Alternatives
Pixieset Alternative With Faster Galleries: The Honest Version
Neither platform publishes a gallery load benchmark, so this page will not invent one. Here is the test you can run in ten minutes, what actually governs gallery speed, and the figures that are published.
Updated September 2026
If you searched for a Pixieset alternative with faster galleries, the page you were expecting opens with a number. A load time, a percentage, a chart with two bars. This page does not have one, and the reason is worth the paragraph.
Pixieset publishes no gallery load figure, no benchmark and no time to first image. It does not publish the pixel dimensions of the images its galleries serve either. We have not published a measurement of our own with a stated method and date. So a speed race between the two would be invented on both sides, and you would have no way to check it. Instead: the test you can run yourself in ten minutes, the mechanics that actually decide how a gallery feels, and the parts of the comparison where real published numbers exist.
Run the only test that counts
A benchmark someone else ran on someone else's gallery, on someone else's connection, tells you nothing about your Tuesday. Your galleries have your file sizes, your image counts and your clients' phones. Test with those.
The procedure takes one shoot and two accounts:
- Use the same take. One folder, around 800 photos, exported once at your normal settings. Not a curated 40 from one platform against a full wedding on the other.
- Upload it to both. Free accounts are enough for a first look. Our free tier holds one gallery and 5 GB, and Pixieset's free tier holds 3 GB, so a full 800-photo take may need a paid month on one side or a trimmed set on both. Trim both identically if you trim at all.
- Same device, same network, same session. Open one, then the other. Then reverse the order and repeat, because whichever you open second benefits from a warm connection and a warm you.
- Scroll to the bottom at a steady pace and note the moment thumbnails stop popping in behind you. That instant, not the first paint, is what a client experiences as the gallery being ready.
- Then do it on a phone on cellular data, because that is where most clients open the link, and it is where the differences that matter show up.
Whatever you find is worth more than any figure on any comparison page, including this one. If our result disappoints you, you have lost an evening and kept your Pixieset account.
What actually governs how fast a gallery feels
No citation is needed for this section because it is how browsers work, and knowing it makes you a much harder person to sell to.
A photo gallery is fast or slow for three reasons, in this order.
One: total bytes before the grid looks complete. A gallery is not one page load, it is several hundred image requests. The number that decides the wait is the sum of the bytes the browser has to pull down before the visible grid stops changing. Everything else is detail around that sum.
Two: the weight of each single proof. Multiply it by 800 and you have the sum above. A proof that is twice the size makes a gallery that is roughly twice the wait on the same connection. This is the lever with the most travel on it, and it is decided at upload, not at viewing.
Three: how many are requested at once. Browsers open a limited number of parallel connections per host, so a grid that asks for 800 images at once still receives them in waves. Galleries that request images as you approach them, rather than all at once, spend the connection on what you are about to see.
Our side of that, concretely: photos uploaded to clientgallery.io are compressed in your browser before they leave your machine, and the proof JPEG a gallery serves is about 0.6 MB. That figure is the whole reason a flat price is possible, and it is the same figure whether your account holds one gallery or four hundred. We do not publish a pixel size for it, and we are not going to start guessing at one to win an argument.
The honest limitation of this section: knowing the per-image weight on one side does not give you a comparison, because the other side does not publish its own. It gives you a question to ask, and the test above answers it.
What Pixieset publishes about the images its galleries serve
Pixieset documents the mechanism and stops there. In its own words: when your photos are uploaded, "we store the Original file, but we also resize your photo to accommodate a number of display sizes. The Original file is used for Download and Store fulfillment, while the display sizes are used for optimal display across desktop and mobile devices." Sharpening for those display sizes is a setting you control.
Read that carefully, because it is a description of a sensible design, not evidence of anything slow. Storing an original and serving smaller renditions is what a gallery should do. Nothing in that sentence tells you a Pixieset gallery is heavy, and this page does not claim it is.
What the sentence also does not tell you is the size of those renditions. The pixel dimensions of Pixieset's display sizes are not published anywhere in its help center, and neither is any bytes-per-image figure. So the single most load-bearing number in the previous section is unavailable for one of the two platforms.
The mistake almost every comparison makes. Pixieset does publish pixel figures: web size downloads at "640px, 1024px, and 2048px on the width", with high resolution at "3600px or Original resolution" on upgraded plans. Those are download sizes, the file a client saves. They are not what the gallery grid serves while the client is browsing. Any page that quotes 2048 or 3600 as Pixieset's gallery image size is quoting the wrong document, and any speed arithmetic built on it is fiction.
The part of the comparison that does have numbers
Having refused the speed claim, here is what is actually published. Pixieset prices Client Gallery in five tiers, all in US dollars, metered on storage. We have one plan. Pixieset quotes annual billing as a monthly rate billed annually and publishes no yearly dollar total, so the annual column below is its monthly figure exactly as printed.
| Plan | Per month, billed annually | Per month, billed monthly | Photo storage | Store commission | Remove platform branding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pixieset Free | 0 $ | 0 $ | 3 GB | 15% | No |
| Pixieset Basic | 8 $ | 10 $ | 10 GB | 0% | Yes |
| Pixieset Plus | 16 $ | 20 $ | 100 GB | 0% | Yes |
| Pixieset Pro | 24 $ | 30 $ | 1 TB | 0% | Yes |
| Pixieset Ultimate | 40 $ | 50 $ | Unlimited, RAW capped at 1,000 GB | 0% | Yes |
| clientgallery.io | 8.33 $ (100 $ a year) | 10 $ | Unlimited under fair use, figures below | No store, no commission | No platform branding on any plan |
Pixieset states that yearly plans offer up to a 20% discount compared to the monthly rate, and that refunds are not issued for account cancellations, so the annual column is a commitment rather than a discount you can walk away from. The 15% on the Free plan is charged on the order subtotal before any discounts, coupon codes, taxes or shipping, and it stacks on top of processing fees, which Pixieset lists at 2.9% plus 0.30 $ and 3.49% plus 0.49 $ for the payment processors it names.
One plan is the whole of our price list: 10 $ a month, or 100 $ a year, which is 8.33 $ a month. There are no storage tiers to climb, so the year you shoot twice as much costs the same as the year you shoot half as much. The detailed year-by-year arithmetic against the Pixieset ladder lives in what Pixieset actually costs per month.
The two ceilings in the Terms that most comparisons miss
Section 6 of Pixieset's Terms, last updated 20 March 2026, reserves "the right to charge additional fees to users who go above the fair usage amount", and sets that amount at more than "20 GB per collection, and 100 GB of bandwidth per month."
Both halves are worth sitting with. A single wedding collection above 20 GB is not exotic. And 100 GB of bandwidth a month is an account-wide figure, so it is spent by your clients viewing and downloading, in the busy month rather than on average. The clause sits above the tier you pay for, including the unlimited photo storage on Ultimate. Note that Pixieset's separate Studio plans advertise "No bandwidth restrictions" as a feature, which is a fair signal of where the regular tiers sit.
The same section adds a rule that catches growing businesses: "Our client gallery plans are meant for individual photographer business use only. Photography studio and other businesses with more than one photographer should subscribe to Studio plans". Studio pricing starts at 48 $ a month billed annually, or 60 $ monthly.
Our fair use, in plain figures
Any page that criticises somebody else's caps owes you its own. Unlimited under fair use means these numbers, and they are tripwires against abuse rather than a ladder you are meant to climb.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Proof JPEG served in a gallery | About 0.6 MB, compressed in your browser before upload |
| Photos per gallery | 1,000 |
| Proofs per paid account | 250 GB, which is hundreds of thousands of photos |
| Free account | 5 GB and one gallery |
| Full-resolution delivery | A paid feature: you upload a full-resolution ZIP per gallery, it stays live 3 days per handoff and can be re-uploaded any time |
| Standing full-resolution ZIPs per account | 100 GB |
| Hosted galleries | Never expire while the account exists |
Proofs are hosted for as long as the account exists, on your own subdomain, with no platform branding on any client-facing page and no branding upgrade to buy. Face Search and the two-way Lightroom Classic plugin are included at the same price.
Moving an account across without rebuilding it
Switching platforms usually fails on the migration, not the decision. Pixieset's own account export produces a CSV of collection details and, in its words, "does not contain any photos or videos", and no account-level photo export is documented. So we wrote the import.
You sign in to your Pixieset dashboard as normal and click one bookmark. It reads the account through the same dashboard endpoints the Pixieset web app itself uses: every collection, its sets, titles, descriptions, event date, password and photo order. Galleries are reproduced one by one at full size under your brand. Pixieset is only read, never changed, and no password reaches clientgallery.io. Re-running it skips whatever is already imported, so a large account can move in stages over several evenings without creating duplicates. A single-gallery bookmark exists too, if you want to try one before committing the account.
The step-by-step is on the import page, and the wider checklist is in switching from Pixieset without rebuilding your galleries.
When you should stay with Pixieset
This is not a close call for everyone, and the honest answer is that a good number of studios should not move.
Stay if you sell prints. Pixieset runs an integrated store with fulfillment, at 0% commission on every paid tier. We do not sell prints, take a commission or run a store at all, because we have no storefront to run. If print revenue pays for your subscription several times over, that is the end of the analysis.
Stay if you live inside the rest of the suite. A studio whose CRM, contracts, invoices, website and mobile apps are all Pixieset is buying an operating system, not a gallery. Pulling one component out of it is usually a downgrade, whatever the component costs.
Stay if you deliver RAW or host video. Pixieset supports RAW upload on Pro and Ultimate and hosts video from Basic upward. We host JPEGs. We do not warehouse RAW files or master video, and that limitation is precisely what keeps one flat price possible.
What is left is the studio that delivers finished JPEG galleries, gets paid separately from the gallery, and does not want a storage meter deciding its costs. That is who this is built for.
Sources
Every Pixieset figure and quotation above comes from the following pages, fetched 4 September 2026. Prices are the US dollar figures Pixieset publishes and are not converted. Where a number is not published by Pixieset, this page says so rather than estimating it.
- Pixieset pricing, plans, storage, commission and add-ons, fetched 4 September 2026, https://pixieset.com/pricing/
- Pixieset Studio pricing, including "No bandwidth restrictions", fetched 4 September 2026, https://pixieset.com/pricing-studio/
- Pixieset Terms of Service, section 6 Fair Usage Policy (20 GB per collection, 100 GB of bandwidth a month, individual photographer business use) and section 7 (fees in USD), last updated 20 March 2026, fetched 4 September 2026, https://pixieset.com/terms/
- Pixieset help, Photo Resizing and Sharpening (original stored, display sizes generated, dimensions not published), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003758851-Photo-Resizing-and-Sharpening
- Pixieset help, Download Sizes and Available Resolutions (640px, 1024px, 2048px, 3600px and Original, all download sizes), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003793252-Download-Sizes-Available-Resolutions
- Pixieset help, Uploading to Client Gallery (no photo cap, storage is the meter), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003740132-Uploading-to-Client-Gallery
- Pixieset help, Managing your Pixieset subscription (up to 20% annual discount, no refunds), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003816812-Managing-your-Pixieset-subscription
- Pixieset help, How does the 0% commission fee work (0% on paid tiers, 15% on Free), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002975072-How-does-the-0-commission-fee-work
- Pixieset help, cost of goods sold application fee (15% on the pre-discount subtotal, stacked on processing fees of 2.9% plus 0.30 $ and 3.49% plus 0.49 $), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003793352-What-is-the-cost-of-goods-sold-application-fee
- Pixieset help, Logos and Branding (which tier removes the platform branding), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002970812-Logos-Branding
- Pixieset help, Using folders to share and organize galleries (the account export "includes folder details only. It does not contain any photos or videos"), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/31178129650957-Using-folders-to-share-and-organize-galleries
- clientgallery.io plan, fair-use figures and Pixieset import behaviour, verified in the product 4 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/
Frequently asked
Are clientgallery.io galleries faster than Pixieset galleries?
We will not claim it, because no measurement with a stated method and date exists on either side. Pixieset publishes no benchmark, no time to first image and no gallery image dimensions, and we have published no measurement of our own. Run the same 800-photo take on both, on the same device and network, and scroll to the bottom of each. That result is worth more than any published claim.
What makes a client gallery slow in the first place?
The total bytes the browser must fetch before the grid stops changing. That is the per-image weight multiplied by the number of images, moderated by how many are requested at once. The per-image weight is the lever with the most travel, and it is set at upload rather than at viewing.
How big are the images clientgallery.io serves in a gallery?
About 0.6 MB per proof JPEG. Photos are compressed in your browser before they leave your machine, which is what keeps a single flat price viable. We do not publish a pixel dimension for proofs.
What size images does Pixieset serve in a gallery?
Pixieset does not publish that. It documents that it stores the original and resizes each photo to accommodate a number of display sizes used for display across desktop and mobile, but the dimensions of those display sizes are not published anywhere in its help center.
Is 2048px the size Pixieset shows in a gallery?
No, and this is the most common error in Pixieset comparisons. The 640px, 1024px, 2048px and 3600px figures Pixieset publishes are download sizes, meaning the file a client saves. They are a different thing from the renditions the gallery grid serves while a client is browsing.
Does Pixieset limit bandwidth?
Section 6 of the Terms, last updated 20 March 2026, reserves the right to charge additional fees above 20 GB per collection and 100 GB of bandwidth per month. The bandwidth figure is account-wide and monthly. Pixieset's separate Studio plans list no bandwidth restrictions as a feature of those tiers.
Can I move my Pixieset galleries across before deciding?
Yes, and a single gallery is a fair first test. From your Pixieset dashboard, one bookmark reproduces galleries under your own brand, reading collections, sets, titles, descriptions, event dates, passwords and photo order. Pixieset is only read, never changed, and re-running the import skips anything already moved, so nothing is duplicated.
Your client galleries, under your name
Unlimited galleries, your branding, one-click Pixieset import, and a Lightroom plugin, all on a flat 10 $/month with everything included. Your first gallery is free.
Import your Pixieset account