Comparison
Pic-Time vs ShootProof: Commission First, Then Price
One takes a percentage of what you sell. The other takes none and charges a flat subscription. That single difference decides the comparison for most studios, so this page prices it out before it prices anything else.
Updated 23 September 2026
Most Pic-Time versus ShootProof comparisons open with gallery design. That is the wrong first question. These two products bill on different axes: Pic-Time publishes a commission ladder on store sales, and ShootProof publishes none at all. A studio with real print revenue can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars a year in the gap between those two models, which is far more than the difference between their subscription prices.
One thing changed on 23 September 2026, and any older comparison you read is now wrong about it. ShootProof used to meter the number of photos in your account. It now meters gigabytes, the same unit Pic-Time has always used. That makes the two ladders directly comparable for the first time, and it removes the argument every older page leaned on. This page says so rather than pretending otherwise.
So this page starts with commission, does the arithmetic across a year of print markup, then lays out both gigabyte ladders with the date they were read, then says plainly which studio should buy which. Our own product gets one short section near the end, including a paragraph on who should not buy it. Every competitor figure is sourced at the bottom with its URL and its date.
Commission: the axis that actually separates them
ShootProof publishes 0%. Its FAQs article states that ShootProof "will never take a commission", and its fees article states that ShootProof "never (ever) takes a commission on your sales". Its plans page marks commission-free sales as included on every tier, the free one included. There is no percentage to quote here, because ShootProof asserts that none exists.
Pic-Time publishes a ladder. Its help centre article on commission rates, which carries its own last-updated date of 25 April 2025, gives these published rates for the Client Delivery Suite when Pic-Time collects the payment: 15% on Free, 15% on Beginner, 8% on Professional, 6% on Advanced. On the Art Store plans the published rates are 15% on Professional and 8% on Advanced. The same article states that on Free and Beginner the commission "is always collected, regardless of store setup", and that commission can otherwise be avoided by collecting payments yourself, with Beginner (Client Delivery Suite) and Professional (Art Store) as the exceptions.
Two qualifications belong here, and both come from Pic-Time. Its pricing page states that commission "is only applied to your markup", so the percentage lands on your profit above lab cost rather than on the gross order. The same page states that there is no commission for self-collected payments on the Professional and Advanced plans. Those two facts make the Pic-Time number smaller than a naive reading suggests, and the table below uses the markup reading, not the gross one.
One honest note on the ShootProof side. Zero commission does not mean zero extras. Its fees article, which ShootProof updated on 21 September 2026, names four charges beyond the plan fee: archiving, 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 processing fee, for Booking or for Music plans on any page read on 23 September 2026. We will not fill those gaps with a generic number, so none of them appears in either column of the table below.
What that costs across a year of print markup
A percentage of sales and a flat subscription are different shapes, not different sizes. The flat one is a horizontal line. The percentage one is a slope. Where they cross depends entirely on how much you sell, so the only useful table has your own print revenue as its axis.
Read the row that matches your year, not the plan names. Figures are US dollars and are total annual platform cost.
| Your annual print markup | Pic-Time Beginner, 15% | Pic-Time Professional, 8% | Pic-Time Advanced, 6% | ShootProof Starter, 0% | ShootProof Standard, 0% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 $ | 84 $ | 252 $ | 504 $ | 99.99 $ | 199.99 $ |
| 2,000 $ | 384 $ | 412 $ | 624 $ | 99.99 $ | 199.99 $ |
| 5,000 $ | 834 $ | 652 $ | 804 $ | 99.99 $ | 199.99 $ |
| 10,000 $ | 1,584 $ | 1,052 $ | 1,104 $ | 99.99 $ | 199.99 $ |
| 25,000 $ | 3,834 $ | 2,252 $ | 2,004 $ | 99.99 $ | 199.99 $ |
| 50,000 $ | 7,584 $ | 4,252 $ | 3,504 $ | 99.99 $ | 199.99 $ |
Assumptions, stated so you can argue with them. The ShootProof lines are the yearly totals its help centre prints, 99.99 $ for Starter and 199.99 $ for Standard. The Pic-Time lines are twelve times the per-month billed-annually rate its pricing page prints, because Pic-Time does not publish a yearly total. Commission is applied to markup only, per Pic-Time's pricing page, and assumes Pic-Time collects the payment. Rates are the Client Delivery Suite ladder, not the Art Store ladder. Lab cost, shipping, sales tax and card processing are excluded on both sides, since ShootProof publishes no processing rate to include. ShootProof archiving fees are excluded. The plans are not capacity-equivalent; that is the next section but one.
The crossover most studios will care about sits very low. Against Pic-Time Beginner, whose 15% cannot be avoided by collecting payments yourself, ShootProof Starter is the cheaper total once annual print markup passes roughly 107 $. That is one order. Above the Beginner tier the slope flattens but never turns: Pic-Time Professional already starts higher than ShootProof Standard before a single print sells, and every dollar of markup widens it.
The one branch that changes the answer is self-collected payment. Pic-Time states there is no commission for self-collected payments on Professional and Advanced. A studio that invoices clients directly and uses the gallery only as a storefront front-end can therefore run Pic-Time at 0% too, and the whole table collapses back to a subscription comparison. If that is you, read the ladders below and ignore the slopes.
The two price ladders, as of 23 September 2026
Both companies are running promotional and shifting pricing, so every figure below carries its date. All figures are US dollars.
Pic-Time, from its pricing page, read 23 September 2026. Pic-Time presents the annual option as a lower per-month rate rather than a yearly total.
| Plan | Per month, monthly | Per month, annual | Photo storage | Video storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 $ | 0 $ | 10 GB, then reduced to 3 GB | 1 GB |
| Beginner | 8 $ | 7 $ | 20 GB | 5 GB |
| Professional | 25 $ | 21 $ | 100 GB | 30 GB |
| Advanced | 50 $ | 42 $ | Unlimited, terms apply | 60 GB |
A custom domain is listed on Professional and Advanced only. It is absent from the Free and Beginner columns, so a studio that wants its galleries on its own domain starts at 21 $ a month billed annually.
ShootProof, from its plans page, read 23 September 2026, with the yearly totals from its help-centre article on how plans work, which ShootProof updated on 22 September 2026. The two surfaces agree: the plans page prints the annual rate as a per-month amount and the help article prints the yearly total.
| Plan | Per month, monthly | Per month, annual | Yearly total | Photo storage | Video storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 $ | 0 $ | 0 $ | 3 GB, photos only | Not included |
| Starter | 9.99 $ | 9.17 $ | 99.99 $ | 20 GB shared with video | Shared with photo |
| Standard | 19.99 $ | 16.67 $ | 199.99 $ | 100 GB shared with video | Shared with photo |
| Professional | 31.99 $ | 26.67 $ | 319.99 $ | 1,000 GB | 50 GB |
| Premium | 60.00 $ | 50 $ | 600 $ | Unlimited | 150 GB |
Two notes on that table. 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. And video is metered differently at each end of the ladder: Free has none at all, Starter and Standard share one pool between photo and video, and Professional and Premium publish separate photo and video allowances.
Both meter gigabytes now, and that removes the old argument
Until 23 September 2026 this was the most interesting section on the page, because the two companies measured different things. Pic-Time metered gigabytes. ShootProof metered the number of photos online in the account, spread across unlimited galleries, which meant a wedding studio delivering 800 frames a job could burn through a tier while barely touching its storage ceiling.
That is over. 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. Photo counts survive only as soft estimates printed beside the gigabyte figure. Both platforms now meter the same unit, so the comparison is arithmetic rather than translation.
Say it plainly: if you came here because a ShootProof photo cap was squeezing you, that squeeze is gone. Professional holds 1,000 GB of photos, which is more proof-sized work than most studios produce in a decade, and Premium is unlimited for photos. Rung for rung the two ladders now look like this, at the billed-annually rate.
| Photo storage | Pic-Time, per month annual | ShootProof, per month annual |
|---|---|---|
| 20 GB | Beginner, 7 $, plus 5 GB of video | Starter, 9.17 $, video shares the 20 GB |
| 100 GB | Professional, 21 $, plus 30 GB of video | Standard, 16.67 $, video shares the 100 GB |
| 1,000 GB | No matching rung | Professional, 26.67 $, plus 50 GB of video |
| Unlimited photo | Advanced, 42 $, terms apply, plus 60 GB of video | Premium, 50 $, plus 150 GB of video |
Read that table with the commission table above it, not instead of it. At 100 GB ShootProof is the cheaper subscription and takes no percentage, while Pic-Time gives you a separate 30 GB video pool and takes 8% of markup when it collects the payment. For a studio with no print revenue the subscription line is the whole answer. For a studio selling 10,000 $ of markup a year it is a rounding error next to the commission.
What survives against ShootProof is the second bill. Archiving is priced separately. ShootProof's archiving article, which it updated on 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. The plan cards put the same thing in one line: 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".
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 is a way to take old work off the meter and off the internet, not a way to keep it cheaply browsable.
Pic-Time's free tier has its own clock, and it is harder. Its help centre article, last updated 11 June 2026, states that after an account has reached three months of use and is downgraded to a Free plan, storage is updated from the introductory 10 GB to 3 GB, and that "any galleries above that limit will be permanently deleted 1 week after the plan changes", oldest first. That is a published rule rather than a surprise, which is to Pic-Time's credit, but it is a hard deadline on a free account and the deletion is not reversible after the week.
What else each one includes
ShootProof puts business tooling on every paid plan. Its plans page, read 23 September 2026, marks "Easy invoicing with customizable tipping" and "E-sign contracts" as not included on Free and included on every paid plan. It also marks commission-free sales and selling lab prints and products as included on every tier, the free one included. Booking is an add-on and Music plans are an add-on, and ShootProof publishes no rate for either on any page read today, so no figure for them appears here. There is a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, per its FAQs article updated 22 September 2026.
Plan changes on ShootProof are documented in both directions, in an article it updated on 23 September 2026. Upgrades take effect immediately, remaining plan time is prorated onto the new bill, and the bill date resets to that day. Downgrades do not take effect until the next bill date. All plan purchases are non-refundable. Sales tax is charged and remitted in 20 states plus Washington, D.C.
On gallery expiry, both platforms hand the date to the photographer. ShootProof states that at 11:59 pm on the date you set, in your studio's time zone, the gallery expires and becomes inactive, and it offers a setting to archive a gallery automatically after it expires. No ShootProof page read on 23 September 2026 publishes a default expiry period, so there is no standard number of days to quote in either direction. Pic-Time's expiry article documents the client-side warning schedule: the client is notified one week, four days and one day before the gallery expires, unless an app with an expiration campaign is enabled.
The verdict
If your studio sells art and prints, buy Pic-Time. This page has spent a lot of words on Pic-Time's commission, so be clear about what the commission buys. Pic-Time's galleries and its store are the reason studios pick it, and a store that actively sells is worth a percentage. A commission is a performance fee: it costs nothing in a quiet year and a great deal in a good one, which is a rational trade if the store is what produced the good year. If print revenue is a real line in your business and Pic-Time's store is what drives it, the 8% on Professional is not the reason to leave, and paying 6% on Advanced while selling 50,000 $ of markup is a business that works.
If you want the business tooling and no percentage, buy ShootProof. Zero commission is stated on its fees article, its FAQs article and its plans page, all read or updated within two days of 23 September 2026, and contracts and invoicing come on every paid plan rather than as an upsell. A studio that sells prints but wants every dollar of the markup, and that would rather run its contracts and invoices in the same place as its galleries, is buying exactly what ShootProof is. The gigabyte move made it a stronger buy, not a weaker one: the old photo counter was the thing that pushed studios off it. Two things still to budget, and neither is on the plan price. 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: last season sits in the pool while this season uploads on top of it.
Neither of those two studios should switch to us. We say that plainly in the section after next.
A third shape of product, briefly
Both products above are ladders with a store attached. clientgallery.io is neither. One plan, 10 $ a month or 110 $ a year, which is 9.17 $ a month. No print store, so no commission and nothing to opt out of. No storage tiers, no per-gallery fees, no add-on for the thing you actually needed. Galleries and clients are unlimited, and a paid account holds up to 500,000 photos, on the studio's own subdomain, with no platform branding on any client-facing page. Face Search and a two-way Lightroom Classic plugin are included rather than gated.
Fair use in plain figures, because a page that argues about someone else's caps owes you its own. Uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB each, hosted for as long as the account exists. The abuse tripwires are 1,000 photos per gallery and 500,000 photos per paid account. Free accounts hold one gallery of up to 1,000 photos. Full-resolution delivery is on every plan, free included and works differently: 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 ZIP uploads a month per account. Hosted galleries do not expire, and there is no archived state to pay for.
The restriction that keeps the price flat belongs in the body, not a footnote. clientgallery.io hosts JPEGs. It does not warehouse RAW files or master video. If either is part of what you deliver, one of the ladders above is the right purchase. A one-bookmark import reads a whole Pixieset account from the Pixieset dashboard and rebuilds the galleries under your brand, reading only and changing nothing, and the Lightroom plugin publishes proofs from the catalog and pulls client picks back into it. There is no Pic-Time importer and no ShootProof importer.
Who should not buy clientgallery.io
A studio whose revenue depends on print and art sales should buy Pic-Time, not us. Not because our store is cheaper: we do not have one. There is no way to sell a print, an album or wall art through a clientgallery.io gallery, so that studio would give up a revenue line to save a subscription line. Pic-Time's store design is the product, and a percentage of sales from a store that sells for you is a fair trade.
A studio that wants contracts, invoicing and booking in the same account as its galleries should buy ShootProof, not us. We do not do any of the three, and running them somewhere else costs you the joins between them. The same goes for video: every paid ShootProof plan now carries a video allowance, and we host JPEGs only.
We are the right answer for one specific studio: the one that delivers digital files, does not sell prints, wants one flat bill with no percentage and no metered tier, and wants the gallery to carry its own name. If that is the description of your business, the comparison above is a choice between two products you do not need.
Sources
Every price, commission rate, storage figure and policy above traces to one of these pages. Marketing pages carry the date they were read; help centre articles carry their own last-updated date as well, because that is the date the company stands behind, not the date we looked.
- Pic-Time pricing (plan rates, photo and video storage per tier, custom domain on Professional and Advanced only, commission applied to your markup, no commission for self-collected payments on Professional and Advanced), read 23 September 2026, https://www.pic-time.com/pricing
- Pic-Time, What are the commission rates for various subscription plans (15% Free, 15% Beginner, 8% Professional, 6% Advanced, Art Store 15% and 8%, commission always collected on Free and Beginner regardless of store setup), article last updated 25 April 2025, read 23 September 2026, https://help.pic-time.com/en/articles/7901454-what-are-the-commission-rates-for-various-subscription-plans
- Pic-Time, Why has my free plan storage been reduced to 3GB (10 GB to 3 GB after three months of use, galleries above the limit permanently deleted 1 week after the plan changes, oldest first), article last updated 11 June 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.pic-time.com/en/articles/9210592-why-has-my-free-plan-storage-been-reduced-to-3gb
- Pic-Time, How do I customize gallery expiration emails (client notified 1 week, 4 days and 1 day before expiry), article last updated 1 May 2025, read 9 September 2026, https://help.pic-time.com/en/articles/9573775-how-do-i-customize-gallery-expiration-emails
- ShootProof plans (five tiers, gigabyte storage, monthly and billed-annually rates, 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), read 23 September 2026, https://www.shootproof.com/plans/
- ShootProof, 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; sales tax in 20 states plus Washington, D.C.; all plan purchases non-refundable), article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008189128-How-do-your-plans-work
- ShootProof, 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, with no rate published for any of the last three), article updated 21 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032267-Are-there-any-other-fees
- ShootProof FAQs (ShootProof will never take a commission, with every plan; 14 day free trial with no credit card required), article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062280593-ShootProof-FAQs
- ShootProof, How do I change my plan (upgrades immediate and prorated with the bill date reset, downgrades at the next bill date), article updated 23 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032207-How-do-I-change-my-plan
- ShootProof, What does archiving cost (2.99 $ minimum monthly for up to 25 GB, 0.05 $ per additional GB, billed monthly for the previous month; photo archiving included on Premium, video archiving not), article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322408-What-does-archiving-cost
- ShootProof, How do I archive my galleries and remove them from Archiving later (an archived gallery becomes static and is not live for client viewing; galleries can be removed from archiving at any time at no charge; unarchiving needs enough GB free in the plan), article updated 21 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322448-How-do-I-archive-my-galleries-and-remove-them-from-Archiving-later
- ShootProof, 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), article updated 16 September 2026, read 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115009679648-What-are-all-of-the-gallery-settings
- clientgallery.io plan and fair use (10 $ a month or 110 $ a year, no store, no commission, the proof and full-resolution ZIP figures), checked 23 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/
Frequently asked
Does ShootProof take a commission on print sales?
No. ShootProof states on its fees article, its FAQs article and its plans page that it never takes a commission on your sales, on every plan including the free one. Its fees article, updated 21 September 2026, names four other charges: archiving, credit card processing, the Booking add-on and Music plans. It publishes no rate for the processing fee, Booking or Music plans on any page read on 23 September 2026, so no figure for them appears here.
What commission does Pic-Time charge?
Pic-Time's published rates, from its commission help article last updated 25 April 2025 and read on 23 September 2026, are 15% on Free, 15% on Beginner, 8% on Professional and 6% on Advanced for the Client Delivery Suite, and 15% on Professional and 8% on Advanced for the Art Store. Its pricing page states the commission is applied only to your markup, and that self-collected payments on Professional and Advanced carry no commission. On Free and Beginner the article says commission is always collected regardless of store setup.
Did ShootProof change how it sells storage?
Yes. On 23 September 2026 ShootProof moved from photo-count plans to gigabyte plans. Its help centre now states 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. The plans sold today are Free at 3 GB photos only, Starter at 20 GB shared between photo and video, Standard at 100 GB shared, Professional at 1,000 GB of photos plus 50 GB of video, and Premium at unlimited photo storage plus 150 GB of video. Photo counts survive only as soft estimates beside the gigabyte figure.
Which is cheaper, Pic-Time or ShootProof?
It depends on print volume, not on plan names. With no print sales the two are close at the entry rung: Pic-Time Beginner is 84 $ a year at the billed-annually rate, ShootProof Starter is 99.99 $ a year. Against Pic-Time Beginner, whose 15% cannot be avoided by collecting payments yourself, ShootProof Starter becomes the cheaper annual total once print markup passes roughly 107 $. Above Beginner, Pic-Time Professional at 252 $ a year starts higher than ShootProof Standard at 199.99 $ before any sale, and commission widens the gap. Figures read on 23 September 2026.
How do the storage limits compare now?
They are finally the same kind of limit. Pic-Time meters gigabytes: 20 GB of photos plus 5 GB of video on Beginner, 100 GB plus 30 GB on Professional, unlimited photos with terms plus 60 GB of video on Advanced, and a free plan that starts at 10 GB and drops to 3 GB after three months of use. ShootProof now meters gigabytes too: 3 GB photos only on Free, 20 GB shared on Starter, 100 GB shared on Standard, 1,000 GB of photos plus 50 GB of video on Professional, and unlimited photos plus 150 GB of video on Premium. The difference that remains is the second bill: ShootProof archiving costs a minimum of 2.99 $ a month for up to 25 GB plus 0.05 $ per additional GB, and an archived gallery is not live for client viewing.
How much does ShootProof archiving cost, and is it ever included?
ShootProof's archiving article, updated 22 September 2026, states a minimum monthly charge of 2.99 $ for up to 25 GB, then 0.05 $ per additional GB, billed monthly for the previous month's usage. On the plan cards the archiving row reads Archive for a fee on Free, Starter, Standard and Professional. Premium is the one exception and only for photos: that card reads Photo archive included and adds that video archiving starts at 2.99 $ a month. ShootProof also states that an archived gallery becomes static and is not live for client viewing, and that unarchiving needs enough GB free in your plan.
Should I switch to clientgallery.io instead?
Only if you do not sell prints. If print and art revenue matters to your business, buy Pic-Time; its store is the product and a percentage of what it sells for you is a fair trade. If you want contracts and invoicing beside your galleries with no commission, buy ShootProof. clientgallery.io is one flat plan at 10 $ a month or 110 $ a year with no store, no commission and no storage tiers, on your own subdomain. It hosts JPEG proofs of about 0.6 MB each, with fair-use tripwires of 1,000 photos per gallery and 500,000 photos per paid account, and full-resolution delivery as a per-gallery ZIP that stays live 3 days per handoff. It does not warehouse RAW files or master video.
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.
See the one flat plan