mixbook's work? He had nothing.

I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY I WOULD HAVE TO FIGHT WITH MIXBOOK PEOPLE TO BUY STUFF FROM MIXBOOK. I'm ready to spend $500, and you can't be bothered to make a phone call to close the deal? I don't understand a company that provides customer service reps that can't actually help. I don't understand a company where that rep can see a situation that needs management intervention, but can't do anything to get it. I don't understand a company that doesn't even TRY to do what they say they will do on their website. It seems DESIGNED to be frustrating to new customers.

I gave up, except to send a hail Mary email about this whole experience to my best guess at the CEO's email address. Mixbook has lost my business, and here's why. Then I got a phone call from the CEO, to whom I told the whole awful story. He seemed genuinely concerned about all of this, and as a show of good faith, he gave me a really good deal on my calendars, which came out beautifully--the only reason this isn't a one-star review.

Finally he promised to "fix root causes." So last month (eight months later), as I was gearing up the design of my 2020 calendar, I thought I should give Mixbook another look. Looking at the website, NOTHING had changed. So I sent Mr. Laffoon (the CEO) an email to ask if any changes were in the works. That was a month ago. NO RESPONSE. I guess he wasn't taking my feedback seriously after all.

Meanwhile, I received two emails from different managers at Mixbook. These emails were invitations to get a phone call to discuss my experience with the company. I replied, gave them the information they asked for, including the best time to call. They didn't call me.

This company acts like they're interested in listening to customers, but they can't be taken seriously."