clientgallery.io

Alternatives

Client Gallery Alternatives: Every Platform Compared

Eight client-gallery platforms, what each is genuinely good and bad at, and how to pick the one that fits how you actually shoot and deliver.

Updated 23 September 2026

"Client gallery software" sounds like one product category, but the eight platforms photographers actually compare behave very differently once you get past the marketing pages. Some are storefronts that happen to host photos. Some are file-delivery tools with a gallery bolted on. A few are proofing systems built around how a working photographer moves images from catalog to client and back. The right pick depends on which of those you need, and on how much of your margin and your brand you're willing to hand to the platform.

This guide compares Pixieset, Pic-Time, ShootProof, CloudSpot, picdrop, PASS, Zenfolio, and SmugMug honestly, including where each one is the better answer than we are. Then it's clear about where clientgallery.io fits: a flat 10 $/month, unlimited galleries, your branding with zero platform branding, one-click whole-account Pixieset import, and a two-way Lightroom plugin. No print store, no per-gallery pricing, no commissions.

Read the platform you're on first, then the two decision questions at the end. They'll save you more time than the feature grids.

Two questions that decide most of this

Before comparing features, answer these. They eliminate most of the field for you.

  • Do you sell prints and products through the gallery, or just deliver files? If print sales are a real revenue line, you want a platform with a mature print lab integration and a storefront, which means Pic-Time, ShootProof, Pixieset or Zenfolio. If you deliver digital files and get paid separately, a print store is dead weight you're paying for.
  • Whose brand does the client see? Most platforms put their name in the URL, the footer, the download screen, or the client-facing emails unless you pay for a higher tier. If "the gallery is part of my product" matters to you, unbranded-by-default is worth more than any single feature.

Pixieset, the default, and its ceilings

Pixieset is the category default for good reason: clean galleries, a solid mobile experience, a print store, and a free tier that gets people started. It's the platform most photographers try first, and for a lot of them it's fine for years.

The frustrations show up as you scale. Storage tiers force upgrades well before your library is unusually large, and the jump between plans is real money. The print-store commission takes a cut of sales on lower tiers. Platform branding stays on client-facing surfaces until you pay up. And because so many photographers use it, "a Pixieset gallery" has started to read as a generic look rather than your studio.

If Pixieset is where you are now, moving off it is the one migration that's genuinely painless here: clientgallery.io reads your entire Pixieset account through its API, taking galleries, sets, titles, and order, and reproduces it in one click. Re-running the import skips anything already brought over, so you can move in stages without duplicates.

Pic-Time, best-in-class sales at a sales-first price

Pic-Time is the strongest platform if selling prints, albums, and wall art is central to your business. The storefronts are beautiful, the automated sales campaigns and reminder emails actually move product, and the lab fulfillment is polished. Photographers who make meaningful print revenue often earn back the subscription many times over.

The trade-offs are the mirror image. Pricing tiers and the sales commission are built around the assumption that you're selling, so if you deliver digital files and don't run a store, you're paying for an engine you never start. It's a sales platform first and a delivery tool second: excellent at the former, over-built for the latter.

ShootProof and CloudSpot, the middle ground

ShootProof is the veteran flexible option: galleries, proofing, e-signed contracts and invoicing, and print sales with no commission at all. That last point is worth stating precisely, because it is often reported too narrowly. ShootProof states that it never takes a commission on your sales, and its plan cards mark commission-free selling as included on every tier including the free one.

It prices by storage. On 23 September 2026 the plans on its public plans page were Free at 3 GB of photos with no video, Starter at 20 GB shared between photo and video for 9.99 $ a month or 99.99 $ a year, Standard at 100 GB shared for 19.99 $ or 199.99 $, Professional at 1,000 GB of photos plus 50 GB of video for 31.99 $ or 319.99 $, and Premium at unlimited photo storage plus 150 GB of video for 60 $ or 600 $. ShootProof's help centre also documents an Advanced plan at 2,000 GB photo and 100 GB video for 51.99 $ or 519.99 $, which the public plans page does not offer.

That storage model is new. Until 23 September 2026 ShootProof metered the number of photos in the account rather than gigabytes, so any comparison you read describing ShootProof photo caps is out of date. The friction now sits elsewhere: there are a lot of knobs, and keeping old work without it counting against the plan means archiving, which ShootProof charges for at a minimum of 2.99 $ a month for the first 25 GB and 0.05 $ per additional GB. Its plan cards read "Archive for a fee" on Free, Starter, Standard and Professional; Premium reads "Photo archive included" and adds that video archiving starts at 2.99 $ a month. An archived ShootProof gallery is not live for client viewing, and unarchiving one requires enough GB free in the plan.

CloudSpot leans into delivery and the client experience: fast galleries, generous download handling, a focus on brand presentation, and lead-capture tools aimed at turning galleries into referrals. It's a strong pick if your priority is a smooth, on-brand delivery experience rather than a full print storefront. Both sit in the sensible middle, more configurable than Pixieset and less sales-obsessed than Pic-Time.

The ShootProof alternative page works through ShootProof's plans and archiving charge in full, including what a move off it involves.

picdrop and PASS, proofing and delivery specialists

picdrop is built for the review-and-approve loop, popular with commercial, editorial, and agency work. Clients rate and comment, you collect selects fast, and the free and entry tiers are generous. It's a proofing tool at heart, with no print store, and not trying to be a consumer sales platform, which is exactly why the workflow crowd likes it.

PASS centers on a client-friendly delivery app with tiered subscriptions and AI-assisted features. It's delivery-forward and easy for clients, with less emphasis on a traditional print storefront. Both are good answers if your bottleneck is "get selects and deliver cleanly," not "sell wall art."

Zenfolio and SmugMug, the established all-in-ones

Zenfolio bundles a portfolio website, client galleries, booking, and print sales into one subscription, which is attractive if you want your public site and your client delivery under a single roof and login. The breadth means more setup, and it's a heavier tool than a photographer who only needs delivery will want.

SmugMug is the long-standing choice for deep, durable photo hosting and portfolio sites, with strong archival storage and customization. Client-proofing exists but isn't the center of gravity; it shines as a place to keep and show a large body of work more than as a fast per-shoot delivery-and-proofing loop. If you want a permanent home for everything you've ever shot plus a website, it's a serious option.

Where clientgallery.io fits

clientgallery.io is deliberately narrow. It's for photographers who want a fast, fully on-brand gallery-and-proofing tool without a print store, without per-gallery pricing, and without giving up a cut of anything. One price does everything:

  • Flat 10 $/month, or 110 $/year, first gallery free. Unlimited galleries. No storage-tier upsell dance until you hit the fair-use ceiling, no commission, no per-client add-ons.
  • Your branding, zero platform branding. Clients see your studio, not ours, by default rather than as a paid unlock.
  • One-click whole-account Pixieset import. The entire account comes across via the API, structure intact; re-runs skip what's already imported.
  • A two-way Lightroom plugin. Publish web-sized proofs straight from the catalog, and pull client picks back into Lightroom as they choose, with no re-matching filenames by hand.
  • Real proofing. Picks and favorites, comments, and colored labels, plus in-browser Face Search: a guest's selfie is matched to their photos entirely in their browser and never uploaded.
  • Full-resolution delivery. A full-resolution ZIP per gallery, live for 3 days per handoff and re-uploadable any time, with up to 100 GB of ZIP uploads a month per account.

The honest fair-use limits: JPEG photos only, with no video and no RAW warehousing, 1,000 photos per gallery, a 500,000-photo account cap, and a cap of one gallery of up to 1,000 photos on the free tier. If you need a consumer print storefront, sales automations, or a public portfolio website, one of the platforms above is a better buy, and this guide says so plainly. If you want unlimited, unbranded, Lightroom-native delivery at a flat price, that's the gap we're built for. Operated from Québec, Canada.

Sources

The only published competitor figures on this page are ShootProof's plan storage and prices and its archiving charge, listed below with the date each source was read. Everything said about the other seven platforms here is qualitative characterisation rather than a quoted number; the per-platform pages linked at the end quote their figures with dates. The clientgallery.io plan and fair-use ceilings were verified in the product code on 23 September 2026.

Frequently asked

Which client gallery platform is cheapest overall?

It depends on volume and whether you sell prints. Free tiers at Pixieset, picdrop and ShootProof are cheapest to start but push upgrades as you scale. For unlimited galleries at a fixed cost, a flat plan like clientgallery.io's 10 $/month is predictable, because you never pay more for more galleries. Sales-driven platforms like Pic-Time can be effectively cheaper if print revenue offsets the subscription and commission.

What's the best Pixieset alternative if I want my own branding?

If unbranded-by-default is the priority, look at clientgallery.io (no platform branding at any tier) or CloudSpot (strong brand focus). Most other platforms remove their branding only on higher-priced plans, so check which client-facing surfaces, meaning the URL, footer, download screen and emails, still carry the platform name on the tier you'd actually buy.

Can I move my galleries off Pixieset without rebuilding them?

Yes, if the destination reads Pixieset's API. clientgallery.io imports your entire Pixieset account, taking galleries, sets, titles, and order, in one click, and re-running the import skips anything already brought over so you can migrate in stages without duplicates. Manual re-uploading to other platforms is the slower alternative.

Does ShootProof take a commission on print sales?

No. ShootProof states that it never takes a commission on your sales, and its plan cards mark commission-free selling as included on every tier, including the free plan. Read on 23 September 2026. What it does charge for separately is archiving, at a minimum of 2.99 $ a month for the first 25 GB and 0.05 $ per additional GB, on every plan except photo archiving on Premium.

Does ShootProof still limit how many photos I can upload?

No. ShootProof moved from photo-count plans to gigabyte-based plans on 23 September 2026. Its plans page now runs from Free at 3 GB of photos with no video up to Premium at unlimited photo storage plus 150 GB of video, and its help centre states that plans are determined by the amount of GB storage needed.

Which platform is best for print sales?

Pic-Time is generally considered the strongest for automated print, album, and wall-art sales, with ShootProof, Pixieset, and Zenfolio also offering mature storefronts and lab fulfillment. If you don't sell prints, a print store adds cost and complexity you won't use, and a delivery-and-proofing tool without a storefront is a better fit.

Does clientgallery.io work for RAW files or video?

No. It's JPEG photos only by design, with no video hosting and no RAW warehousing. Proofs are browser-compressed web-sized JPEGs, and full-resolution delivery works as a per-gallery ZIP that stays live for 3 days per handoff. If you need to warehouse RAWs or host video, a broader storage platform like SmugMug is the better choice.

How does in-browser Face Search stay private?

The matching runs entirely in the guest's browser. When a client uploads a selfie to find their photos in a large gallery, the comparison happens locally on their device and the selfie is never uploaded to any server. It's a convenience feature for big group shoots without the privacy trade-off of server-side facial recognition.

Your client galleries, under your name

Branded galleries, client selections and a Lightroom Classic workflow. Start with your first gallery, then compare the current plan. Full-resolution delivery is a separate handoff with its own limits and conditions.

Create your studio

Related guides

Client Gallery Alternatives: Every Platform Compared (2026)