There are hundreds of iPad photo booth apps available on the App Store, with more popping up every day. The truth is, it’s pretty easy to throw together a countdown, snap a photo, and label it a photo booth app — but the best apps go way beyond that.
At times, finding the perfect app with the right mix of features and reliability to meet your needs can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.
That’s why we spent three weeks taking a deep dive into the world of iPad photo booth apps, exploring a dozen options to help you find the best app for you. From our research, we narrowed it down to six standout apps, put each one to the test, and sorted them based on what they do best. And just for fun, we included two apps that made us smile—though they might not be the best choice for an actual event.
The list is split into two sections: The first section highlights our picks for the best iPad photo booth apps that provide a genuine photo booth experience for live events. The second part takes a lighthearted turn, showcasing a couple of apps all about having fun.
⬇️ I just wanna have fun ⬇️
The bottom line: If you’re on the hunt for the best photo booth app that fits your needs, this is where you’ll find it. 👇
Best iPad Photo Booth Apps: You can’t go wrong with these.
How to Choose an iPad Photo Booth App
We found a ton of iPad photo booth apps, which can be overwhelming. To help you out, we narrowed them down using four key criteria:
- Photo Booth Features: Does the app have all the essential photo booth features? Does it offer any unique features that make it stand out? Does it have features like virtual backgrounds or branded customization options?
- Ease of Use: The app should be intuitive and simple to set up, allowing guests to easily interact with it. The photographer or business should be able to use it without expert knowledge.
- App Store Rating: How do its users rate it? Apps with strong ratings reflect reliability and overall user satisfaction.
- Pricing: How much bang-for-your-buck do you get from the app? Consider both subscription and in-app purchases to ensure they fit your budget.
Now, here’s the list we came up with.
Executive Summary
Please note that the App Store ratings are current as of our article update in September 2024 and can change daily, so we’ve also included a link to each app on the App Store for your own research.
Best iPad Photo Booth Apps for Professional Use | ||
Store Rating: 4.8 from 2.1k reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Price: Starts at $9 per week | Simple Booth HALO® Best for commercial events and businesses like clubs, restaurants, hotels, bars, festivals, and more. Download App | |
Store Rating: 4.1 from 46 reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Price: Starts at $69 per month | Snappic Best for photography studios or pro photographers with the equipment to build complete DIY photo booths. Download App | |
Store Rating: 4.8 from 13 reviews ⭐⭐⭐ Price: Starts at $20 per month | LumaBooth Best for non-commercial events like weddings, house parties, and birthdays. Download App | |
Store Rating: 3.7 from 71 reviews ⭐⭐⭐ Price: Starts at $49 per month | Salsa Booth Best for photo booth rental companies looking to provide their clients with multiple hardware options for niche use cases. Download App | |
Store Rating: 4.8 from 484 reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Price: Starts at $50 per month | Booth.Events Best iPad photobooth app for multi-day events like a 5-day conference. Download App | |
Store Rating: 3.8 from 14 reviews ⭐⭐⭐ Price: Starts at $30 per month | Darkroom Booth Honorable mention. Download App |
Best Free iPad Photo Booth Apps for Casual Use | ||
Store Rating: 4.7 from 7.6k reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Price: Free | Mini PhotoBooth Best for creating animated templates for birthdays and social events. Download App | |
Store Rating: 4.3 from 346 reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Price: Free | The Photos Booth Best for lighthearted, humorous images for quick laughs. Download App | |
Store Rating: 4.7 from 1.5k reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Price: Free | PocketBooth Best for vintage photo booth experiences. Download App |
6 Best iPad Photo Booth Apps for Professional Use
1. Simple Booth HALO® — Best App for Businesses and Commercial Events
Starting strong with Simple Booth HALO®, the complete photo booth solution, which not only includes the app but also hardware with flexible mounting options and an integrated, quality light source.
HALO was designed specifically for businesses that want to amplify in-person experiences, capture contacts, and increase brand awareness. The combination of Simple Booth’s photo booth app and business platform is designed to maximize engagement with branded customizations, seamlessly deliver photos to every guest, and drive social sharing through an online gallery.
For example, it’s easy to add your logo or overlay to every photo (or video) shared, creating a variety of user-generated content (UGC). When participants share photos on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, your custom hashtag is included automatically. Plus, the data capture tools are designed to collect information during the initial photo booth experience, with an impressive opt-in rate of 87%. No matter what your marketing goal is, Simple Booth HALO® ensures you can achieve it, making it a standout choice in the photo booth industry.
That’s a big statement, but don’t take our word for it. Have a look at these stats instead:
- Tried & true by over 30,000 happy customers 💪
- Featured by Apple on iPads across the US in thousands of Apple and Verizon retail stores in 2015 🏅
- Has the highest rating (4.8 stars from over 2,100 ratings) out of all the top apps by a long shot 💫
Simple Booth Pros | Simple Booth Cons |
✅ User-friendly app | ❌ Does not support DSLR cameras |
✅ Custom branding and white labeling features | |
✅ Extensive layout customizations, themes, and props | |
✅ Convenient HALO hardware |
Simple Booth HALO: Top 3 Unique Features
One of the best things about Simple Booth isn’t just its features—it’s that you don’t need to be tech-savvy to use it. That’s right, it really does make setting up a photo booth simple.
The app has an intuitive interface with easy-to-use settings—both in the iPad app and on the web—so anyone can set up and manage events with confidence. You can customize your “tap to start” screen and photos by choosing from over 60 high-quality themes or upload your own.
The software is simple, yet packed with features. HALO offers a little bit of everything for everyone. Four features that especially stand out are:
- Popular image formats like still images, boomerang-style video clips, GIFs, photo strips, or 15–120 second videos with sound.
- Customizable online galleries (with auto-hashtagging feature) that look amazing on any mobile device and can launch a Live Feed™ slideshow to project photos in real-time with the press of a button.
- Tons of digital props (with custom options), Instagram-style filters, and other creative effects to make every experience fun and memorable.
- AI background replacement for a perfect setting every time. You don’t have to invest in a green screen and worry about moving it around. But if you do choose to use green screen HALO handles that, too!
There is one downside, though: Simple Booth does not support DSLR cameras.
We know this could be a dealbreaker for professional photographers. However, for anyone who wants a turnkey iPad photo booth solution that is reliable and effective, we think Simple Booth HALO is the perfect fit.
Here’s how Simple Booth works:
Simple Booth: Pricing
Another highlight of our premium photo booth app is its extremely affordable entry-level pricing. Simple Booth starts at just $9 per week for unlimited use and offers additional plans to scale up for the needs of any sized business.
“I loved using Simple Booth – it was easy, super fun to see and send the photos, and the staff at Simple Booth were so helpful for problem solving when I needed it.”
-Sandra Tsai
👉 Sign up for a free trial of HALO and switch between software tiers to find the best fit!
Alternatively, you can also purchase the app as part of a hardware/software bundle and get everything you need for your photo booth in one stop.
BONUS: The HALO Hardware
The Simple Booth HALO hardware levels up this phenomenal app with added packages:
- Modern iPad Enclosure with Ring Light: The iPad enclosure keeps your iPad fixed safely in an aluminum casing. Not only does it hide all the charging cable for a cleaner look, but it also won’t let the iPad move or shake, allowing you to capture clearer images. Most importantly, it includes soft LED lighting that helps every guest look beautiful.
- Robust Stand: The HALO stand features a low center of gravity design for optimal balance, so you don’t have to worry about people knocking it over. It also has an adjustable riser and different mounting options to achieve the best height and angle.
- Rugged Transportation Case: Carrying photo booth hardware to and from event venues can be challenging. Our HALO Event Kit includes a robust travel case with wheels to make transportation easier.
Together, the Simple Booth HALO software and hardware let you set up the perfect photo booth for high-quality and good-looking images anywhere and everywhere.
Here’s how fast and easy it is to set up:
Use Simple Booth if:
- You want to generate leads from your business events or venues.
- You want a large number of filters, digital props, and themes to engage your guests.
- You want photo booth software with robust branding and marketing tools.
👉 Sign up for a free trial of HALO today and switch between software tiers to find the best fit!
2. Snappic — Best App for Advanced DIY Video Photo Booth
There are a few photo booth apps that offer the ability to record full-length videos, but Snappic takes the potential of video booths to a whole new level.
Snappic features a design studio for video templates called VideoFX that allows you to upload your own video clips, choose visual effects, sounds, and adjust timing for highly custom results. It’s a very powerful suite of tools that will allow you to render the most creative video results for the most rigorous clients. If you’re looking to set up an advanced DIY video photo booth, look into Snappic!
The app also offers a competition feature to incentivize photos. You can use it to create spin-the-wheel or scratch-off contests for guests to win prizes, adding an extra layer of excitement to the photo experience.
Snappic Pros | Snappic Cons |
✅ DSLR support | ❌ Requires add-on for green screen |
✅ Customizable survey-builder | ❌ No in-app stickers |
✅ Enabled animated overlays |
Snappic: Top 3 Unique Features
- Create premium videos using VideoFX
- Interactive contests for participants like spin-to-win
- FaceMatch facial recognition for guests to find their photos
Snappic provides several professionally-designed templates, filters, and animated overlays that you can use to create a video photo booth that perfectly aligns with your event’s theme.
Additionally, Snappic features green screen and AI background removal to put your guests in front of a custom digital backdrop.
However, keep in mind that you can only access most of these features through the website. It’s not possible to create events offline from the iPad itself. So, if you end up reaching the venue without preloading the event settings… you may be out of luck.
Snappic is a good option if you’re able to spend a healthy number of hours ahead of your event getting familiar with the ins and outs of the software platform.
Here’s how Snappic works:
Snappic: Pricing
Snappic offers advanced customization tools and filters to its customers, but it comes at a price. The two monthly pricing plans are Basic ($69) and Enterprise ($169) with no in-betweens. Alternatively, you can pay $19 and $69 per event, respectively. Only the Enterprise plan offers all the advanced video photo booth features mentioned previously.
Use Snappic if:
- You are a pro photographer or studio and want to build a DIY photo booth.
- You want a customizable survey builder to collect guest data.
- You want Canon, Nikon, or Sony DSLR compatibility.
Need more information? We also wrote an in-depth comparison of Snappic vs Simple Booth, systematically reviewing their features side-by-side.
3. LumaBooth – Best App for Non-Commercial Events
LumaBooth is developed by the makers of the world-famous DSLR photo booth software dslrBooth.
It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles found in some more powerful photo booth apps that have been on the market longer and lacks DSLR support, but it has all the essentials you need to set up an affordable and easy-to-use photo booth for non-commercial events.
All the settings are in the app instead of on the web, which means if you show up to an event and have no WiFi to download settings, you can still make things work on the fly. The app can also sync your event settings and templates to other iPads and/or iPhones and, in the event you don’t have internet, will operate and queue any unsent photos until it can connect again.
LumaBooth Pros | LumaBooth Cons |
✅ AI and green screen background removal | ❌ Needs upgrades for advanced gallery features |
✅ In-app stickers | ❌ No DSLR support |
✅ Printing via AirPrint, LumaBooth Assistant, and more |
LumaBooth: Top 3 Unique Features
- Can run on an iPad or iPhone
- Uses AI to automatically remove backgrounds (no need for green screen)
- Syncs photo booth event settings and templates across all iPads/iPhones that have the app
LumaBooth also features an array of built-in themes for different occasions, ensuring your weddings, house parties, and birthdays are beautifully personalized, with setups that match your event mode and social media integration capabilities.
There is also a virtual attendant feature to guide participants through the experience with audio and visual cues, which could be helpful for accessibility purposes
Additionally, you can use an online gallery feature to upload media to fotoShare Cloud and create an online gallery for your event. But unlike other photo booths on our list, you can only access gallery settings through a web browser.
Here’s a guide on how to use LumaBooth:
LumaBooth: Pricing
LumaBooth is available for just $19.99 per month through the App Store, which is fairly affordable. It includes basic gallery features, along with unlimited email and SMS sharing. With limited functionality, LumaBooth also offers a completely free version.
Use LumaBooth if:
- You’re an individual hosting an event or a service-based freelancer.
- You prioritize social media integration.
- You’re on a budget.
Need more information? We wrote an in-depth comparison of LumaBooth vs Simple Booth, systematically reviewing their features side-by-side.
4. Salsa Booth — Best for Starting a Photo Booth Rental Business
Salsa Booth is a good choice for individuals who want to start a photo booth business and would like a little push to get off the ground.
That’s because the app comes with a large collection of resources and educational videos for beginners, plus a solid collection of taps to start screens and overlays. All this can be very helpful for starting a successful photo booth business.
Salsa Booth also comes with many popular photo booth features like special effects, animated GIFs, text messaging, a survey collection tool, and an online dashboard with settings, and analytics. Overall, it’s intuitive to use and works as expected.
Salsa Pros | Salsa Cons |
✅ Over 240 themes for different events | ❌ Hardware is expensive ($2,999 Starter Package) |
✅ Provides hardware add-ons like backdrops and watermarked films | ❌ Additional cost for faceplate compatible with other iPads |
✅ 30-day free trial period |
Salsa Booth: Top 3 Unique Features
- Access to the Photo Booth Academy includes more than 100 videos on how to run events, market your business, and even do accounting
- Includes a built-in tool to send event proposals to clients to help book gigs
- Provides marketing materials to promote your rental business (with hardware purchase only)
The Salsa Booth app also lets you cast a slideshow of the live captured images on any TV or screen, so more people can enjoy the photo booth photos at events.
Plus, you can run it in a special hands-free mode and deliver the photos by QR code for a touchless photo booth experience.
One thing to consider before buying into the Salsa Booth ecosystem is whether or not there are already Salsa Booths in your home market, since it can be harder to differentiate your business if everyone else is offering the same style booth.
Here’s an overview of how Salsa Booth works:
Salsa Booth: Pricing
Salsa Booth pricing is on point for the value and features they offer. The Fiesta Plus plan starts at $49 per month and the Fiesta Pro plan starts at $99 per month. You can also try out all the features on a free trial (credit card required). The hardware is priced separately.
Use Salsa Booth if:
- You want hardware add-ons like watermarked films and backdrops.
- You often host outdoor events and need a built-in cooling fan.
- You don’t mind the cost.
Need more information? We wrote an in-depth comparison of Simple Booth vs Salsa, systematically reviewing their features side-by-side.
5. Booth.Events — Best App for Multi-Day Events
Most photo booth apps allow you to add photos to an event for a limited amount of time, usually about one day. This makes it challenging to have multi-day events like a 5-day conference, especially if you want all of the photos to be in one gallery.
Booth.Events is optimized to help you keep adding unlimited photos to your gallery until it expires. The expiration date differs between the paid plans, but it goes from 3 months up to 2 years.
The Booth.Events app has gained popularity for its user-friendly interface and easy-to-use features. One standout function is SceneSelect mode, which lets guests take photos in front of a green screen, remove the original background, and choose a new one from a variety of options. This adds a dynamic, customizable element to the experience, making it ideal for creating fully branded and personalized content for any event.
The app also connects with a DSLR, so you can impress your guests with premium quality pictures.
Booth.Events Pros | Booth.Events Cons |
✅ Free starter plan | ❌ Expensive monthly plans |
✅ Optimized for multi-day events | |
✅ Integrates with DSLR cameras for high-quality images |
Booth.Events: Top 3 Unique Features
- Pairs with Nikon, Sony, and Canon DSLRs
- Allows you to replace green screen with realistic backgrounds
- Collects real-time guest data like email addresses and phone numbers
The Booth.Events app enables you to build custom templates and tap to start screens from scratch through a drag-and-drop web interface.
You can personalize the dimensions, backgrounds, overlays, and much more. The app stores these templates and screens separately from your events so that you can easily reuse them in the future.
It also provides extensive white labeling features, allowing you to remove Booth.Events branding entirely and replace it with your own logos and designs, ensuring you maintain a consistent brand identity across multiple events.
Here’s an overview of how it works:
Booth.Events: Pricing
Booth.Events has a free version that comes with 3 events and SMS in the USA and Canada. However, it only lets you store up to 100 files for three days. So, if you want to explore the app fully and access unlimited events, it’s best to choose between the paid plans: Basic ($49 per month), Pro ($79 per month), and Pro+ ($129 per month). While the gallery uploads are unlimited for every plan, the online gallery storage is limited from 3 months to 2 years. Everything stays saved in your Camera Roll, though.
Use Booth.Events if:
- You need DSLR camera integration.
- You want green screen background customization.
- You prioritize fully branded experiences.
Learn more about Booth.Events details on their website!
6. Darkroom Booth for iPad — Honorable Mention
Darkroom Booth for iPad is not one of the highest-rated apps on the App Store, but it still caught our attention because it’s from the makers of the original Darkroom Booth, a popular photo booth app for PC from back in the day.
This photo booth app for iPad has a modest set of features. As expected, it enables you to watermark all the images with your logo and colors. Notably, it lacks creative filters, effects, digital props, and does not have any tools to build surveys or custom forms for participant data.
Darkroom Booth for iPad does offer an interesting feature to accommodate international users. Its translation feature allows you to replace the words and phrases in the user interface with your own, in the language of your choice.
Plus, you can link up to 10 iPads at once to cater to the needs of large audiences.
Darkroom Booth Pros | Darkroom Booth Cons |
✅ Supports watermarking with logos and brand colors | ❌ Limited customization for event branding |
✅ Allows connecting up to 10 iPads simultaneously for large events | ❌ Lacks creative filters and digital props |
✅ Instant photo printing through AirPrint |
Darkroom Booth: Top 3 Unique Features
- Translate text into different languages or write your own phrases
- Run up to 10 devices with one subscription
- Advanced iPad camera settings
If you are a photographer who swears by manual camera settings for every shot, you will love the advanced camera options in Darkroom Booth for iPad. You can adjust the ISO, white balance, and other settings to fine-tune your captured imagery. It’s also possible to create GIFs, burst images, and boomerangs. Once you’re done, you can print the images instantly via AirPrint.
Here is a quick overview of how Darkroom Booth works:
Darkroom Booth: Pricing
Darkroom Booth’s monthly subscription plan costs $29.99. You can also choose the annual plan for $299.99 (basically 2 free months). Also, note that advanced features like online galleries require a separate subscription.
Use Darkroom Booth if:
- You need to run multiple iPads at a large event.
- You require a multilingual interface for international events.
- You’re looking for simple photo booth functionality with printing options.
Learn more about Darkroom Booth for iPad on the App Store!
3 Best Free Photo Booth Apps for Fun & Casual Use
1. Mini PhotoBooth — Most Customizable Templates
Who doesn’t love snapping creative photo booth pictures with friends and family?
Well, Mini PhotoBooth offers you just the right tools for a lighthearted and memorable experience.
It has a wide range of animated templates for Halloween, Christmas, and other occasions. You can use them to capture images, videos, and GIFs. Once you’re done, a single click lets you print or share the content on social media.
Mini PhotoBooth: Top 3 Unique Features
- Instant printing and sharing options
- More than 60 photo booth templates
- Unlimited custom text using 120+ fonts
The Mini PhotoBooth app also enables you to customize the templates fully. You can change the layout, backgrounds, colors, text, and stickers.
Use Mini PhotoBooth if:
- You need fun, animated templates for personal events like parties or holidays.
- You want simple, customizable templates for quick setup.
Check out MiniPhoto Booth on the App Store!
2. The Photos Booth — Funniest Live Effects
The Photos Booth makes taking pics a fun experience with its quirky real-time effects.
Whether you’re turning yourself into a cartoon character, rocking a fish-eye lens, or warping your face in all sorts of wacky ways, this app is designed to keep you and your friends entertained for hours.
The Photos Booth: Top 3 Unique Features
- 39 real-time live effects and color presets
- Great low-light performance with Screen Flash
- Support for dual and triple rear camera devices
But keep in mind that while The Photos Booth app is free to use, you’d need to pay a one-time fee of $1.99 to avoid ads.
Use The Photos Booth if:
- You want a lighthearted photo booth app to make you laugh.
- You enjoy sharing funny, altered images on social media.
Check out The Photos Booth app for iPad!
3. Pocketbooth Photo Booth — Vintage Photo Booth Fun
With a price of only $0.99, Pocketbooth is very affordable for the value it delivers. This photo booth application takes you back to the 1950s using its vintage photo strips, so you can create classic photo collages wherever you go.
Pocketbooth: Top 3 Unique Features
- Photo strips that feel authentically vintage
- Save GPS location with a photo strip
- Print your photo strips or share via social media platforms or email
PocketBooth comes with 5 photo effects, 2 paper types, and 2 border styles.
You can use them to get retro-style images that look like they were taken in an actual old-school photo booth. Since some users might find the options limited, the app offers in-app purchases to get many more filters and styles.
See the app in action here:
Use Pocketbooth if:
- You want a vintage photo booth experience.
- You want easy sharing options for retro-style photo strips.
Get Pocketbooth on the App Store today!
There you have it…
A comprehensive list of the best iPad photo booth software, currently crushing it in the store!
Whether you’re looking to entertain guests at a wedding or gather data at a corporate event, there’s an app suited for the job.
Here are our top three picks:
- Simple Booth HALO is the best iPad photo booth app for business owners who need the analytic tools and branding features required to host commercial events.
- Snappic is best for photography studios or pro photographers with the equipment to build DIY photo booths.
- LumaBooth is best for individuals who want a cheap and easy-to-use iPad photo booth app for non-commercial events.
In the end, the best way to find the best one is to try each app out yourself. Download each app, sign up for a free trial, and see what works best for you!
One last thing. If you work at a business or not-for-profit, then we highly recommend checking out Simple Booth HALO, our premiere photo booth app. And if you’re a true power-user and love the software, consider upgrading to the full package: HALO software + hardware 🙂