Average Online Photo Print Price Drops 12%

Good news for digital photographers. In the two and a half years I've been tracking online digital photo print prices, the cost for a 4x6-inch print has consistently trended downward. Increased competition and a blurring of lines between online labs and bricks and mortar world caused prices to continue their fall this year. With more than two dozen online digital photo printers tracked, the average price for an individual 4x6 print has dropped from 18.7 cents per print this spring, down to 16.5 cents per print this fall.

Forget about the 29-cent price point that seemed so ubiquitous not so long ago... it's ancient history.

At just 8 cents per print, PEPhoto boasts the lowest price on 4x6 prints. (While some online photo print labs crow over lower prices, these prices are usually dependant upon pre-payment plans or bulk purchases.)

Roughly a dozen online photo labs offer 4x6 print prices at 15 cents per print and below. Quality oriented MPix remains at 29 cents.

Bad news for local mom-and-pops. Localized film processing is becoming a thing of the past. As I was standing at the cashier's line in a hometown pharmacy last week I noticed the sign, "We are no longer processing film. Please our accept our apologies for the inconvenience." Shop by shop, the digital revolution is bringing the decades-old tradition (and revenue stream) to an end.

Self-contained digital print kiosks are the wave of the future for small stores. While purists may continue to prefer true photographic chemical processing, the cheap and easy self-contained dye-sublimation print kiosks bring instant digital printing to every shop able to make the purchase (or the monthly payments).