Artkive - Save Kids' Art

I have stored my child’s art work on Artkive for years and it had been free. I went to add more art work today and found I must pay for a subscription I don’t want. The problem is, I cannot access all the photos I stored to retrieve them without having to pay. There was no notice as to when free storage would end.

Great concept and nice way to keep your kids artwork if you order books. But once you’ve done that and don’t care to keep paying yearly for storage, it’s really hard to cancel. App says go to the website and there all you can do is email customer support. Then an auto message says it might take up to 5 days to even hear back. Not impressed. Making it difficult to manage my subscription on my own is a sure way to lose my business and any recommendations I might give to others.

I could have absolutely done this myself for the price. I thought the photos would be spread through the pages as much as possible. This was not worth the price at all

I am livid. I started storing my kids art work for the past 7+ years ago. At that time it was free to store the works. As my kids have gotten older they have made less artsy things but I enjoy occasionally going in and looking at past creations. Well today I've learned that my kids art work is being held for ransom. I now must choose between loosing all that’s been saved or paying. There was no notification that this was going to occur that I am aware of. I get wanted to changed to a subscription but that’s not what I signed up for all those years ago. All I want to do is retrieved the pictures I have saved. Then you can delete my account and I will never use you again.

Been using this fornober 2 years now and now I have to download all of my Childs work ald put it somewhere else because I must pay for this app. Goodbye

I have two kids and with the first I did a project and it was easy. With the changes in their process and subscription I really felt this wasn’t worth it for my 2nd kiddo. Ended paying a lot of money for a book I could have done on my own on another service and saved 2x-3x the cost. Also their app to modify books was not great. I would not recommend the service.

THIS!!!! Totally worth it- all of my memories in a book!! No more boxes of artwork, pictures etc pulling up that just stay in the box. Keep the books out on coffee tables or where ever. People love looking at them when they come over. Best idea ever!

The app works fine, tags work well, but as many households do ours has two parents. We both want to be able to upload, manage and share our kid’s art. The only way to do this is have a password my partner and I both know. That encourages weak passwords, means only one of us can change the password, among other flaws. An app designed specifically for families should really be mindful of how families might use the app.

Pay $40 to have a box sent to you so you can send them your art work The online estimate for how long it would take said 5-7 weeks. I started this process in January so that it could be a birthday present late March. I didn’t get the box for 2 weeks, sent the art back the next day and didn’t hear anything for another 4-5 weeks. I messaged them several times asking for an update. Finally got an email that I needed to proof my book. Pictures looked good and full on each page, they got my title correct blah blah blah. Paid $70 for them to finalize the book….wait 2 weeks and now I have to pay another $29 to get the book sent to me which will take another 2 weeks. I got the book today and I’m not happy at all. Each piece of artwork had a child’s name on it (from the original piece) I listed the correct spelling of each name on the form you send in the box. They put both names on every single page. So artwork that clearly says “BOB” has “Bob and Sam” printed at the bottom. The title has a white border around it on the front page so it makes the artwork on the cover look cheap. Overall you could do this for much cheaper at Staples. I mean I got a coupon for Mixbooks, it cost me $11 to make a book myself, it would’ve been $40-50 without coupon. I mean I could format each photo how I wanted and add text. Artkive is a complete waste of money I spent $140 on something I could’ve made online myself. $39 shipping for an empty box is insane. Let alone $30 for a thin hardcover book. Again don’t waste the time or money.

My friends have shared their beautiful books of art from their children and all have quality worth envying. However, $500 and very lengthy process of waiting later, I am extremely disappointed. Because you cannot see the finished product before paying, I did not realize that I would be paying for the company to “photograph” the backside of my children’s work - the side that has the teacher’s writing and is clearly not art. I didn’t think I would have to spell out that I didn’t need the memory of when my child’s picture was done, what book it was based off of, etc. Appropriate for the caption, sure. But I’m highly irritated that I paid several dollars for these types of errors to be photographed. And as far as the photographing goes, what I received was poor quality. Because the cost of the photographing was so high, I opted to use Chatbooks to print my digital copies. However, saving these resulted in a low resolution file. The “photographs” are actually scans of my child’s work - not this professional photograph advertised. Quite obvious when you look at the shadowing and the transparency of the paper. Further more, each of my friends books has a colorful background behind the art they sent in so it pops in the book. Every single one of our pages were placed on a white background and several were not even oriented straight. The editing and photo enhancement that is advertised? Well, I didn’t get this either. The pictures were dull and flat and took me bringing them into Lightroom to mass color correct them to add a slight saturation boost to make them look lively and vibrant. Finally, I am missing several pieces of my art in digitalized copies. My son made an ABC book with two pages per letter. Their are four pages missing alone from this. I triple checked to ensure all of these were together and alphabetically placed in order before packing into my box. I will never do business with this company again. Looking forward to receiving my artwork back (and praying that the missing photographs are inside still in physical form) and washing my hands of the hope and excitement I had when I first began this process in December.