Walgreens sells photo prints at $.30 for a 4 x 6, the three dollars for a 5 x 7. This seems disproportionate?
#
#
Yes—wildly disproportionate by area.
A 4×6 print is 24 square inches; a 5×7 is 35 square inches, only about 46% larger. At 30¢ versus $3, however, the 5×7 costs 10 times as much—roughly seven times more per square inch.
The explanation is retail pricing, not production cost:
- 4×6 is the mass-market commodity size, printed in enormous volume and often used as a loss leader.
- Photo machines and paper rolls are optimized around 4×6.
- 5×7 is treated as a premium enlargement, even though it is barely an enlargement.
- Customers ordering 5×7 prints are often buying just one or two for frames or gifts, so Walgreens assumes much lower price sensitivity.
- The posted 5×7 price may also function as a “coupon price anchor”; photo departments routinely offer 40–60% discounts.
So the extra paper and ink might plausibly justify 40–60% more, perhaps somewhat more because of lower volume—but not 900% more.
The remaining difference is essentially a convenience and premium-format markup.
