UK photo cards come in three main shapes. A folded card measures 14 x 10cm when closed and opens like a normal birthday card. A panorama card is a flat 10 x 21cm strip. A photo postcard is 14.8 x 10.4cm. All three fit inside Royal Mail's standard Letter size, so all three post at the same rate.
Most people choose the card size last, after they have picked the photo. That is the wrong way round. The size decides how much of your photo survives the crop, whether your message stays private, and how much it costs to send. Get the size right first and the rest falls into place.
This guide covers every standard UK card size in cm, mm and inches, what the three personalised photo cards formats actually cost, how many pixels each one needs, and the postage rule that catches people out. Prices were checked in August 2026.
The short version
Folded cards are 14 x 10cm closed. A set of 10 costs £9.00 with white envelopes included. You get four printable sides, so this is the format for birthdays and invitations.
Panorama cards are 10 x 21cm. A set of 10 costs £3.00 with envelopes included. That works out at 30p per card, the cheapest of the three, and the shape suits wide landscape photos.
Photo postcards are 14.8 x 10.4cm. A set of 12 costs £4.00. There is no envelope, so anyone handling the post can read your message.
Postage is the hidden cost. All three formats fit Royal Mail's Letter limit and post at 91p second class. An A5 card does not fit, and costs £1.55 each instead.
Whichever you choose, check your photo is at least 1,181 pixels on its shortest side before you order.
Every UK card size in one table
Card sizes in the UK follow the A-series paper standard, with a few extras borrowed from the print trade. Photo printers often use their own sizes on top of that, which is why a photo card rarely matches the A6 card you would buy in a shop.
Card format
Size (mm)
Size (cm)
Size (inches)
Usually used for
MYPICTURE folded photo card
140 x 100 closed
14 x 10
5.5" x 3.9"
Birthdays, invitations, menus
MYPICTURE panorama photo card
210 x 100
21 x 10
8.3" x 3.9"
Landscapes, group photos, announcements
MYPICTURE photo postcard
148 x 104
14.8 x 10.4
5.8" x 4.1"
Holiday greetings, thank yous
A6 (UK standard card)
105 x 148 folded
10.5 x 14.8
4.1" x 5.8"
Everyday shop-bought cards
A5
148 x 210 folded
14.8 x 21
5.8" x 8.3"
Weddings, big announcements
DL
99 x 210
9.9 x 21
3.9" x 8.3"
Slim invitations, vouchers
5" x 7"
127 x 178 folded
12.7 x 17.8
5" x 7"
Photo cards, wedding stationery
Square
140 x 140 or 150 x 150
14 x 14 or 15 x 15
5.5" or 5.9"
Modern and minimal designs
Two things trip people up here. The first is that folded cards are always measured closed, not flat. An A5 card is cut from a sheet of A4 and folded in half, so the flat sheet is twice the size you see on the label.
The second is the American A6. In the United States, A6 means 114 x 159mm. In the UK it means 105 x 148mm. If you download a card template from an American site, check the millimetres before you print anything.
Folded photo cards: what they do well, and where they struggle
A MYPICTURE folded photo card measures 140 x 100mm when closed and comes in portrait or landscape. Cards are sold in sets of 10 for £9.00, printed on semi-gloss paper with a protective laminate, and white envelopes are included. There are over 30 design templates to start from.
The strength of a folded card is space. You get four printable sides: a front, two inside panels and a back. That is room for a photo on the cover, a longer message inside, and a second smaller photo if you want one. A folded card also stands up on a mantelpiece, which no flat card does. Because it comes with an envelope, the message stays private until it is opened.
The weakness is cost. At 90p per card it is three times the price of a panorama card, and the front panel is the smallest printing area of the three formats at 140 x 100mm. Wide photos lose their edges when cropped to fit it. There is also the fold itself: if you spread one photo across the whole outside, a crease runs through it. The semi-gloss finish helps here, because it holds detail better than a matte surface without throwing back the glare you get from full gloss — the same trade-off covered in our guide to glossy and matte finishes.
Panorama photo cards: what they do well, and where they struggle
A panorama photo card measures 210 x 100mm and is flat rather than folded. Sets of 10 cost £3.00, envelopes included, on the same semi-gloss laminated stock. That is 30p per card, which makes it the cheapest personalised card MYPICTURE prints.
The shape is the point. A 2.1:1 ratio is close to what your phone produces in panorama mode, and it suits anything wide: a beach, a city skyline, a school year group, a wedding party lined up. On a folded card that same photo would be cropped down to its middle third. Here it survives intact. The low price also makes panorama cards the sensible choice when you need volume, such as save-the-dates or a change of address.
The weakness is that a flat card gives you one side for a photo and one side for writing, and no more. There is no inside. A tall portrait photo is nearly unusable at this ratio, because you lose the top and bottom. Panorama cards also do not stand up, so they tend to end up on a fridge rather than a shelf. And it is worth being straight about the competition: CEWE scores 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot against our 4.5, so if review score is the only thing you weigh, they are a fair place to look.
Photo postcards: what they do well, and where they struggle
MYPICTURE photo postcards measure 148 x 104mm and come in sets of 12 for £4.00, or roughly 33p each. The back can carry either a second photo or the classic postcard layout with address lines. For a fuller breakdown of the standard, see our guide to what size a postcard is in the UK.
Postcards are the easiest format to send. There is no envelope to address separately, no flap to seal, and the semi-gloss surface takes a ballpoint pen without smudging. You also get 12 in a set rather than 10, which is the practical number for a family Christmas round or a holiday batch. The stiff laminated stock survives the sorting machines better than a thin card would.
The obvious drawback is privacy. Anything you write can be read by anyone who handles the post, so a postcard is wrong for anything personal. The writing area is also small once you allow for the address, at roughly half of a 148 x 104mm side. And because there is no envelope, the printed face arrives with whatever marks the journey gave it.
Folded vs panorama vs postcard: side by side
Folded photo card
Panorama photo card
Photo postcard
Size
140 x 100mm closed
210 x 100mm
148 x 104mm
Sold in sets of
10
10
12
Price from
£9.00
£3.00
£4.00
Cost per card
90p
30p
33p
Envelopes included
Yes, white
Yes, white
No
Printable sides
4
2
2
Message stays private
Yes
Yes
No
Stands up on a shelf
Yes
No
No
Suits portrait photos
Yes
Poorly
Yes
Suits wide photos
Poorly
Yes
Reasonably
Best for
Birthdays, invitations
Landscapes, group shots, bulk sends
Holidays, thank yous
There is no single winner here, and the table is not really a scoreboard. It is a division of labour. The folded card is the one you give by hand when the message matters. The panorama card is the one you send when the photograph matters and there are a lot of people to send it to. The postcard is the one you send from somewhere, where the point is that it arrived at all.
What each format costs to post
This is the part almost nobody checks before ordering. Royal Mail prices post by size band, not by what is inside. A Letter must measure no more than 240 x 165 x 5mm and weigh up to 100g. Anything larger becomes a Large Letter, up to 353 x 250 x 25mm. From 7 April 2026 a Letter costs £1.80 first class or 91p second class, and a Large Letter costs £3.30 or £1.55 (see the current Royal Mail postage prices).
All three MYPICTURE card formats fit inside the Letter limit. The panorama card is the closest at 210mm long, still 30mm short of the 240mm ceiling. A standard A5 card, at 148 x 210mm, breaches the 165mm width and jumps a band.
Here is what that means on a set of 10 cards sent second class:
Format
Postage band
Postage for 10
Cards
Total to send 10
Panorama photo card (210 x 100mm)
Letter
£9.10
£3.00
£12.10
Photo postcard (148 x 104mm)
Letter
£9.10
£3.33*
£12.43
Folded photo card (140 x 100mm)
Letter
£9.10
£9.00
£18.10
A5 card from a high street shop (148 x 210mm)
Large Letter
£15.50
varies
£15.50 postage alone
*Postcards are sold in sets of 12 for £4.00; the figure shown is the pro-rata cost of 10 cards.
Send the same 10 cards first class and the gap widens. Ten Letters cost £18.00, ten Large Letters cost £33.00. That £15 difference is larger than the price of the cards themselves. Choosing a card that stays under 165mm wide is the single cheapest decision in this whole article.
How many pixels your photo needs for each card size
Print sharpness is measured in DPI, or dots per inch. Small prints held close to the eye need 300 DPI to look clean. Below about 150 DPI you start to see soft edges and mushy detail. The maths is simple: multiply the size in inches by the DPI. Our guide to photo print resolution explains why the same photo can look fine on a card and poor on a canvas.
Card format
Size
Ideal at 300 DPI
Minimum at 150 DPI
Folded photo card
140 x 100mm
1,654 x 1,181 px
827 x 591 px
Panorama photo card
210 x 100mm
2,480 x 1,181 px
1,240 x 591 px
Photo postcard
148 x 104mm
1,748 x 1,228 px
874 x 614 px
A6 card
105 x 148mm
1,240 x 1,748 px
620 x 874 px
A5 card
148 x 210mm
1,748 x 2,480 px
874 x 1,240 px
5" x 7" card
127 x 178mm
1,500 x 2,102 px
750 x 1,051 px
A photo from any phone made in the last decade clears these numbers with room to spare. The files that fail are the ones that have been through something: a picture saved from a social media app, a screenshot of a photo, an image emailed at "medium" size, or a shot that has been cropped down to a corner. If your file is under 1,000 pixels on its short side, find the original before you order.
A three-question test to settle it
1. Is the photo wider than it is tall, by a lot? If yes, choose the panorama card. Nothing else does justice to a 2:1 image.
2. Does the message need to stay private? If yes, choose folded or panorama, because both come with envelopes. Rule out the postcard.
3. Are you sending more than 10? If yes, cost per card starts to matter. Panorama at 30p and postcards at 33p are a third of the price of a folded card.
If the answers split, let question two decide. Privacy is the only one of the three you cannot fix afterwards. A wide photo can be cropped and a big order can be split, but a postcard read by a neighbour cannot be unread.
Why choose MY-PICTURE.CO.UK over other competitors?
MYPICTURE prints all three card formats in Europe on semi-gloss laminated stock you can write on with a ballpoint pen. The pricing position is straightforward: cards start at £3.00 for a set of 10, and the Lowest Price Guarantee beats any like-for-like UK price by 5%, which means the comparison shopping is effectively done for you. Delivery is free over £49.
The table below compares the specific things buyers ask about most, and it is not a claim to be better at everything.
*Ratings and prices correct as of August 2026. Prices exclude delivery; all brands run periodic promotions.
Pick the format by the photo and the postage, not by the picture on the product page. If the shot is wide, go panorama. If the words matter more than the picture, go folded. If it is a holiday hello to a dozen people, go postcard. All three start from £3.00 a set at MYPICTURE.
Frequently asked questions
What size are greeting cards in the UK?
The most common UK greeting card size is A6, which measures 105 x 148mm when folded. A5 (148 x 210mm folded), DL (99 x 210mm) and 5" x 7" (127 x 178mm folded) are also widely sold, along with square cards at 140 x 140mm or 150 x 150mm. Photo printers often use their own sizes instead. MYPICTURE folded photo cards, for example, measure 140 x 100mm when closed.
Is a card A5 or A6?
Most shop-bought greeting cards in the UK are A6, measuring 105 x 148mm folded. A5 cards are twice that size at 148 x 210mm folded, and they are usually sold for big announcements such as weddings or new babies. A quick way to tell them apart: an A6 card fits comfortably in one hand, while an A5 card is about the size of a paperback book cover.
Is 5" x 7" an A5?
No. A 5" x 7" card measures 127 x 178mm, while an A5 card measures 148 x 210mm. The 5" x 7" size is a little narrower and noticeably shorter. The two are often confused because both are described as large card sizes, but an A5 envelope will leave a 5" x 7" card loose inside, so buy envelopes to match the card rather than to match the description.
What size is a photo postcard in the UK?
A UK photo postcard is normally A6, or close to it. MYPICTURE photo postcards measure 148 x 104mm, which sits within Royal Mail's standard Letter limit of 240 x 165 x 5mm. That means a photo postcard posts at the ordinary Letter rate rather than the higher Large Letter rate, which keeps the cost of sending a batch down.
Do photo cards come with envelopes?
It depends on the format. MYPICTURE folded photo cards and panorama photo cards both come with white envelopes included in the set. Photo postcards do not, because a postcard is designed to be written on and posted as it is. If you want your message to stay private, choose a folded or panorama card rather than a postcard.
How many pixels do I need for a greeting card?
For a sharp print at 300 DPI, a 140 x 100mm folded card needs roughly 1,654 x 1,181 pixels, and a 148 x 104mm postcard needs about 1,748 x 1,228 pixels. A wide 210 x 100mm panorama card needs around 2,480 x 1,181 pixels. Most photos taken on a modern phone clear these numbers easily. Screenshots, social media downloads and heavily cropped images often do not.
