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 9 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.
So this page starts with commission, does the arithmetic across a year of print markup, then lays out both price 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". 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. Its fees article, updated 2 March 2026, states that the only charges beyond the plan fee are archiving and credit card processing. A processing fee therefore exists when ShootProof charges a card at checkout. ShootProof publishes no rate for it on any page. We will not fill that gap with a generic card processing percentage, so the processing fee appears in neither column of the table below, on either side.
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 1,500, 0% | ShootProof 5,000, 0% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 $ | 84 $ | 252 $ | 504 $ | 99.96 $ | 200.04 $ |
| 2,000 $ | 384 $ | 412 $ | 624 $ | 99.96 $ | 200.04 $ |
| 5,000 $ | 834 $ | 652 $ | 804 $ | 99.96 $ | 200.04 $ |
| 10,000 $ | 1,584 $ | 1,052 $ | 1,104 $ | 99.96 $ | 200.04 $ |
| 25,000 $ | 3,834 $ | 2,252 $ | 2,004 $ | 99.96 $ | 200.04 $ |
| 50,000 $ | 7,584 $ | 4,252 $ | 3,504 $ | 99.96 $ | 200.04 $ |
Assumptions, stated so you can argue with them. Subscription lines are 12 times the per-month billed-annually rate each company prints, because neither company publishes a yearly dollar total for these plans. 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.
The crossover most studios will care about sits very low. Against Pic-Time Beginner, whose 15% cannot be avoided by collecting payments yourself, the ShootProof 1,500 plan is the cheaper total once annual print markup passes roughly 106 $. That is one order. Above the Beginner tier the slope flattens but never turns: Pic-Time Professional already starts higher than ShootProof 5,000 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 9 September 2026
Both companies are running promotional and shifting pricing, so every figure below carries its date. All figures are US dollars, and both companies present the annual option as a lower per-month rate rather than a yearly total.
Pic-Time, from its pricing page, read 9 September 2026:
| Plan | Per month, monthly | Per month, annual | Photo storage | Video storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 $ | 0 $ | 10 GB, then reduced to 3 GB | None listed |
| Beginner | 8 $ | 7 $ | 20 GB | 5 GB |
| Professional | 25 $ | 21 $ | 100 GB | 30 GB |
| Advanced | 50 $ | 42 $ | Unlimited | 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 9 September 2026:
| Plan | Per month, monthly | Per month, annual | Photos online | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 $ | 0 $ | 100 | Up to 5 GB |
| 1,500 | 9.99 $ | 8.33 $ | 1,500 | Up to 75 GB |
| 5,000 | 19.99 $ | 16.67 $ | 5,000 | Up to 250 GB |
| 25,000 | 31.99 $ | 26.67 $ | 25,000 | Up to 1,250 GB |
| Unlimited | 60.00 $ | 50 $ | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Check the price twice before you sign up. ShootProof's two live marketing pages disagreed with each other on 9 September 2026, on the two lowest paid tiers. Its plans page prints the 1,500 plan at 9.99 $ monthly and 8.33 $ billed annually, and the 5,000 plan at 19.99 $ monthly and 16.67 $ billed annually. Its pricing page prints 12.99 $ and 10.99 $ for the 1,500 plan, and 21.99 $ and 19.99 $ for the 5,000 plan. The 25,000 and Unlimited tiers are identical on both pages. This page uses the plans page figures throughout, including in the arithmetic above, but a reader who lands on the other page will see a different number, and the difference is between 2 $ and 3.32 $ a month.
They meter different things, and that matters more than the headline price
Pic-Time meters gigabytes. ShootProof meters photos, with a storage ceiling behind the photo number. ShootProof states that the plan number is "the total number of photos you can have online in your ShootProof account at any given time," spread across unlimited galleries, so the constraint is not per gallery.
For a wedding studio that number is the thing to model. Five weddings a year at 800 delivered frames each is 4,000 photos, which fits the 5,000 plan only while nothing older stays online. Keep three years of galleries live and the same studio is on the 25,000 plan. Pic-Time's gigabyte model is indifferent to how many files you have and cares only how big they are.
ShootProof's release valve is archiving, and it is priced. Archiving costs a minimum monthly charge of 2.99 $ for up to 25 GB, then 0.05 $ per additional GB, per its archiving article which carries a last-updated date of 29 April 2025. Archived media does not count toward the plan storage amount, and unarchiving is free. The trade is that an archived gallery is not live for client viewing, so archiving is a way to keep the plan small, not a way to keep old galleries browsable. On the Unlimited plan, archiving is included at no additional cost.
Pic-Time's free tier has its own clock. Its help centre article, last updated 11 June 2026, states that storage is updated from the introductory 10 GB to 3 GB after three months from account creation, including the trial period, and that "any galleries above that limit will be permanently deleted 1 week after the plan changes", oldest first, with deletions unrecoverable after a week. 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.
What else each one includes
ShootProof puts business tooling on every paid plan. Invoicing and e-sign contracts are excluded from the Free plan and included on all paid plans, per its plans page. Online Booking is a separate add-on at 4.99 $ a month. The Mobile Gallery App is capped at five on Free and unlimited on the 1,500 plan and above. There is a 14 day free trial with no credit card required, per its FAQs article updated 26 August 2026.
Plan changes on ShootProof are documented in both directions. Upgrades take effect immediately, remaining plan time is prorated onto the new bill, and the bill date resets. Downgrades do not take effect until the next bill date. ShootProof states you can move up and down between plans at any time without penalty. All purchases are non-refundable. Sales tax is applied 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 an advanced setting that automatically sends a gallery to Archive a chosen number of days after expiration. 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 three separate official pages, the freshest updated 26 August 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. Watch the photo cap rather than the price, and budget the archiving fee if you intend to keep years of galleries around.
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 100 $ a year, which is 8.33 $ 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, photos and clients are unlimited under fair use, 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 250 GB of proofs per paid account, which is hundreds of thousands of photos. Free accounts hold 5 GB. Full-resolution delivery is a paid feature 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 standing ZIPs per account. Hosted galleries do not expire.
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.
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.
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, 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 9 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, 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 from account creation, galleries above the limit permanently deleted 1 week after the plan changes), article last updated 11 June 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, https://help.pic-time.com/en/articles/9573775-how-do-i-customize-gallery-expiration-emails
- ShootProof plans (five tiers, photo counts, storage, monthly and billed-annually rates, commission-free sales, invoicing and contracts excluded from Free, Mobile Gallery App limits, Online Booking add-on at 4.99 $), read 9 September 2026, https://www.shootproof.com/plans/
- ShootProof pricing (the second, disagreeing price set for the 1,500 and 5,000 plans), read 9 September 2026, https://www.shootproof.com/pricing
- ShootProof, Are there any other fees (never takes a commission on your sales; the only other fees are archiving and credit card processing, with no processing rate published), article last updated 2 March 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032267-Are-there-any-other-fees
- ShootProof FAQs (ShootProof will never take a commission; 14 day free trial with no credit card required), article last updated 26 August 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062280593-ShootProof-FAQs
- ShootProof, What does ShootProof cost (never charges a commission on your sales; move up and down between plans any time without any penalty), article last updated 7 February 2023, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032167-What-does-ShootProof-cost
- ShootProof, How do your plans work (the plan number is the total photos online at any given time across unlimited galleries; downgrades apply at the next bill date; purchases non-refundable; sales tax in 20 states plus Washington, D.C.), article last updated 26 August 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008189128-How-do-your-plans-work
- ShootProof, How do I change my plan (upgrades immediate and prorated, bill date resets, downgrades at the next bill date), article last updated 26 August 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, archiving included on Unlimited), article last updated 29 April 2025, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322408-What-does-archiving-cost
- ShootProof, How do I archive my photos and remove them from Archiving later (archived galleries are not live for client viewing; unarchiving is free), article last updated 4 March 2024, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322448-How-do-I-archive-my-photos-and-remove-them-from-Archiving-later
- ShootProof, What is archiving (archiving frees space for more active photos), article last updated 8 August 2023, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011743248-What-is-archiving
- ShootProof, What are all of the gallery settings (expiry at 11:59 pm studio time on the date you set; automatically send gallery to Archive after expiration), article last updated 18 August 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 100 $ a year, no store, no commission, the proof and full-resolution ZIP figures), checked 9 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/
Frequently asked
Does ShootProof take a commission on print sales?
No. ShootProof states on three separate official pages that it never takes a commission on your sales, the freshest of them updated 26 August 2026. Its fees article, updated 2 March 2026, says the only charges beyond the plan fee are archiving and credit card processing. It publishes no rate for the processing fee on any page, so no percentage for it appears here.
What commission does Pic-Time charge?
Pic-Time's published rates, from its commission help article last updated 25 April 2025, 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.
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. Against Pic-Time Beginner, whose 15% cannot be avoided by collecting payments yourself, the ShootProof 1,500 plan is the cheaper annual total once print markup passes roughly 106 $. Above Beginner, Pic-Time Professional starts higher than ShootProof 5,000 before any sale, and commission widens the gap. Figures use the billed-annually rates each company published on 9 September 2026.
Why do ShootProof's two pages show different prices?
They disagreed on 9 September 2026, and only on the two lowest paid tiers. The plans page prints 9.99 $ monthly and 8.33 $ billed annually for the 1,500 plan, and 19.99 $ and 16.67 $ for the 5,000 plan. The pricing page prints 12.99 $ and 10.99 $, and 21.99 $ and 19.99 $, for the same two plans. The 25,000 and Unlimited tiers match on both. This page uses the plans page set, and you should check both before signing up.
How do the storage limits compare?
They are not the same kind of limit. Pic-Time meters gigabytes: 20 GB on Beginner, 100 GB on Professional, unlimited on Advanced, with the free plan starting at 10 GB and dropping to 3 GB. ShootProof meters photos online at any given time across unlimited galleries: 1,500, 5,000, 25,000 or unlimited, with a storage ceiling behind each. ShootProof archiving takes photos out of the count for 2.99 $ a month for up to 25 GB plus 0.05 $ per additional GB, but archived galleries are not live for client viewing.
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 100 $ 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 250 GB 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
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.
See the one flat plan