Printer for photos recommendations

Well after 9 years of getting away with it, my wife finally put her foot down for us to get a printer to print photos that are still on the phones, laptops and memory cards. I have no clue where to start. Worse part is we have over several thousand photos from each of us. She is wanting to make photo albums for each child we have to chronicle their lives and so forth from the past to today. So, what printer are you using or are there cheaper alternatives such as letting a 3rd party photo company print them? 

Do you have a Costco membership?  That’s a good option.  I don’t know how the pricing compares, but I am guessing it’s good. Just log onto Costco photo and start uploading.  Realize that older photos might be low resolution and will not print very large.

Buying a printer might be cheaper, but it will take way longer, will not likely be as good of quality and will lack durability (if it’s an inkjet).

Most places, including Costco I believe, will create actual bound books of photos.

I have used Photobucket for canvas prints but they are seriously f’d in the head these days (Costco does canvas and metal print etc)

I just printed some pics off my iPhone at Wal-Mart. 19 cents a picture. Once in awhile they run a special and its cheaper. If you have that many pics that will be a lot of $$$$$. 

Unless you have your heart set on having every pic you have actually printed out, another option would be to digitally transfer them into cloud storage. Or another would be using a home computer and move them into a large capacity 1T, 2T etc solid state drive. Then there is RAID ARRAY of which I’m am not yet very familiar with. In addition to having quite a few photos as you do, I also have a fair amount of old hi8 video I’d like to transfer. I’m unsure which method would be most cost effective to save my old material. 

I (meaning SWMBO) use Shutterfly for various things like that. They have a bunch of coupons to get percentages off and sometimes freebies like multi page photo albums for the kids "year in review" type stuff.

I generally try to restrict it to the holiday cards but she gets stuff on there from time to time and it's always been pretty good quality. I couldn't go back to owning an inkjet printer. They're so expensive for the quality you get out of them and if you don't use them for a month or two it seems like the ink evaporates or heads clog. Cheaper and less frustrating to out source.

I tried adoramapix before. They print quality is really great and shipping cost is reasonable.

We use Walgreens since its just down the street.  Home printing duties are handled by a laser I got for free, anything larger or in color I run off at work on the color laser 11x17 or the plotter.

If all you want are lots of 4x6s or 5x7s to document things, just let someone else print them. If you are very picky about every aspect of the photos and you want them large, then consider a printer. Note, however, that keeping a photo printer operating consistently can be a pain, and ink is not terribly cheap. In the former case, AdoramaPix offers several papers, lots of sizes, and good prices. They can also print hardcover books (what I use them for primarily) that are really nicely done.