Positives
- Various top-tier covers
- Free online photo book
- Versatile customer support
- No extra charge for better paper/cover
- Fast shipping time
- Gift vouchers available with samples
Negatives
- Overcomplicated editor
- Limited customization options
- Expensive pricing
Most photo book providers are trying to stay afloat in the ocean of similar companies by offering customers cost-friendly products but, let’s face it, sometimes the quality of these products are far from ideal. This is why MILK Books, from New Zealand, strive to gain new clientele by offering a smaller range of products – such as photo books, albums, canvases, frames and more – but only at the highest quality. And since there are also plenty of temporary coupons and discounts for all clients, there’s plenty of reasons to consider MILK Books. There’s even an option to send a gift voucher with samples to help the receiver make the best decision.
So when it comes to photo books, you’ll be looking at the best options – such as its choice of covers, which can be made of linen, Wibalin or Buckram. MILK photo books come with up to 24 photos per spread, and can be printed on a selection of paper quality types as well. Want something more special though? Well, then consider the company’s most prestigious product range, Moleskine books that will encase your most cherished photos with covers that look like true artistic masterpieces.
Quick Tutorial on the MILK Books Editor
Features
Even though MILK Books promises high-quality products, the only option to create photo books is the rather bland online editor. But even before the actual building process begins you’ll need to determine the book’s main attributes, namely its type, size, format, paper quality, page count, and cover style. Some of these attributes can be modified later on, but only the cover and the paper type can be changed directly from within the editor.
The editor itself is advertised as being rather simple to use, but instead of a straightforward solution we found a photo book builder with limited capabilities and a rather frustrating user experience, especially for newcomers to such tools.
Thankfully, turning to the tutorial videos (which are available directly from the software) helps a lot: in fact, it was by watching one of these videos that we learned that pictures must be arranged in the correct order manually before they are put into the book. Granted, there is the option to arrange the photos into order you prefer later on – when they’re displayed in the toolbar at the bottom of the editor – but it’s quite the task.
Changing the Cover in the Editor
Selecting Paper Type in the Editor
Arranging Photos in MILK Books' Editor
Speaking of which, that section is more important than it might first seem. Dragging and dropping one photo only creates a two-page spread containing the chosen picture, so the only way to have more photos (up to 24) on the spread – or to simply create a new pair of pages – is by going to the lower toolbar, moving the cursor to the space between two photos and left-clicking when the two thick lines appears between this space. It’s a bothersome, cumbersome means of adding pages, and not user-friendly at all.
However, while customizing pages is indeed frustrating, with some practice it can be learned – which isn’t necessary for many other features of the software, which are self-explanatory and easy to use.
For instance, choosing the appropriate layout can be done either by selecting one on the left panel or by hitting page up or down on the keyboard. Pages can be flipped and their order rearranged, while text boxes can be hidden or revealed and fonts changed. Interestingly, it’s possible to also create text-only spreads.
Helpfully MILK Books’s tool has a so-called checklist, which warns of low-resolution photos, empty text boxes and whether the book has reached the minimum or maximum number of pages.
Arranging Page Order
Creating Text Spreads in the Editor
MILK Books' Built-In Checklist
Designs
It’s hard to talk about design, as all books created with the company’s software are bland by default and have to be designed by the user. But even with that in mind the design options are limited to choosing a layout for the book’s pages and cover, with the latter being the only design-related attribute that can be preset before starting the building process.
As already mentioned, switching between different layouts is easy as pie – especially with the help of a keyboard’s keypad – but as more pictures are added to a single two-page spread, the less layout variety the software offers. As these layouts are all preset, there is no option to customize them to your liking – except for the mundane removal of text boxes.
The Available Layouts
Selecting a Matching Font
Setting up the Text's Size
And when it comes to text, the options for choosing a suitable font are equally miserable. By default only two fonts can be selected, not to mention the fact that their size is fixed most of the time. As a result, the only way to truly customize the photo book is by toying around with options like size, format, paper type, and cover.
Types
Considering the extremely limited nature of the software’s design capabilities, the variety of photo book types available at MILK is a breath of fresh air – even if those options are heavily dependent on the chosen book.
For instance, the default product, MILK Classic, is only available in landscape format and in one of two sizes – both of which can be customized with seven different covers. MILK Premium, however, is available in all three shapes (square, landscape and portrait), provides 14 different covers (linen, Wibalin and Buckram types), and comes with four papers. As for the special Moleskine books, these are produced in four sizes, in three shapes with the namesake cover and comes with the top-tier paper type.
MILK Books Classic
MILK's Premium Selection
Moleskine Products Offered by MILK
It’s important to note that MILK Classic and Premium books must contain at least 40 pages, but nor can they exceed 120 and 160 pages respectively. Not only that but books can only be printed if the total amount of pages can be divided by four, which is why extra pages can only be bought in four-page bulks. The only exception to this rule are certain Moleskine products which have fixed pages.
Printing
Regardless of what you think about the editor so far, there is one thing that you should be sure of: the resulting printed photo book more than makes up for the frustration of the building experience.
Touching the linen covered book for the first time after removing it from its paper wrapping immediately creates a feeling of the highest quality, but it’s not just surface deep too. Just as much care and professionalism is taken with the contents of the book, which really makes the service of MILK Books shine through.
One thing that will definitely surprise many customers is the fact that pages are stitched together instead of glued, meaning that – with the exception of the flyleaves – pages more or less lay flat when the book is fully opened.
The Book in Paper Wrapping
The Premium Linen Cover
Flipping Through the Book
The Voucher Found in the Package
Another surprise is how smooth the matte photo paper feels and how well it resists fingerprints, ensuring that photos – although appearing a bit dimmer than those printed onto the default semi-glossy papers – will last dirt-free and in top condition for many years. The only slight nuisance is that some of the pages stick together, but thankfully it’s only a minor issue and doesn’t damage the photos at all.
And as a nice extra – which shows how gracious MILK Books is for each customer – the cardboard box hides a voucher that entitles you to purchase a new MILK photo product with 10% off.
Pricing
Cost-friendly pricing is not the forte of MILK Books, since even its cheapest product costs a shocking $57. Worse than that, though, is if you consider that the most common book size starts from $77, since these are exclusive to the MILK Premium category of products. However, these higher-quality books do maintain this price even after selecting different covers or paper type.
The thing that raises the price tag the most – aside from the size of the book – is the number of pages, since every additional four-page set costs $1 for MILK Classic books and $1.25 for MILK Premium products.
There is also the option to add text to the book’s cover for $15 or order the printed book with a matching presentation box, the price of which starts from $49. As for shipping within the U.S., books are shipped for $14.99-$19.99, while each additional copy costs an extra $6.99-$12.99 on top.
There are some opportunities to reduce these high prices, though, thanks to many coupons and discounts, most of which are temporary. However, there are permanent discounts, too, such as receiving a free online copy of each book created with MILK Books’ services. Additionally, MILK provides online or printable gift certificates that – as a special offer – can be purchased with a complete swatch book gift set to give a little taster of the MILK quality.
Support & Shipping
MILK Books’ staff is available every day of the week via phone, live chat and email. All contact methods can be used to notify the company of a faulty product (within 14 days of receiving the order), in which case you will be entitled to receive a new, corrected copy – but only if the mistake was made by MILK Books and not by yourself during the design process.
The company does maintain its own blog, too, but it offers very little of interest, while its social media channels are mostly used for self-promotion and little else. If you really need help then it’s a good idea to turn to their very detailed support center, which contains different topics related to the editor, the vouchers, ordering, printing, and such.
Email Support by MILK
MILK Books' Blog
MILK's Help Center
As for shipping, the time between ordering the product and having it delivered to your doorstep is mostly taken up by the production time of 7-12 days for smaller books and between 14-21 days when it comes to larger products. However, delivery time from the Hong Kong production facility is surprisingly short as MILK Books relies on the reliable worldwide services of DHL, which means shipping takes only 3-5 business days, regardless of the country the customer resides in.
As for the book that we ordered from MILK, these predicted times regarding production and shipping time are trustworthy; our 8×8 40-page linen cover book was put together within nine days and arrived to our chosen European destination only three days later – a total of 12 calendar days. If you’re thinking of ordering from MILK Books and are a little concerned about the delivery time, then you needn’t worry in this regard.
Bottom Line
Even though MILK Books undoubtedly creates top-notch products, we have to say that we expected more from this photo book company. The online editor is nothing spectacular and, worse than that, is unfortunately not so easy to use. Aside from the truly amazing variety of covers, sizes and formats, there are few ways to customize MILK photo books .
The rather expensive prices could have been offset by the coupons and discounts, but these are limited in number and are only temporary. This is true of MILK Books competitors, too, but it feels as though they should be doing more to convince potential customers when their prices are so high.
Still, the editor has some nice features, such as its checklist, the in-built video tutorials and the ability to easily switch between different layouts. Being able to create two-page spreads with up to 24 photos per spread is also a nice addition, and admittedly extra pages can be purchased for a relatively cheap price.
The wide variety of top-notch covers and paper types is something that needs praising, while the resulting books definitely deliver the quality that MILK Books is known for. So if you want something special made out of high quality materials, then you may want to consider MILK as your new trusty photo book editor.
Visit MILK BooksWith Free Online Photo BookBest Photo Books of 2023
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rlp says
I, too, had a terrible experience with Milk Books. I had high hopes, as their website looked great. As saying goes, you can’t always judge a book by the cover. There was a promotion going on, so I ended up buying 3 copies of the photo album so that 2 of them could be given to family for gifts. I realize now that there always seems to be a promotion going on with Milk Books. Must be a reason for that, as business can’t be good! The issue that I had with my photo albums is the print quality. The digital images look amazing. My photographer did a fantastic job with the photos and color of the images. What I got back from Milk Books seemed like a joke. The color of the images were all too red- some were a little better than others, but the majority of them were awful. The skin tone of people in the images had them looking like they were sunburned. Milk Books did respond to my concern and claimed my supplied images had too much red in them. The images looked perfect before sending them to Milk. It is not an issue with the digital files. It is a QA issue in production on Milk’s end. There is obviously not someone reviewing the color of these “handmade” books that Milk markets on their website. After much back-and-forth with their customer service team, they would not work on improving the color in production nor let me send back the books for a refund. So much for their satisfaction promise guaranteeing their product’s quality. I wish that I had spent a little more money and gone with a company that cares about quality.
nelsonfrank says
Considering photobook is one of the hottest demand in printing industry, milkbook certainly done a pretty good job in their printing, there are other competitors like artifact uprising.com and flipchap.com should be in your list of review as well. 3 of them offer similar prince range, handmade photobook and boxes. artifact uprising is good at fine artprinting where else flipchap offer a fully customization on your photobook. Common variable such as page, size and color will not be enough, they have fine detail like thickness of the book cover, bookmark ribbon color, end sheet paper color and more. i will still give milkbook and flipchap a like as i think personally both of the done a great job in handmade photobook printing.
James Constable says
AVOID IF IN UK OR EUROPE. Milk don’t tell you that you will be charged a 20% import duties fee and £11 admin charge from DHL. The items are made in Hong Kong. Milk refuse to pay these charges. In addition the book contained very dark pictures.
Lisa says
Experiencing the same issue now. Low quality photos and too much red in skintone. They didnt flag that certain photos should not be included at larger sizes and want me to talk to my photographer about fixing the images (we got married a year ago). Will file a dispute with my credit card company if they cannot remedy.
Phil says
Wish I read this review before using Milk Books. I’ve used many photobook software editors over the years, and this made it to my worst list. For starters you can’t Undo anything which is not good when one missed click can reset your page layout. Speaking of layouts they are all geared for people that put text on every page, so essentially I had to painstakingly customized every single page to maximize use of the space for my photos. What wasn’t mentioned above is their horrible support. Couldn’t get through to them via phone or chat (and I tried more than once), and email support took days of back and forth with them basically just giving me generic answers that they have on their basic knowledge base responses. So after spending weeks designed the 3 book package that I ordered, the checkout process tacked on another $32 for custom cover options that was not mentioned anywhere in the fine print or on the software itself. Haven’t even seen the finished product yet, but the quality better make up for the hell they put me through. Worst part is that the 3 book packages have to all be completed and ordered together to a single address (won’t even let you pay extra to ship them to different locations). So maybe in a 2-3 months I’ll finally get to see my version of the book that I created for my son’s wedding.
Mia Olivares says
I received a stranger’s photo book. They can’t even respond if they sent mine to another person which I think is horrible I do consider my photos as something private. They haven’t replied to me. And it seems like a usual problem. I shouldn’t have paid attention to the reviews on their website because clearly it is biased. Also, they do not make it clear that you have to pay for shipping!
Daniel (Best Reviews Team) says
Hello Mia! We’re sorry to hear about your experience with Artifact Uprising. Of course, it’s a bit frightening to have our personal photo book sent to a complete stranger.
Has it been a long time since you contacted customer support? Due to COVID, many companies are having difficulties to answer all customer queries in due time. So, they still might answer you when possible. You could also try getting in touch through Artifact Uprising’s social media channels. We know that it’s a long shot, but you may get lucky and have your issue escalated faster, as the company answers Facebook messages on a daily basis.
When it comes to reviews on the companies’ websites – it’s best to do your own research. Since they want to sell a product, companies usually show positive reviews only, as negative ones would make you think twice about the product. Finally, it’s true that some photo book builders don’t speak about shipping right away. Your best bet (with Artifact Uprising or other online businesses) is to read their shipping policy, FAQ, or pricing table. There, you’ll always find whether you need to pay for shipping. As a last resort, you can also make a mock photo book and go to the checkout page to see if they charge any shipping fees. This way, you won’t have to put in hours of hard work just to find out you’re better off with another platform.
We hope your problem is fixed as soon as possible, and that your photo book is sent to you rather than someone else. Happy new year!
Marc says
I made a Moleskine photo book with MILK and would like to share my review especially regarding the transparency of the pricing model.
But first of all: the quality of the book is ok and fully met all my expectations. The app itself is ok but often painful and not very user friendly when you configure a 96 pages book.
Why I never again would consider to buy their photo book is the pricing model. For shipping a single book to Europe they charge you more than 20 USD and it takes roughly ten days by Fedex. But the real surprises comes two weeks later when customs send you a letter to inform you that you have to pay another 20 USD for customs duty.
Whilst this is mentioned in the fineprint of milk it really is not transparent when you start your project. A Moleskine book so will cost you around hundred USD +20 USD shipping +20 USD customs duty.
I am very disappointed and would never ever buy there again. The service consultant told me today “ Any import duties or taxes are separate to the shipping cost. FedEx, like any other international transportation company, must adhere to local customs legislation and so FedEx pays duties on the receiver’s behalf to clear shipments on arrival.”.
Please take this into consideration and read all the fine print on their website before starting your project or placing your order.
Daniel (Best Reviews Team) says
Hello Marc, thanks for your comment. We’re sorry to hear about your experience, and we appreciate that you left a balanced comment where you included some of MILK Books’ strengths.
Shipping items from the U.S. is usually extremely expensive, not only for photo books. It’s not unreasonable that they ask for $20 and that it takes around ten days to arrive. For instance, if you go to Amazon American website, you’ll notice that they also charge you around that amount for shipping.
Custom duties, on the other hand, change depending on where you live. So, it’s difficult to point out how much will you pay by getting a product from the U.S. Still, MILK Books should warn you about the possibility of paying custom duties when you create your profile and insert an address outside the U.S. Even so, to know how much you will pay for this fee, it’s always better to google your own country’s custom duties percentages. Not only are they completely different depending on the country, but they also apply different rules.
We hope we were able to help, and we wish you a better experience when you print your next photo book!
Ray says
I recently ordered two photo albums from MILK Books, totaling over a thousand dollars. While I anticipated a smooth experience for such a premium price, the reality was far from it.
Firstly, I was surprised by a poorly worded email from MILK Books instructing me to fill out a form for FedEx, essentially requiring me to register as an importer. This request included submitting my Social Security number among other personal details, which I found invasive and unnecessary.
Despite resolving this issue with FedEx, who offered a simpler DocuSign solution, the process was initially made complex due to vague and unhelpful guidance from MILK’s customer service. They simply advised me to “complete the attached form and send into FedEx,” leaving me to figure out the specifics.
The real shock came when I received an additional invoice from FedEx for $121.22 for ‘FedEx Express Services’, despite having paid for shipping upfront. When I reached out to MILK Books, their response was far from empathetic. They referred to their Terms of Use and checkout warnings about potential extra costs due to shipping from Hong Kong, which I admit I hadn’t noticed. However, their tone was dismissive, and the lack of transparency regarding such significant additional costs was frustrating.
It’s disappointing that purchasing something as simple as photo albums online turned into a complex, costly ordeal. This experience has highlighted the importance of transparency and customer service quality, especially when dealing with international orders. I would advise potential customers to be wary of hidden costs and complicated processes when ordering from MILK Books.