Best Paint by Numbers Kits UK (2026): An Honest Brand Comparison

Last updated: 30 July 2026

Disclosure: this guide is published by Paint A Moment, a UK paint by numbers brand based in Northallerton, North Yorkshire. We sell kits, including some of the kits compared below. We have written this comparison to be useful rather than flattering, and we recommend competitors by name wherever they are the better choice.

The short answer

For a ready-made design with the widest choice, Figured'Art UK is the strongest all-rounder. For British manufacturing and next-day dispatch, Painting by Numbers (Oxford) wins. Paint A Moment is the best value custom-from-photo kit at £25.99. Hobbycraft is best for children and cheapest overall. Painted by You is the premium oil-paint option. Figured'Art also offers the largest canvases, up to 80x120cm.

How we compared these brands

This is a desk-based comparison of publicly available specifications, prices and delivery terms, checked on the brands' own websites in July 2026. It is not a hands-on review. We have not painted every kit, we have not run lab tests on canvas or pigment, and we do not claim to have done so. Where a brand does not publish a figure, the table below says "not stated" rather than guessing.

We compared each brand on eight criteria:

• Price — the published price of a standard adult kit, and of a custom kit where offered.
• Canvas or surface — material and weight where stated, plus the formats available (rolled, DIY frame, pre-framed, board).
• Colour count — how many paint pots or tubes a kit contains, since this drives detail more than any other single spec.
• Size range — the smallest and largest canvas offered.
• Custom-from-photo option — whether you can send your own image, and what it costs.
• UK delivery speed — the brand's own published timescale, including production time for made-to-order kits.
• Guarantee — the stated returns or money-back window.
• Range size — how many designs are on sale.

Prices move, particularly around sales. Treat every figure as a July 2026 snapshot and check before you buy.

Full comparison table

Best overall: Figured'Art UK

Figured'Art is the best all-round choice for most UK buyers who want a ready-made design. It lists over 2,000 paint by numbers designs at £18.90 to £32.90, ships UK-stock items from a Derbyshire warehouse within 48 hours, and offers rolled, DIY-frame and pre-stretched formats alongside a custom photo service from £28.90.

The trade-off is worth understanding. Only part of the catalogue is held in UK stock. Anything shipped from the workshop is quoted at one to three weeks, and the difference is easy to miss at checkout. Colour options top out at 36 on custom kits, so if you want maximum detail you will do better elsewhere. Figured'Art also does not publish a clear money-back window on its main pages, which is a gap when competitors advertise 30 days.

Best for beginners: Paint A Moment

For a first kit, Paint A Moment's 24-colour tier on a 30x40cm canvas is a sensible starting point. Larger colour blocks, fewer tricky gradients and a 30-day money-back guarantee lower the risk of an abandoned canvas. Nine sizes from 20x30cm upwards mean you can start small before committing to a wall-sized piece.

Being honest about the caveat: Paint A Moment only lists 41 standard designs, which is a fraction of what Figured'Art or Paint On Numbers offer. If you have a specific subject in mind, one of the bigger catalogues is more likely to have it. Browse our easy paint by number kits if you want the lowest-difficulty options, and read our beginner's guide to paint by numbers before you open the first pot.

Best custom from photo: Paint A Moment

At £25.99, Paint A Moment is the cheapest of the specialist custom services we checked, and it pairs that with the widest choice: nine sizes from 20x30cm to 60x80cm, three formats, and three detail tiers at 24, 36 or 48 colours. You upload your photo after checkout via an emailed link, and the 30-day money-back guarantee still applies.

Compare before buying. Paint On Numbers charges £29.99 with the same 24/36/48 tiers on 280gsm double-primed linen, which is a better-documented canvas spec. Figured'Art is £28.90 and goes up to 80x120cm. Painting by Numbers is £29.70 and made in Britain. Our custom paint by numbers buyer's guide covers what makes a photo work, and the product page is here.

Best UK-made and fastest delivery: Painting by Numbers (Oxford)

If you want a kit actually manufactured in Britain and in your hands quickly, Painting by Numbers is the clear winner. It is a certified Made in Britain member producing from an Oxford workshop, ships daily, advertises next-day delivery, and offers free delivery over £30. Standard kits run £14.18 to £20.90, with a monthly subscription box available.

Paint A Moment cannot match this and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Our kits are made to order with a five working day production window followed by five to seven working days in transit. That is a fortnight, not a day. If you are buying a last-minute gift, buy from Oxford or from Hobbycraft, not from us. Painting by Numbers does not publish colour counts or exact canvas dimensions on its main pages, so ask before ordering if detail level matters to you.

Best budget: Paint With Numbers UK

For a full-size adult canvas at the lowest price, Paint With Numbers UK lists bestsellers at £12.99, reduced from £22.99, across 30x40cm to 60x80cm with no-frame, DIY-frame and stretched options. That is roughly half what most specialist brands charge for a comparable canvas.

Two caveats. The range is small at around 40 designs, and the site does not publish UK delivery timescales or canvas specifications, so you are buying with less information than elsewhere. Amazon UK is the other budget route, with Prime next-day on many stocked kits, but seller quality varies enormously and canvas specs are frequently unstated.

Best for kids: Hobbycraft

Hobbycraft is the sensible choice for children. Most kits in its paint by numbers range sit under £5.99, the site filters by age band from 3-4 years upwards, and free click and collect over £10 means you can have a kit the same afternoon. At that price a half-finished canvas is not a problem.

The range is small, at 21 kits in the category, stock varies by store, and there is no custom photo option. These are children's craft kits rather than adult display pieces, so do not expect linen canvas or 48 colours. For an adult buying their first serious kit, look at the specialist brands instead.

Best large format: Figured'Art UK

Figured'Art offers the largest canvases we could verify, running to 80x120cm on custom kits, with 70x90cm and 80x100cm also available. If you want a piece that holds a large wall, nothing else in this comparison goes that big. Painted by You tops out around 60cm, and most specialist brands stop at 60x80cm.

Large canvases need more colours, not just more surface. Figured'Art caps custom kits at 36 colours, so a very large piece will have correspondingly large colour blocks. If you want both size and detail, a 60x80cm kit at 48 colours from Paint A Moment or Paint On Numbers will give a finer result per square centimetre.

Worth knowing: Painted by You for oil paints

Painted by You does something nobody else in this list does. Kits use artists' oil paints rather than acrylics, printed on specialist oil-painting paper supplied flat rather than rolled, with 16 to 40 tubes depending on complexity. Custom kits are £50 for black and white or sepia, £80 for a single pet portrait and £100 for full colour, dispatched in under six working days with UK delivery included.

It is two to four times the price of everything else here, the maker limits output to four kits a day, and the finished size is fixed at roughly 42-60cm by 32cm. But for a memorial portrait or a wedding gift, an oil-painted piece on proper paper is a different object to a £25 acrylic canvas. If budget is not the constraint, this is the one to look at.

How to choose a paint by numbers kit

Canvas format: rolled, framed or board

Rolled canvas is the cheapest and posts flat, but it arrives with creases that need flattening under books or with a warm iron on the reverse before you start. A DIY frame kit gives you wooden stretcher bars to assemble yourself, which produces a gallery-wrapped finish for a few pounds more. Pre-framed arrives stretched and ready to hang, and is the least hassle but costs most and ships in a bulkier box. Canvas board is rigid, will not sag while you paint, and suits smaller pieces you intend to frame conventionally.

Where canvas weight is published, higher is better. Paint On Numbers states 280gsm double-primed linen, which is the most specific claim in this comparison. Most brands say nothing at all, which is not proof of poor quality but does mean you cannot compare like for like.

Colour count and what difficulty really means

Difficulty labels are marketing. Colour count is the real specification. A 24-colour kit has larger regions with clearer boundaries, which paints faster and forgives a shaky hand. A 48-colour kit renders skin tones, fur and skies with far more subtlety, but the numbered regions are smaller and some will be a few millimetres across, requiring a fine brush, good light and patience.

As a rough guide: choose 24 colours for a first kit or a child, 36 for most adults and most photographs, and 48 for portraits, pets and anything where gradient matters. Subject also drives difficulty. A stylised landscape at 36 colours is easier than a human face at 36 colours. Our advanced kits collection is the place to look once you have finished one or two.

Choosing a size

Smaller canvases are not simply quicker, they are harder. At 20x30cm the numbered regions are compressed, and fine detail becomes fiddly. A 30x40cm canvas is the practical minimum for a detailed image and the most common starting point. 40x50cm is the sweet spot for a piece you intend to hang in a living room. 50x60cm and above make a statement but represent a serious time commitment, often 20 hours or more.

Measure the wall before you order. A 40x50cm canvas looks considerably smaller once framed and hung than it does in a product photograph.

What makes a good source photo for a custom kit

The conversion software can only work with the information in your image. The photos that produce good kits share the same traits: high resolution, ideally 1000x1000 pixels or larger; the subject filling most of the frame; even, natural light with no harsh shadow across the face; a clear separation between subject and background; and eyes and facial features in sharp focus.

What causes disappointment: group photos where each face occupies a tiny portion of the frame, heavily filtered or low-light phone shots, screenshots, images cropped from social media at low resolution, and busy backgrounds that consume colour allocation better spent on the subject. If you are converting a group photo, size up and choose the highest colour tier. If your photo is old or blurry, Painted by You explicitly works with imperfect source images and may be a better fit than an automated service.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best paint by numbers kit in the UK?

There is no single best kit, because the right choice depends on what you are buying for. Figured'Art UK is the strongest all-rounder on range and price, Painting by Numbers is the best British-made option with the fastest delivery, and Paint A Moment offers the cheapest full-featured custom kit at £25.99. For children, Hobbycraft's sub-£6 kits are hard to beat.

Are expensive paint by numbers kits actually better?

Sometimes. Price generally correlates with canvas quality, paint pigment density and colour count, and a £50 kit with 40 oil tubes is a genuinely different product to a £13 acrylic kit. But a lot of the price range in this comparison reflects brand positioning rather than materials. Check the published canvas weight and colour count rather than assuming price tells you everything.

How many colours should a paint by numbers kit have?

Twenty-four colours suits beginners, children and bold, stylised images. Thirty-six colours is the right choice for most adults and most photographs. Forty-eight colours is worth paying for on portraits, pets and anything with subtle gradients, but the numbered regions become small and the kit takes considerably longer.

Which UK paint by numbers brands are actually made in Britain?

Painting by Numbers, based in Oxford, is a certified Made in Britain member and manufactures in its own workshop. Painted by You handmakes its oil-paint kits in the UK. Most other brands in this comparison, including Paint A Moment, either manufacture overseas or do not state where their kits are produced.

How long does a paint by numbers kit take to complete?

A 30x40cm kit with 24 colours typically takes eight to twelve hours spread across several sessions. A 40x50cm kit at 36 colours is usually 15 to 25 hours. A 60x80cm kit at 48 colours can run to 40 hours or more. Times vary widely with how carefully you work and how detailed the subject is.

Can you get a paint by numbers kit made from your own photo?

Yes. Paint A Moment charges from £25.99, Figured'Art from £28.90, Painting by Numbers from £29.70, and Paint On Numbers £29.99. Painted by You produces oil-paint custom kits from £50. Most services ask you to upload the photo either at checkout or via a link emailed afterwards.

What is the fastest paint by numbers delivery in the UK?

Painting by Numbers advertises next-day delivery from its Oxford workshop, and Hobbycraft offers free click and collect over £10 with same-day or next-working-day collection in most stores. Figured'Art quotes 48 hours on the portion of its range held in UK stock. Made-to-order custom kits from any brand will take considerably longer.

Is rolled canvas or framed canvas better?

Framed is easier and rolled is cheaper. Rolled canvas arrives creased and needs flattening before you start, but costs less and posts more cheaply. A DIY frame kit is a good middle option, giving a stretched gallery finish for a small premium. Pre-framed canvas is the most convenient and costs the most.

Do you need to seal a finished paint by numbers canvas?

Sealing is optional but recommended if you intend to hang the piece. A varnish protects the acrylic surface from dust, moisture and UV fading, and evens out the difference between matt and glossy patches. Wait until the paint is fully cured, usually at least 72 hours, before applying anything. Our guide on how to seal paint by numbers covers the process.

Are Amazon and Etsy paint by numbers kits any good?

Quality varies enormously. Amazon UK offers Prime next-day delivery and easy returns, but many listings do not state canvas weight, paint volume or colour count, so you are buying blind. Etsy has genuine independent makers alongside dropshippers reselling the same generic kits. On both marketplaces, read recent reviews carefully and prefer sellers who publish specifications.

What size paint by numbers kit should a beginner buy?

A 30x40cm canvas with 24 colours is the best starting point for most people. It is large enough that the numbered regions are comfortable to paint, small enough to finish in a few sessions, and cheap enough that an abandoned canvas is not a significant loss. Avoid 20x30cm for detailed subjects, because compressed regions are harder rather than easier.

Do paint by numbers kits come with everything you need?

Most include the numbered canvas, pre-mixed acrylic paints and two or three brushes. Almost none include an easel, a varnish, a water pot or good lighting, and the supplied brushes are usually adequate rather than good. A cheap set of fine detail brushes and a bright desk lamp will improve your results more than paying extra for a premium kit.

A note on our recommendations

Paint A Moment appears twice in this guide, for beginners and for custom photo kits, and is absent from five other categories where competitors are genuinely better. We are a small UK business with 41 standard designs, made-to-order production and roughly a fortnight from order to doorstep. We are not the fastest, we are not the cheapest, and we do not have the largest range. What we do offer is a 30-day money-back guarantee, free worldwide shipping, three detail tiers up to 48 colours, and a 4.9 out of 5 rating from 1,333 verified Loox reviews.

If that suits you, our best sellers are the place to start. If one of the brands above is a better fit for what you need, buy from them.