Frequently Asked Questions

All you need is an idea for a story and the images of the characters to star in the story - the images can be from photos or online product images. There is no need to pay until you love your story and want to keep it in form of PDF or a printed book.

You chat with our AI assistant Emma to create a custom story featuring your child's favorite toys or characters. The AI then generates illustrations and a narrative poem, which you can customize and either download as a PDF or order as a professionally printed book.

The creation process typically takes 15-30 minutes. Your digital PDF is available instantly upon completion. Printed books are professionally produced and shipped within 3-5 business days.

Yes! You can upload photos of your child's favorite toys, stuffed animals, pets, or characters, and our AI will bring them to life as the heroes of the story. From beloved teddy bears to family dogs, any cherished companion can become a storybook character.

Our personalized books are designed for children ages 2-99, with customizable themes and complexity levels to match your child's interests and reading level.

Absolutely! While we originally designed Enchantably for children, adults love creating personalized books for all kinds of occasions. Users have created books to capture the spirit of yoga retreats, document team-building experiences with colleagues, celebrate friendships, commemorate special events, or simply create unique gifts with a touch of comic relief. If you can imagine it, you can create it!

Digital PDF downloads are free to create and $8.99 to download. Professionally printed hardcover books are $36.99 for regular binding and $58.99 for premium lay-flat binding. All printed books include a FREE digital PDF copy! Educators with .edu email addresses receive automatic volume discounts of up to 35% off.

Yes! When ordering a printed photobook, you can select the quantity you need (up to 100 copies per order). This is perfect for classroom sets, family gifts, or party favors. Volume discounts are available for educators with .edu email addresses.

Yes! Teachers, counselors, and school administrators with a .edu email address receive automatic discounts: 15% off for 1-4 books, 20% off for 5-9 books, 25% off for 10-24 books, and 35% off for 25+ books. These discounts are applied automatically at checkout when you enter your .edu email address. We also accept purchase orders and offer NET-30 invoicing for verified schools.

Yes! Every printed photobook purchase includes a FREE PDF download. You'll receive your digital copy immediately via email while your printed book is being produced and shipped. This way you can start reading the story right away or share it digitally with family members.

Standard binding uses traditional perfect binding where pages are glued together at the spine, creating a small gutter in the center of spreads. Lay-flat binding uses a special binding technique that allows the book to open completely flat with no gutter, so illustrations seamlessly span across both pages without any distortion or loss in the center. Lay-flat books are ideal if your story has full two-page spread illustrations and you want an uninterrupted viewing experience.

Absolutely! You have full control to edit every verse of the poem, adjust the dedication, customize illustrations, and change the book layout before finalizing your book.

No worries — you can regenerate any illustration using your account credits. Each customer receives 80 credits to start (1 credit = 1 image generation), which is plenty of room to experiment. Add specific feedback like "make the background brighter" or "change the shirt to pink" and the AI will incorporate your notes into the next version. Most pages look great on the first or second try!

You can include up to 8 characters in your personalized book — children, toys, and pets. Some story templates also let you add parent or grandparent characters. The AI uses reference photos to keep each character consistent across every illustration.

Each illustration is uniquely generated by AI — like a real illustrator, every spread has its own personality. Because each page is a brand-new creation (not a copy-paste), small artistic variations naturally occur. This is part of what makes every Enchantably book truly one-of-a-kind. If a particular page doesn't feel right, you can always use the regenerate button to get a fresh version.

AI illustration is magical but not flawless. Occasionally you may notice small quirks — an extra finger, a slightly different hairstyle, or a playful perspective shift. These are the nature of AI-generated art today. We give you generous credits and a regenerate tool so you can refresh any page until you love it. Most families find the overall charm and personalization far outweigh any minor imperfections, and kids absolutely love seeing their toys come to life!

Yes! Our AI supports multiple languages. You can create stories in Spanish, French, Chinese, and many other languages.

While you can upload reference photos of copyrighted characters, our AI is designed to create original, legally-distinct characters inspired by your references rather than exact replicas. This protects both you and us from copyright infringement. The AI transforms trademarked characters into unique interpretations that capture the spirit of the original while being distinctly different. This approach ensures your book is a legal, original creation you can proudly own and share.

Our printing partner has hubs that allow shipping globally, but best service is in the US, GB and EU countries.

Printed books are professionally produced and shipped within 3-5 business days. You'll receive tracking information once your book ships.

Digital books are delivered as high-quality PDF files that you can view on any device, print at home, or take to a professional printer.

Continental US shipping is $6.99 and similar for European shipping.

Throughout the creation process, you can preview exactly how each page will look on screen before purchasing. We encourage you to carefully review your book and ensure it meets your expectations before completing your purchase. If you notice discrepancies between what you saw on screen and your final digital download, please contact us immediately and we will work to resolve the issue. For printed books, if you receive a book with printing errors or defects, please reach out to us for a replacement. We stand behind the quality of our printing.

No, photos are completely optional! You can simply type a description like "brown curly hair, blue eyes, freckles" and our AI will create illustrations based on your description. Many parents prefer this approach for privacy reasons. You also don't need to use your child's real name—nicknames like "Buddy", "Princess", or completely made-up names work perfectly.

Absolutely. We take privacy seriously and have implemented multiple layers of protection. All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256). Your stories and images are stored in isolated, private storage that only you can access. We use Google Cloud Platform with enterprise-grade security certifications including SOC 1/2/3 and ISO 27001.

This is important: photos of children are deleted immediately after our AI analyzes them. We only need the photo for a few seconds to generate a text description of your child's appearance (hair color, eye color, etc.). Once we have that description, the photo is permanently deleted from our servers. Only the text description is kept to ensure consistent illustrations throughout your book.

No, absolutely not. We use Google's Vertex AI, which has explicit contractual guarantees that customer data is never used to train or improve AI models. Your photos, stories, and personal content remain completely private and are only used to generate your specific book. Your data is processed and immediately discarded by the AI—it's never retained for training purposes.

Your completed books and stories are stored securely in your account for up to a year, as long as your account remains active. Photos of children are deleted immediately after AI processing (within seconds). Toy/character photos are retained only for the duration of your story creation. You can access, edit, or download your books at any time. If you choose to delete your account, all associated data will be permanently removed within 30 days.

Your books and photos are completely private. Only you can access them through your personal account. Our security rules ensure complete user isolation—not even other Enchantably users can access your content. We never share your content with other users or display it publicly without your explicit permission.

Yes, absolutely! You have full control over your content. You can delete individual books, photos, or your entire account at any time from your account settings. Once deleted, all data is permanently removed from our servers and cannot be recovered. Child photos are automatically deleted immediately after AI processing anyway, so you don't need to worry about those.

Yes, your data is secure on multiple levels. All data is transmitted over encrypted HTTPS connections. We use Firebase Authentication (powered by Google) for secure sign-in, and we never store your passwords. For payments, we use Stripe—a PCI-DSS Level 1 certified payment processor. This means your credit card information never touches our servers at all. Stripe processes payments directly, and we only receive confirmation that payment was successful.

Yes! Enchantably is designed to be a family-friendly, collaborative experience. There is no inappropriate content, advertising, or social features. The AI is configured to only generate age-appropriate, positive content suitable for children. We recommend that parents create books together with their children as a fun bonding activity.