Trove vs Chatbooks: Printed Books or a Weekly Newsletter?
Short answer
Chatbooks does the thing everyone means to do and never finishes: it fills a photo book and ships it without you touching a layout tool. Print also outlives software, which is not a small argument — Lifecake shut down in 2020 and took a lot of families' plans with it. But a book arrives three times a year, to one address, and does nothing for the fifty weeks in between. Trove covers those weeks: a curated newsletter emailed every Sunday to your whole family, free, with unlimited recipients and no app on their end — and photo book ordering built in for when you do want something on the shelf. Print the year. Send the week.
Comparing these two is slightly odd, because they do different jobs. Chatbooks makes objects — printed books that arrive at your house. Trove makes updates — a weekly newsletter that arrives in your family's inboxes. People compare them because both promise to stop your photos dying on your phone.
At a glance
| Trove | Chatbooks | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Weekly emailed newsletter | Printed photo books |
| Free plan | Yes, unlimited | None |
| Cost | Free, Premium $39.99/yr | ~$10-15 per book |
| Reaches relatives | Everyone on your list, weekly | One address per book |
| Physical keepsake | Photo book ordering | The whole product |
| Searchable archive | ||
| Effort required | None — AI curates | None — it fills the book |
| Survives an app shutting down | Export your archive | Yes, it is paper |
| Milestones | First steps, words, tooth, birthdays, custom | |
| Automatic face grouping | ||
| Search by child and date | ||
| Video | Yes, no length cap on free | |
| Reactions and comments |
Where Chatbooks is genuinely better
It produces a physical thing, with no effort. Traditional photo books die in the layout stage — everyone means to make one and nobody finishes. Chatbooks fills and ships automatically, which is why people who have tried both usually keep it.
Print outlives software. A printed book does not care whether a company is still trading in 2040. Given that Lifecake shut down in 2020, that is not a theoretical benefit.
It is cheap for what it is — around $10-15 per series book is well below custom photo book pricing.
What Chatbooks does not do
It is not a sharing platform. There is no family feed, no ongoing updates, and nothing that keeps a grandparent in the loop between books. If your mother wants to see this week's photos, a book that arrives quarterly does not answer that.
It also ships to one address per book, so reaching four grandparents means buying four copies, every time.
What Trove does instead
Trove is built for the week-to-week problem. Every Sunday it emails a curated newsletter — the best photos of the week, laid out, with a short written summary — to everyone on your list, with no app and no account needed on their end. Free, with unlimited recipients.
It also offers photo book ordering, and Premium includes a free hardcover book each year — but the books are a feature, not the product. If printed books are the main thing you want, Chatbooks does that better.
These combine well
A free weekly newsletter for the ongoing updates, and a printed book once or twice a year for the archive. That covers both jobs and costs less than putting the whole family on print.
The short version
- Pick Trove ifyou want family seeing photos week to week. Free, emailed, no app for them.
- Pick Chatbooks ifyou want printed books with no effort and no interest in a weekly feed.
- Do both ifyou want the weekly update and the physical archive. They solve different problems.
Is Chatbooks free?+
No. Chatbooks is a printing service, so you pay per book — roughly $10-15 for a series book, with custom books priced higher. There is no free tier because the product is physical.
Does Trove print photo books?+
Yes, photo book ordering is built in, and Premium includes a free hardcover book each year plus a discount on others. That said, if printed books are your main goal rather than a bonus, a dedicated printing service will serve you better.
Which is better for grandparents?+
It depends on what they want. A printed book is a lovely gift a few times a year. A weekly newsletter keeps them in the loop continuously and costs nothing per recipient. Many families do both — the newsletter for ongoing contact, a book at Christmas.
For the 51 weeks between books
Trove emails a curated photo newsletter to your whole family every Sunday. No app for them, unlimited recipients, free forever.
Try Trove — FreePricing and features were checked on August 17, 2026. Competitors change their plans — if you spot something out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
