CloudSpot vs ShootProof: Where the Money Is Taken

ShootProof states a 0% commission on three of its own surfaces, in three different wordings, at every plan level including the free one. Its FAQs article, updated 22 September 2026, says to keep every penny of profit with every plan and that ShootProof will never take a commission. Its fees article, updated 21 September 2026, says ShootProof never takes a commission on your sales. Its plans page marks commission-free sales as included on all five tiers. There is no percentage to compare because ShootProof asserts none exists.

Zero commission is not zero extras, and this is the part most comparisons skip. ShootProof's fees article names four charges beyond the plan price: archiving, credit card processing when a client's card is run at checkout or the card on file is charged for lab items, the Booking add-on, and Music plans. ShootProof publishes no rate for the last three on any page read on 23 September 2026, so none appears here as a number.

CloudSpot reaches 0% too, but further up the ladder. Its pricing page, read 23 September 2026, applies a 15% commission on sales to the Free and Entry plans and describes Lite, Pro and Unlimited as commission-free. Its print-sales article puts the paid-plan side in CloudSpot's own words: "We take exactly 0% of all of your profits for Auto-Fulfilled lab orders on all paid plans", alongside a 15% commission on orders placed while the account is on a Free plan. Note that the article names only the Free plan when it describes the 15%, while the pricing page attaches it to Entry as well. Read both before you commit to Entry with a store attached.

Those two CloudSpot processing figures come from two CloudSpot pages with different dates, and we are not going to pick one for you. The 2.5% is on the pricing page today. The 2.9% plus $0.30 is in the print-sales help article, which CloudSpot last updated on 19 August 2025. Ask CloudSpot which applies to your account before you model a year of sales.

Put the commission against a year of print sales. The figures below use the regular monthly rates published on 23 September 2026, multiplied by twelve, plus the commission on the sales volume in the left column. Annual billing is cheaper on both sides: ShootProof publishes $99.99 a year for Starter, and CloudSpot published $72 for Entry and $144 for Lite on 9 September 2026, figures its pricing page does not currently print.

The shape is the point. On CloudSpot, selling prints is the thing that pushes you up the ladder, and at the monthly rates the jump from Entry to Lite pays for itself at about $800 of yearly sales. On ShootProof, selling prints never moves you. Capacity does, and so does archiving. That is the whole difference in two sentences.

One caveat on the prices. CloudSpot is running a promotion on 23 September 2026, at $3 a month for the first three months on every paid plan, alongside a banner offering 50% or more off for a limited time. Those are promotional rates, not list rates, and the figures used above are the regular prices CloudSpot publishes beside them.

This is the section that changed. Both platforms now sell gigabytes, so the honest thing to do is put the two ladders next to each other and stop translating.

Be clear about what that costs our side of the argument. Older comparisons, including an older version of this page, argued that a ShootProof studio hits a photo counter long before it fills its storage ceiling. ShootProof's help centre now opens its plans article by stating that plans are billed monthly or yearly and are determined by the amount of GB storage needed, and its plans page carries no photo-count column at all. Photo counts survive only as soft estimates printed beside the gigabyte figure. If a photo cap was your reason for looking, that reason is gone.

ShootProof's help centre also documents an Advanced plan at 2,000 GB of photo storage and 100 GB of video for $51.99 a month or $519.99 a year, which does not appear on the public plans page. Treat it as a plan the help centre lists rather than one you can pick from the plans page today.

Rung for rung, at the same amount of photo storage: 100 GB costs $17 a month on CloudSpot Lite and $19.99 a month, or $16.67 billed annually, on ShootProof Standard, where video shares the same 100 GB. Above that the shapes diverge. CloudSpot Pro is $34 for 500 GB; ShootProof Professional is $31.99, or $26.67 billed annually, for 1,000 GB of photos plus a separate 50 GB of video. At the top, CloudSpot Unlimited is $50 a month for unlimited storage; ShootProof Premium is $60, or $50 billed annually, for unlimited photo storage plus 150 GB of video.

What each one meters beside the gigabytes is where they really differ. CloudSpot counts galleries on its two cheapest plans: three on Free and fifteen at a time on Entry, so old jobs come down to make room for new ones long before the gigabyte meter matters. ShootProof counts video separately at both ends of its ladder, and charges for archiving, which is the next section.

One more line that separates the cheap tiers. CloudSpot restricts Free and Entry to JPEG only, and adds JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, PSD and PDF from Lite upward. If your delivery includes a PDF or a layered file, CloudSpot's entry tiers will not carry it.

Free tiers are how most photographers try a platform, and CloudSpot's free tier changes the deliverable itself. Its pricing page states a 2048 px limit on downloads for the free plan, with high-res downloads on the paid tiers. That is not a bookkeeping detail. It is what lands on your client's laptop. A 2048 px file is fine for a phone and for social, and it is not a print file. If you trial CloudSpot on a real job, the client gets the smaller image unless you are paying.

ShootProof publishes no equivalent download-resolution ladder on any page fetched on 23 September 2026, so this page makes no claim in either direction about ShootProof download sizes. Absence of a published cap is not the same as a published promise. Its FAQs article does document download permissions in detail: downloads can be limited to the Linked Contact, the number of downloads that contact gets can be capped, and ShootProof states it always removes watermarks applied inside the gallery when a client purchases prints or digital downloads.

On delivery mechanics, CloudSpot's downloads article names four shapes: single digital files, a ZIP of selected images, a full-gallery download, and a ZIP of a favorites list. Limiting free downloads is done by turning them off in gallery settings and issuing a single-use discount code, and CloudSpot notes those codes apply to single digital files rather than gallery bundles. That is a workable system, but it is a workaround rather than a switch.

ShootProof documents expiry as a date the photographer sets. In its words, "At 11:59 pm, on this date (in your studio's time zone), the gallery will expire and become inactive." It is a per-gallery setting that can also be set in Gallery Presets for all future galleries, and there is a setting to archive a gallery automatically once it expires. No page fetched on 23 September 2026 states a default expiry period, so nobody should tell you ShootProof galleries expire after some fixed number of days.

Archiving is the second bill, and it survived the plan change unchanged in price and expanded in scope. ShootProof's archiving article, updated 22 September 2026, states a minimum monthly charge of $2.99 for up to 25 GB of storage, then $0.05 per additional GB, billed monthly for the previous month's usage. It also states that when you remove all galleries from archiving you still incur one more bill, because the service is billed retroactively.

Which plans pay it is printed on the plan cards. The row headed "Securely store extra photos" reads "Archive for a fee" on Free, Starter, Standard and Professional. Premium is the single exception, and only for photos: that card reads "Photo archive included" and adds "Video archive starting at $2.99/mo". So photo archiving is free on exactly one of the five plans, and video archiving is charged on all five.

The trade is not only money. ShootProof states that an archived gallery becomes static and is not live for client viewing, that galleries can be removed from archiving at any time at no charge, and that to unarchive a gallery you need enough GB of space free in your plan. Archiving takes old work off the meter and off the internet, and getting it back requires room.

CloudSpot publishes no default expiry period that we could verify, so this page makes no claim about one. What CloudSpot does document is the pressure a gallery cap creates: three galleries on Free and fifteen at a time on Entry means old jobs come down to make room for new ones, long before any expiry setting is involved. One related operational note from CloudSpot's own help centre: galleries live on a CloudSpot subdomain in the form yourbusinessname.client-gallery.com, the subdomain can be changed at any time, and if you change it more than once, previously shared galleries have to be resent.

On plan movement, ShootProof is the more documented of the two, in an article it updated on 23 September 2026. Upgrades take effect immediately with the remaining plan time prorated onto the new bill and the bill date reset to that day, downgrades wait until the next bill date, and all plan purchases are non-refundable.

We make a third thing, and it is deliberately narrower. clientgallery.io is one plan at $10 a month or $110 a year. There is no print store, no commission, no per-gallery fee and no storage tier to climb. Galleries carry your branding on your own subdomain, and hosted galleries stay live for as long as the account does.

Because this page is an argument about caps, here are ours in plain figures. Uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs of roughly 0.6 MB each. Fair use runs to 1,000 photos per gallery and 500,000 photos per paid account; free accounts hold 5 GB. Full-resolution delivery is on every plan, free included and works differently from hosting: you upload a full-resolution ZIP per gallery, it stays live for three days per handoff, and you can re-upload it any time, with 100 GB of ZIP uploads a month per account. We host JPEGs. We do not warehouse RAW files or master video, which is what keeps the price flat. There is no archived state here, and no archive fee.

Where we lose: CloudSpot's Unlimited plan at $50 a month says unlimited storage, and ShootProof's Premium plan at $60 a month, or $50 billed annually, says unlimited photo storage plus 150 GB of video, with photo archiving included and video archiving charged. We do not offer unlimited storage and this page will not pretend the words mean the same thing. A studio whose library genuinely needs to grow without a ceiling should read those two tiers seriously. We also have no print store, no invoicing, no contracts and no scheduling, all of which CloudSpot ships as Studio Manager from Lite upward and ShootProof includes on every paid plan. We host no video at all, and every paid ShootProof plan now carries a video allowance.

A studio that wants a store, auto-fulfilment through a lab, and business tooling in the same product should pick CloudSpot or ShootProof, not us. We do not build those things and we are not going to.

Pick CloudSpot if you want the gallery and the back office in one subscription and you are willing to sit at Lite or above. From $17 a month you get commission-free selling, unlimited galleries, 100 GB, the broader file-type support, and the Studio Manager side with contracts, questionnaires, invoicing, scheduling and mini-sessions. CloudSpot states it takes 0% of your profits on auto-fulfilled lab orders, which is the strongest single reason to be there if the lab is central to your business. Avoid its Free and Entry plans if you sell anything, because that is exactly where the 15% lives.

Pick ShootProof if selling is the point and your volume is uneven. Commission is 0% from the free plan upward, so a photographer who sells $10,000 of prints a year pays the same plan fee as one who sells nothing, and pays it for capacity rather than for sales. Invoicing and e-sign contracts are on every paid plan, and video now has an allowance on every paid plan too. The move to gigabyte plans made it a stronger buy, not a weaker one: 1,000 GB on Professional absorbs the volumes a photo counter used to squeeze. Budget two things the plan price does not cover. Archiving is a separate monthly bill on every plan below Premium, and on Premium for video. And a gigabyte meter still climbs, because delivered galleries do not leave.

Pick clientgallery.io if you do not sell prints. If your galleries exist to deliver finished work and collect client picks, the store, the lab integration, the commission ladder and the storage ladder are all machinery you pay for and never touch. One flat $10 a month, one plan, your branding, your subdomain, and the fair-use ceilings written above rather than buried. If you outgrow those ceilings, one of the platforms on this page is the honest answer.

Every figure on this page traces to one of these. Marketing pages carry the date they were read; help articles carry the date the vendor states the article was last updated as well as the date we read it.

• CloudSpot pricing (plan rates, storage, gallery caps, 15% on Free and Entry, commission-free from Lite, the 2048 px free-plan download limit, file types, the 2.5% processing fee on Lite, Pro and Unlimited, and the $3 a month promotion for the first three months), https://www.cloudspot.io/pricing, fetched 23 September 2026.
• CloudSpot annual totals of $72 for Entry and $144 for Lite, https://www.cloudspot.io/pricing, fetched 9 September 2026. The pricing page shows the promotional monthly rate instead of these totals on 23 September 2026, so they keep their earlier date.
• CloudSpot help centre, The 411 About Print Sales (0% of profits on auto-fulfilled lab orders on all paid plans; 15% commission on the Free plan; processing fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction), http://help.cloudspot.io/en/articles/114592-the-411-about-print-sales, article updated 19 August 2025, read 23 September 2026.
• CloudSpot help centre, What are the different CloudSpot subscription plans and how do they compare, http://help.cloudspot.io/en/articles/13287496-what-are-the-different-cloudspot-subscription-plans-and-how-do-they-compare, article dated 21 January 2026, read 9 September 2026.
• CloudSpot help centre, Can I change my subdomain, http://help.cloudspot.io/en/articles/114529-can-i-change-my-subdomain, article updated 5 January 2026, read 9 September 2026.
• CloudSpot help centre, Limiting Downloads, http://help.cloudspot.io/en/articles/5722715-limiting-downloads, article updated 19 August 2025, read 9 September 2026.
• ShootProof plans (five tiers with gigabyte storage and prices, commission-free sales and lab prints included on every tier, invoicing with tipping and e-sign contracts excluded from Free, and the plan-card row headed Securely store extra photos), https://www.shootproof.com/plans/, fetched 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, How do your plans work (plans are determined by the amount of GB storage needed; the yearly totals; the Advanced plan the plans page does not show), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008189128-How-do-your-plans-work, article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, Are there any other fees (never takes a commission on your sales; the four other charges are archiving, credit card processing, Booking and Music plans), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032267-Are-there-any-other-fees, article updated 21 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, ShootProof FAQs (keep every penny of profit with every plan; download permissions and watermark removal on purchase), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062280593-ShootProof-FAQs, article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, What does archiving cost ($2.99 minimum monthly for up to 25 GB, $0.05 per additional GB, billed retroactively; photo archiving included on Premium, video archiving not), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322408-What-does-archiving-cost, article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, How do I archive my galleries and remove them from Archiving later (an archived gallery becomes static and is not live for client viewing; removal from archiving at any time at no charge; unarchiving needs enough GB free in the plan), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322448-How-do-I-archive-my-galleries-and-remove-them-from-Archiving-later, article updated 21 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, What are all of the gallery settings (expiry at 11:59 pm studio time on the date you set; a setting to archive a gallery automatically after it expires), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115009679648-What-are-all-of-the-gallery-settings, article updated 16 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• ShootProof help centre, How do I change my plan (upgrades immediate and prorated with the bill date reset, downgrades at the next bill date, purchases non-refundable), https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032207-How-do-I-change-my-plan, article updated 23 September 2026, read 23 September 2026.
• clientgallery.io plan and fair-use figures, verified in product, 23 September 2026.