Pillar guide · 6 min read

Polaroid Prints, and What to Do With Them

₹9 a print, thirty minimum, three sizes. The cheapest thing we make and the most used — what the pack is, and every decision before you order.

The cheapest thing we make, and by some distance the one that gets used most.

₹9 a print, thirty minimum — ₹270 — on 300 GSM matte card with a retro border, flat ₹70 delivery anywhere in India. There is no story, no sequence and no design work: it is your photographs, printed small, in your hands.

What decides the order

Five decisions, and they are all made before you order.

Decision Options Where to read
Size 3x3, 3x2 or 2x3 inch Sizes compared
Quantity 30 minimum; over 100 for custom counts How many to order
Lamination ₹3 a print, glossy Is it worth it
Captions Printed under the image, or blank Captions
Which photographs The hard one Choosing photos

What they are, and are not

⚠️ These are printed cards, not instant film. They are the shape and the border people recognise, printed on matte card — not a Polaroid-brand instant pack, and nothing develops in your hand.

That is worth knowing because it changes almost everything about how they behave: they do not fade the way instant film does, they can be laminated, and you can order four hundred of one image if you want to. Instant film against printed polaroids →

What people actually do with them

And the two that stop it going wrong:

What it costs

Quantity Price With lamination
30 ₹270 ₹360
50 ₹450 ₹600
100 ₹900 ₹1,200
200 ₹1,800 ₹2,400

₹9 a print, ₹3 a print for lamination, flat ₹70 delivery. Presets start at 30; custom quantities are available above 100.

Why they beat the more expensive things, sometimes

A magazine at ₹499 is read two or three times over a decade. A wall of prints is looked at every single day, by everybody who walks past it, without anyone deciding to.

That is not an argument against books — it is an argument for knowing which job you are doing. A print pack is the answer when the point is visibility rather than sequence. Polaroid prints or a photo book → · Which format suits a wall →

The one thing to understand before ordering

There is no design stage on a print pack, and no proof.

Everything else we make is laid out by a person, checked against the size each image is placed at, and sent to you as a digital proof you approve before anything prints. That is what the price of a magazine or an album is mostly paying for.

A print pack skips all of it. Your photographs are cropped to the size you chose, the border is applied, and they print — which is why they are ₹9 each rather than part of a ₹499 product, and why the file you send is the file that arrives.

That is a good trade for most uses and a bad one if the photographs are precious and you are not sure about the files. In that case a designed product includes the check. What goes wrong with prints →

Who buys these, and for what

Typically
A student, for a hostel wall 30, laminated
A parent, for someone leaving home 30, mixed subjects
A couple, at distance 30, sent a few at a time
A party or a wedding 100 to 400, one per guest
Anyone with a bare new flat 30, for the largest wall

The through-line is that a print pack is bought when the point is being seen rather than being read — and that it is the only thing we make cheap enough to be given away one at a time. Giving prints one at a time →

Timing

5 to 14 days from order to doorstep, 5 to 12 to Delhi NCR, dispatched every Monday. Ordering by a Friday rather than over a weekend can save a full week.

There is no proof stage on a print pack the way there is on a designed book — the photographs are printed as sent, which is why choosing them is the step that matters.

The habit worth knowing about

The pattern among people who order these more than once is not a bigger order. It is a standing one — thirty prints every few months, of whatever has happened since.

At ₹270 that is a few hundred rupees a year, and after three years it is a shoebox that covers a period nobody was documenting. It is the closest thing to the way photographs were kept before phones, and it is considerably cheaper than any single keepsake we sell.

Nothing about our system does this for you. There is no subscription and no reminder. The people who do it just put it in a calendar.

What we cannot do

Worth listing plainly, because all four come up.

We cannot ship outside India. Flat ₹70 anywhere in the country, and nowhere else. For someone abroad, order to an Indian address and post them on.

We cannot restore or repair a photograph. A damaged scan prints as a damaged scan. That is a different service and not one we offer.

We cannot print fewer than thirty. The minimum is the minimum, and at ₹9 each the whole pack is ₹270 anyway.

We cannot mix sizes or mix laminated and plain in one pack. One size, one finish, per order. Two packs if you want two.

Against the rest of the catalogue

Print pack 8-page magazine 20-page album
Price ₹270 ₹499 ₹1,299
Photographs 30 ~32 ~80
Designed by a person No Yes Yes
Proof before printing No Yes Yes
Looked at Daily, passively A few times, properly Rarely, deliberately
Survives being handled Laminated, yes Corners go Built for it

Cost per photograph is almost identical across the first two — ₹9 against about ₹16 — which is not where the decision is. The decision is whether you want thirty separate objects that live in a room, or one object that tells something in an order. Polaroid prints or a photo book →

Frequently asked

How much do polaroid prints cost in India? ₹9 a print with a minimum of thirty, so ₹270, plus flat ₹70 delivery. Lamination adds ₹3 a print.

Are these real Polaroids? No. They are printed cards in that shape and border, on 300 GSM matte card. Nothing develops in your hand, and they do not fade the way instant film does.

What is the minimum order? Thirty prints. Custom quantities are available above one hundred.

What sizes do they come in? 3x3, 3x2 and 2x3 inch. 3x3 is the default and the one most people mean.

How many should I order? Thirty fills a normal wall. Sixty starts to read as wallpaper rather than as something to look at.


Print packs from ₹270: Polaroid Pack · Custom polaroid prints · All 11 keepsakes