The Short Years vs. Qeepsake: Which Baby Book is Right for You?
When you’re trying to choose between digital baby books, there’s no doubt you’ll find yourself asking, The Short Years vs. Qeepsake, which one is right for me? Put your tired mama brain to rest and let me help you decide on the best way to capture memories as your baby grows.
The Short Years vs. Qeepsake: Lightning Round
Both baby books are great for busy parents. They each allow you to create a memory book for your baby right on your phone. They both provide helpful prompts, so you don’t forget to fill in your memories. And they both (thankfully!) allow you to ditch the scissors, glue, and gel pens while still documenting your first year with Baby in a beautiful photo album.
However, The Short Years doesn’t require an ongoing paid subscription to create and print your book or view your videos, while Qeepsake does.
In fact, with The Short Years, you can upload your videos and share them with friends and family instantly from the pages of your printed baby book using a QR code for a lifetime. With Qeepsake, you only have playback access if you keep paying for the premium app subscription — year after year after year.
The Short Years allows you to complete a baby book with a beautiful, modern design and heirloom quality with 7 different fabric cover options. Our 12 photo collage options allow you to include anywhere from two to nine photos per page, so you don’t have to worry about cutting out any of your favorite pics of your babe. Qeepsake only offers the standard photo book style cover and their photo collages are limited to 4 photos each.
In addition to photos, videos, and text, you can choose to add a keepsake envelope to your Short Years Baby Book to safely store your baby’s mementos like their ultrasound photos, baby bracelet, and lock of hair from their first haircut. And, every Short Years Baby Book purchase includes special pages to capture your baby’s tiny footprints and handprints. Qeepsake does not offer either of these options.
Short Years moms love that they receive their printed pages each time they complete three chapters, so they can show off their baby book to friends and family throughout their baby’s first year. In fact, they often have an almost complete book to feature at their little one’s first birthday party! On the other hand, you must finish your whole book before printing your Qeepsake baby album.
Best of all, you can get lifetime access to The Short Years app free right now. You can try it as long as you want to create your baby book and order whenever you’re ready. Then, you can keep on using it to playback your videos anytime you want. Qeepsake only gives you a free 7-day trial.
There’s a lot to love about both these options, and we know whether you’re pregnant or have a newborn, you need a quick answer on this whole digital baby book dilemma, so you can go take a nap!
So, here’s a quick side-by-side comparison:
Printed on Premium Cardstock
Printed on Typical Photo Book Paper
If you want to create a beautiful baby book on your phone (without a subscription) The Short Years is for You
You simply answer questions about your baby’s memories and milestones and add photos and videos of your little one in five minutes per week.
The app automatically calculates your baby’s age on any specific date a photo was taken, so you’re never trying to figure out whether that first tooth poked through at five…or was it six months? (Tired moms don’t let tired moms do math!)
By the end of the year, you have a beautiful, physical photo album filled with all the memories and special moments from your baby’s first year.
The Short Years Baby Book includes lifetime video playback from the app or right from the pages of your baby book, so you can easily find and share them with friends and family.
If you want a digital baby book that includes video (with free lifetime playback)
With The Short Years, you can upload your videos to your baby book and play them back from the QR code printed in your baby book or on the app anytime you want. Your baby book
If you want the heirloom quality and feel of a traditional baby book (without pulling out the scrapbook supplies!) then choose from one of The Short Years’ seven beautiful fabric cover colors.
If You Want Prompts to Help You Capture Your Most Important Memories
Every week, The Short Years app sends you a gentle nudge to remind you to document your baby’s latest memories and milestones. Each prompt is specific and tailored to your child’s age, so you never get stuck wondering what to write.
But we understand that every family’s journey is unique. That’s why you can edit (or even delete) any prompt to make sure it’s a perfect fit to capture your baby’s story. We even have extra chapters to help you document your infertility and/or NICU journeys — at no extra cost.
Plus, the photo importer automatically aligns your photo dates with your baby’s age (no math required!)
A Traditional Baby Book Feel (without the printing, cutting, and gluing)
You can choose from one of seven heirloom quality fabric cover colors for a timeless design you’ll love to share!
If you Want Flexible Photo Layouts
The Short Years offers 12 beautifully designed collage options ranging from two all the way up to nine photos per collage, so you can squeeze in more precious pics of your little one per page.
If you want an almost complete baby book to show off at your little one’s first birthday
In fact, one thing that The Short Years’ customers love the most is that we ship your printed baby book pages to you each time you finish three chapters. When your pages arrive, you simply pop them into your book, and you have a gorgeous memory book ready to show off to friends and family throughout Baby’s first year.
If you’re like 78% of Short Years parents, you’ll have an almost completed baby book to feature at your little one’s first birthday party (just waiting to receive the 12-Month and First Birthday chapters after you send them to print).
Every Short Years Baby Book comes with journal pages for you to list baby shower gifts, document first visitors, and add other notes from you or other special family members. When you order The Short Years, you also get special pages to capture your little one’s footprints and handprints, so you never forget just how tiny they were.
You can also choose to add a keepsake envelope to store your little one’s special mementos like their sonogram photos, hospital bracelet, and lock of hair from their first haircut.
The Short Years also offers a coordinating Keepsake Box that fits your baby book along with all your little one’s most precious mementos like their favorite stuffed animal and baby blanket.
You can also add an additional 100 pages to your baby book with The Toddler Years and capture memories all the way until your baby turns five years old.
The Short Years allows you to add up to nine photos to our beautifully designed photo collages. And we’ll ship you your completed pages every time you complete three chapters, so you don’t have to wait to show off the memories!
The Short Years Baby Book Cost
With TSY, you pay one low price and get your book and all your printed pages included, plus free shipping on it all.
On the other hand, Qeepsake requires that you sign up for a yearly paid subscription if you want full access to the app (and you have to have an active subscription to order your book or watch your videos).
If you want to create baby books and don’t mind an annual paid subscription, Qeepsake might be for you
If you're looking to create a baby book to capture your family’s story and don't mind investing in an annual paid subscription, then a Qeepsake book might work for you. Like The Short Years, Qeepsake makes it easy to add photos and memories to create a physical photo book that documents your baby's first year and every special moment along the way.
However, there are some things you should be aware of before choosing Qeepsake.
Qeepsake Cost
With Qeepsake, you must have an active subscription ($95.88/year) to order your book and keep access to your videos. Plus, if you want to print out their largest 300-page book, it'll set you back $296.49 on top of your membership — plus $12 for shipping.
If you don’t mind not being able to play back videos from your book
Another thing you should know about Qeepsake: if you want playback access to your videos, you'll need to keep an active annual subscription indefinitely ($95.88/year as of this writing).
In addition, with Qeepsake you can't play back your videos directly from your book.
On the other hand, with The Short Years, we make it easy-peasy to capture and relive those precious clips for a lifetime from the app or the QR codes in your baby book. So you can share your precious moments with friends and family directly from your baby book anytime — no extra fees or limitations required.
If you don’t mind limiting your photos to four per collage
Qeepsake limits your photos to just four per collage. Whereas, The Short Years offers collages with up to 9 photos! Our baby books are filled with beautifully designed pages that can showcase all those adorable snapshots of your little one's journey. (So you can say goodbye to the struggle of choosing which photo to include and hello to capturing more memories with The Short Years!)
If a high-quality, heirloom feel isn’t important to you
Qeepsake offers a typical photo book-style baby book. If that’s what you’re looking for, it may be a perfect fit for you.
However, if you want more of a traditional, heirloom quality feel that matches your style, check out the seven beautiful fabric cover options available at The Short Years.
If you don’t mind finding somewhere else to store Baby’s keepsakes
While Qeepsake does help you document your baby’s milestones through their app, they don’t offer an option to help you preserve those tangible keepsakes that hold so much sentimental value. They also don’t include special pages to capture your baby’s wrinkly little footprints and handprints.
If you do want a safe place to store your little one's hospital bracelet, a lock of hair from their first haircut, and those little ultrasound photos that turn your heart to mush every time you look at them, check out The Short Years. We offer an option to add a keepsake envelope directly to your memory book, so you can safely tuck away those special mementos — and never have to worry about them slipping through the cracks.
And that's not all! We go above and beyond by including pages dedicated to capturing your baby's tiny footprints and handprints, included with your baby book. The Short Years really is your complete memory-keeping solution.
If you don’t mind waiting to hold your baby book until it’s all finished
Qeepsake keeps you waiting for your whole baby book to be completed before you get to hold it in your hands, as you would with any typical photo book.
Instead, if you’d rather get to turn those precious pages and start sharing the memories of Baby’s first year with friends and family right away, you’ll want to check out The Short Years Baby Book. We send you the cover, journal pages, hands and footprint pages, and chapter dividers right away, so you can start capturing memories from day one. But the best part is, every time you complete three chapters, we’ll send you your printed pages (with free shipping), so you can pop them into your book — because you shouldn’t have to wait to celebrate and share your little one’s milestones.
Download The Short Years Baby Book app and get started now!
Qeepsake vs The Short Years
By now we hope you have a clear picture of the differences between Qeepsake vs. The Short Years. And we hope you’re ready to jump in and try out The Short Years. It’s the easy baby book you can complete on your phone — in just 5 minutes per week. Because we believe, creating (and finishing) a baby book shouldn’t be stressful.
You’ve got this!