Alternatives
Zenfolio Alternative for Client Galleries
Zenfolio's own help centre says there is no way to download every gallery in one action. Here is what that means after years of work, who should stay, and where a flat 10 $/month plan fits.
Updated September 2026
Photographers who have been on Zenfolio a long time rarely leave because of a feature. They stay because of the exit. Years of galleries sit in one account, and getting them out is not one button.
Zenfolio says so itself. Its success centre article on downloading original photos states: "there's not a way to download all of the photos in every Gallery in your account in one action; rather, bulk downloads must be completed by individual Gallery". The same article explains that a download is packaged as a zip and a link is emailed to the account owner. That is the shape of the exit: one gallery, one zip, one email, repeated.
This page is the honest comparison. It covers what Zenfolio does well, what its plan structure gates, what the export sentence means in practice, and where clientgallery.io fits: one flat 10 $/month or 100 $/year, no tiers, no platform branding on client-facing pages, your own subdomain, and proofing included rather than sold as an upgrade. It also says plainly who should stay on Zenfolio, and it is honest about what you can and cannot get back out of clientgallery.io.
One note on money. Zenfolio's published prices vary with the currency its pricing page serves, and no United States dollar figure could be verified on the fetch date, so this page compares structure, gating and the export question rather than headline price. Every Zenfolio statement below is quoted or paraphrased from the pages listed under Sources at the end, fetched on 3 September 2026.
What Zenfolio does well
A fair comparison starts with what you would be giving up.
- It is a website and a storefront, not only a delivery tool. Zenfolio bundles a portfolio site, a client-facing store and print fulfilment into one subscription. If your public site and your sales both run through it, replacing it means replacing three products, not one.
- Proofing is a real two-way workflow. Zenfolio's proofing page describes it as a way to "Facilitate two-way communication with clients through comments and favoriting". Client favourites and comments in one place is exactly what a selection round needs.
- Custom domains on every plan. The plans comparison lists a custom domain and a custom subdomain on Basic, Professional and Advanced. The address of your work is yours from the first paid tier.
- Advanced does remove Zenfolio branding. This matters, because the usual argument that a platform holds branding hostage forever does not apply here. Basic and Professional get one custom logo and cannot remove Zenfolio branding, and Advanced allows multiple logos and removes Zenfolio branding from all visitor pages. If you are already on Advanced, branding alone is not a reason to move.
- Video storage is part of the plan. Basic carries 15 GB of photos and videos, Professional 150 GB of photos and videos, and Advanced 150 GB of video alongside unlimited photos. That unlimited carries an asterisk on Zenfolio's own comparison page, and no numeric limit behind it is published.
The sentence that decides how hard it is to leave
Here it is again, from Zenfolio's success centre, because the whole question turns on it: "there's not a way to download all of the photos in every Gallery in your account in one action; rather, bulk downloads must be completed by individual Gallery".
Read that as a work order rather than a limitation. The unit of export is the gallery. For each gallery you request a download, Zenfolio packages it as a zip, and a link is emailed to the account owner. Then you wait for the email, follow the link, download the zip, unpack it, and file it somewhere you will find it again.
None of those steps is hard. The problem is that they do not scale, because they repeat once per gallery. A photographer with a handful of galleries barely notices. A studio with a decade of client work is running the same loop hundreds of times, tracking which ones are done, and reconciling zip files against an account list by hand.
Zenfolio is not hiding this. The same help centre tells you what to do about it: "It is highly recommend that you keep backup storage of your content outside of Zenfolio". That is good advice, and it is also the tell. The platform is telling you that your own archive, not the platform, is the source of truth for your originals.
What happens to the account after you stop paying
Three published statements matter here, and none of them gives you a date to plan around.
On cancellation, Zenfolio says "the content of the account is not immediately deleted from Zenfolio", and that "content is permanently deleted, if left in a closed state". No exact timeframe is published, so treat the window as unknown rather than generous.
On inactivity, the Terms of Use state: "If you do not log in to your Zenfolio account for two or more years, Zenfolio may close your account". An account you keep alive purely as an archive, and never sign into, is not a safe archive.
Put those next to the per-gallery export and the practical conclusion is simple. Do the export while the subscription is current and you still have full access, gallery by gallery, and treat the platform copy as a convenience rather than a backup. That is true whether you are moving to clientgallery.io, to a competitor, or to a drive in your own office.
Zenfolio structure against one flat plan
Structure only. No Zenfolio dollar figure appears in this table, for the currency reason given above. Everything in the Zenfolio rows comes from the plans comparison, the selling fees article and the downloads article, fetched 3 September 2026.
| Plan | Storage | Client proofing | Platform branding | Selling fee | Bulk export path | When you leave |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zenfolio Basic | 15 GB photos and videos | Not included, no client access portal | One custom logo, Zenfolio branding cannot be removed | Selling not listed on this plan | Gallery by gallery, zip emailed to the account owner | Content not immediately deleted, then permanently deleted if left closed |
| Zenfolio Professional | 150 GB photos and videos | Included | One custom logo, Zenfolio branding cannot be removed | 7% of the order sub-total, excluding sales tax and shipping, plus payment processing fees, waived for the first 30 days after paid activation | Gallery by gallery, zip emailed to the account owner | Content not immediately deleted, then permanently deleted if left closed |
| Zenfolio Advanced | 150 GB video, unlimited photos with an asterisk | Included | Multiple logos, Zenfolio branding removed from all visitor pages | 7% of the order sub-total, excluding sales tax and shipping, plus payment processing fees, waived for the first 30 days after paid activation | Gallery by gallery, zip emailed to the account owner | Content not immediately deleted, then permanently deleted if left closed |
| clientgallery.io | Proof JPEGs under fair use: 1,000 photos per gallery, 250 GB of proofs per paid account, 5 GB on free accounts. No RAW, no master video | Included on the only plan | No platform branding on any client-facing page, on your own subdomain | No store, so no selling fee and no commission | Per gallery, one click for the whole gallery or any single image | You keep your own masters, we host proofs. See the section below |
The row that changes the shape of the decision is proofing. On Zenfolio it is the line between Basic and the two plans above it, because the client access portal and client proofing are Professional and Advanced only. On a one-plan product there is no line to sit below.
What the flat plan includes
clientgallery.io is one plan: 10 $/month, or 100 $/year, which works out to 8.33 $/month. There are no tiers to climb.
- Unlimited galleries, photos and clients under fair use. In figures: uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB each, the ceilings are 1,000 photos per gallery and 250 GB of proofs per paid account, which is hundreds of thousands of photos, and free accounts hold 5 GB.
- Proofing is included, not gated. Clients favourite and select in the gallery on the only plan there is. The proofing guide covers how to run a selection round.
- No platform branding on client-facing pages, at any price. Galleries live on your studio's own subdomain.
- No print store, no commissions, no per-gallery fees, no storage tiers. There is nothing for a platform to take a percentage of.
- Face Search included, so guests at a wedding or an event find their own photos in a large gallery.
- A two-way Lightroom Classic plugin. Publish proofs from the catalog, then pull the client's picks back in as ratings, flags, colour labels and a collection.
- Sub-galleries, or folders, inside a gallery, for a wedding split into parts of the day or a commercial shoot split by deliverable.
- Clients download the whole gallery in one click, or any single image. Hosted galleries never expire.
- Full-resolution delivery, per gallery. It is a paid feature: you upload a full-resolution ZIP per gallery, it stays live for 3 days per handoff and can be re-uploaded any time, with 100 GB of standing ZIPs per account.
The trade that keeps the price flat: clientgallery.io hosts JPEGs. It does not warehouse RAW files or master video. That is the same trade Zenfolio's Advanced plan does not make, and it is the reason there is no storage ladder here.
Our own exit, stated plainly
A page about lock-in that skips its own exit is not worth reading. So here is ours, accurately.
clientgallery.io hosts browser-compressed proof JPEGs, not your masters. Your own archive of original files stays the source of truth, and we say that on every page rather than in a footnote. Nothing you can retrieve from us is a substitute for the drives in your office.
What you can get back out is the delivered work as it sits in the gallery: any gallery downloads in one click, and any single image downloads on its own, for you and for your clients. Full-resolution delivery works from a ZIP you uploaded yourself, which means the full-resolution copy already exists on your side before it ever reaches us.
So the honest version is this. Leaving us is a per-gallery download too. The difference is that you are not retrieving anything you do not already have, because we never asked to be your archive. If a platform is holding the only copy of your originals, that is the problem to fix first, whichever platform it is. The photo delivery guide covers how to structure handoffs so the question never becomes urgent.
Who should stay on Zenfolio
This is the part most comparison pages skip. There are photographers for whom moving off Zenfolio would be a downgrade, and it is not a close call.
- Your business runs on print sales. Zenfolio bundles a storefront and print fulfilment. clientgallery.io ships none of that. Its selling fee is 7% of the order sub-total, excluding sales tax and shipping, on Professional and Advanced, plus payment processing fees, and it is waived for the first 30 days after paid activation. If fulfilled print orders are a real revenue line, a 7% fee on revenue you would not otherwise collect is cheap, and we have no answer to it because we have no store.
- Your portfolio site is your Zenfolio site. Zenfolio is a website builder as well as a gallery host. We are not. Moving means finding a separate home for your public site, and that is real work with a real cost.
- You are already on Advanced for branding. Advanced removes Zenfolio branding from all visitor pages, so unbranded galleries are not a reason to switch off that plan. Look at what else you use before you move on branding alone.
- You deliver a lot of video. Basic and Professional carry photos and videos in one allowance, and Advanced carries 150 GB of video. clientgallery.io does not warehouse master video at all.
If none of that is you, and what you actually do is deliver finished JPEG galleries to clients under your own name, then the website builder, the storefront and the lab are things you are paying for and not using. That is the case where a flat plan wins, and it is the only case we claim.
How to make the move without a bad week
Since the export is per gallery, sequence it so the repetition happens while you still have everything.
Start by listing your galleries and marking which ones still matter. Most studios find that a large share of old galleries are long past their useful life, and the export you actually need is much smaller than the account. Then work through the list, requesting the download for each gallery, and filing each zip into your own archive as it arrives by email.
Do this before you cancel. Zenfolio says content is not immediately deleted on cancellation, but it also says content is permanently deleted if left in a closed state, and it publishes no timeframe. Meanwhile the Terms say Zenfolio may close an account that has not been logged into for two or more years. Neither statement is a schedule you can rely on.
Once your archive is complete, rebuild the galleries that are still live, send clients the new links, and cancel at the end of the period you have already paid for. Other platforms are compared on the alternatives index.
Sources
Every Zenfolio statement, quote, percentage and storage figure on this page comes from the pages below, fetched on 3 September 2026. Zenfolio's pricing page serves prices in the visitor's local currency, which is why no Zenfolio dollar figure is printed here.
- Zenfolio Plans and Pricing, fetched 3 September 2026, https://zenfolio.com/plans-pricing/
- Zenfolio success centre: NextZen Plans Comparison (storage, proofing, branding, domains), fetched 3 September 2026, https://success.zenfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/11787149819539-Zenfolio-NextZen-Plans-Comparison
- Zenfolio features: Photo Proofing, fetched 3 September 2026, https://zenfolio.com/features/photo-proofing/
- Zenfolio success centre: What Are The Fees Involved With Selling, fetched 3 September 2026, https://success.zenfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/15431066201235-What-Are-The-Fees-Involved-With-Selling
- Zenfolio success centre: Downloading Original Photos Back to Your Computer, fetched 3 September 2026, https://success.zenfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/7430784497555-Downloading-Original-Photos-Back-to-Your-Computer
- Zenfolio success centre: Cancelling or Deleting Your Account, fetched 3 September 2026, https://success.zenfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/7430771285139-Cancelling-or-Deleting-Your-Account
- Zenfolio Terms of Use, fetched 3 September 2026, https://zenfolio.com/termsofuse/
- clientgallery.io pricing (one plan, verified in the product the same day), fetched 3 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/
Frequently asked
Can I export all my Zenfolio galleries at once?
No. Zenfolio's success centre states that there is not a way to download all of the photos in every Gallery in your account in one action, and that bulk downloads must be completed by individual Gallery. Each download is packaged as a zip and a link is emailed to the account owner, so the work repeats once per gallery.
Does Zenfolio delete my photos if I cancel?
Not immediately. Zenfolio says the content of the account is not immediately deleted on cancellation, and that content is permanently deleted if left in a closed state. No exact timeframe is published, and Zenfolio itself recommends keeping backup storage of your content outside Zenfolio.
Which Zenfolio plans include client proofing?
Professional and Advanced. The client access portal and client proofing are Professional and Advanced only, and Basic has neither. On clientgallery.io proofing is included on the only plan, at 10 $/month or 100 $/year.
Which Zenfolio plan removes Zenfolio branding?
Advanced. Basic and Professional get one custom logo and cannot remove Zenfolio branding, while Advanced allows multiple logos and removes Zenfolio branding from all visitor pages. All three plans support a custom domain and a custom subdomain, so branding alone is not a reason to leave Advanced.
What does Zenfolio charge to sell through a gallery?
Zenfolio's fees article lists 7% of the order sub-total, excluding sales tax and shipping, on Professional and Advanced, plus payment processing fees. The selling fee is waived for the first 30 days after paid activation. clientgallery.io has no store, so it has no selling fee and no commission.
Why does this page not list Zenfolio's prices?
Zenfolio's pricing page serves prices in the visitor's local currency, and no United States dollar figure could be verified on 3 September 2026. Rather than print a number that may not be the one you see, this page compares plan structure, what each tier gates, and how the export works.
What can I get back out of clientgallery.io?
The delivered work as it sits in the gallery: any gallery downloads in one click, and any single image downloads on its own. clientgallery.io hosts browser-compressed proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB each and does not warehouse RAW files or master video, so your own archive of originals remains the source of truth. Full-resolution delivery runs from a ZIP you upload yourself.
Your client galleries, under your name
Unlimited galleries, your branding, one-click Pixieset import, and a Lightroom plugin — a flat 10 $/month, everything included. Your first gallery is free.
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