Smilebox Overview, Plans & Pricing
Smilebox is a desktop program that lets you create scrapbooks, collages, interactive invitations, and more. Unlike most programs, though, you don’t need to pay anything to download and install Smilebox on your computer.
In fact, you can use Smilebox without paying a cent, thanks to its Free plan. However, bear in mind that this is an extremely feature-limited option. You’ll still be able to share your creations via email or Facebook, but other ways of sharing or saving are off-limits. Similarly, you’re limited to free templates, and advanced features like the ability to incorporate music or save your work in other formats are also unavailable.
The Club Smilebox subscription is your ticket to a more feature-rich experience. For $47.88 annually, or $3.99 a month, you’ll have access to all of Smilebox’s features. You’ll get a 7-day free trial, too, so you can check out the premium features before committing to a long-term plan.
The Smilebox Pro subscription goes a step further. For $95.88 annually, or $7.99 a month, it adds the ability to use your company logo for any work you create on Smilebox, plus it lets you customize your work with website links.
Smilebox accepts payment through VISA, MasterCard, American Express credit or debit cards. You can also use other cards by going through PayPal.
1st Place9.6 out of 10
Smilebox Features
Simple Scrapbooking
As a scrapbooking program, Smilebox is easy to use and produces good-looking results. Creating a scrapbook is a three-step process. First, you can choose a design from the extensive gallery: Smilebox has over a thousand templates for all occasions. Though not all of these will be available to you if you’re on a Free plan.
Next, you need to import your photos and videos. Unfortunately, Smilebox doesn’t have automatic integrations with external photo services or apps like iPhoto and Flickr, so you’ll have to download the photos to your hard drive if you want to use them in your scrapbook. Once they’re in Smilebox, though, getting them into your scrapbook is as easy as dragging and dropping them onto the virtual page. Smilebox lets you resize and edit photos as needed, so you can tweak your files to fit the design you’ve selected. Take note, though, that these image editing features aren’t available on the Mac version, so you’ll need to edit your photos before importing them into Smilebox.
Subscription and sharing
Depending on your subscription, you can also incorporate some neat extras here, like music. You can also type in a text, which is great if you want to elaborate on the memories you’ve included.
Finally, you can share your creations easily through email or on the Web. If you’ve signed up for a paid subscription, you’ll also have the option of saving your work as a JPG or video file, burning it to DVD, or even order prints from Smilebox if you’re a US resident. For paid subscribers, Smilebox also stores and backs up all of your creations; these are all accessible from your account page, and re-sharing them takes only a few clicks.
Smilebox has tons of templates, layouts, and designs for you to choose from. Whether you’re commemorating an anniversary, celebrating a birthday, or making a scrapbook just because, you’ll have tons of options to jazz up your project.
Festive Extras
Aside from the scrapbooking module itself, Smilebox also comes with other functionalities perfect for all sorts of events and occasions. You can make photo books, craft greeting cards, create collages and slideshows, and even send out customized electronic invitations. Smilebox even has an RSVP feature for invitations, so you can keep track of attendee confirmations for your event.
If you’re weary of having to learn new controls or tools, don’t worry; these other project types use the same processes as the scrapbooking module, so you can switch from one to the other without a hitch.
Customer Support
Smilebox only offers customer support through email, and the company’s responses are limited to its business hours: 9-4 PM PST, and only on weekdays. Even though Smilebox support staff does their best to respond quickly, but if you run into an urgent issue, or if something goes wrong on a weekend or holiday, you’ll have no other support channels to try.
That said, Smilebox does maintain an easy-to-browse knowledge base that has articles covering all the issues and frequent questions.
What's the Verdict on Smilebox?
Smilebox Review 2020 – Conclusion
All in all, Smilebox is a convenient and easy-to-use tool that will have you churning out gorgeous scrapbooks in no time. However, scrapbooking is just one of this program’s many modules; there are options to create other projects like collages and slideshows as well. While this makes Smilebox a bit more versatile than its competitors, it also means Smilebox doesn’t put much emphasis on its scrapbooking module. You’ll have all the tools you need to cover the basics, but if you want more advanced scrapbook-specific features, you might have to look elsewhere. That said, you won’t get many features from the Free plan anyway; Smilebox prods you towards its paid subscriptions by heavily limiting the Free plan’s features, but if you do pay up, the expanded feature set is well worth it.
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