Pixieset vs ShootProof: Commission, Price and What Happens to Old Galleries

Pixieset states that commission fees are only charged on orders placed while you are subscribed to the Client Gallery Free plan, and that the rate there is 15%. Every paid Client Gallery, Suite and Studio plan is listed at 0%. That is from Pixieset's own help centre, in an article Pixieset updated on 8 September 2026 and which was read again on 23 September 2026.

The basis matters as much as the rate. Pixieset states the commission is calculated on the order subtotal, before any discounts, coupon codes, taxes or shipping fees are applied. A coupon you hand a client does not shrink the commission. Pixieset also states the commission is separate from payment-processor fees and fulfilment costs.

ShootProof states that it never takes a commission on your sales, in a fees article it updated on 21 September 2026, and repeats the claim in its FAQs article and on its plans page, where commission-free sales is marked as included on all five tiers. The rate is 0%, on every plan including the free one. There is no percentage to quote because ShootProof asserts none exists.

One honest qualifier on the ShootProof side, and it is bigger than it used to be. Zero commission is not zero extras. ShootProof's fees article names four charges beyond the plan fee: 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. It publishes no percentage and no dollar amount for the last three, and no other page read on 23 September 2026 does either. We are not going to fill those gaps with a generic rate. Ask ShootProof for the processing number before you model anything, and ask Pixieset the same question, since Pixieset states its commission sits separately from processor fees.

Pixieset's help centre states that Client Gallery plans start as low as 8 $ a month billed annually, or 10 $ a month billed monthly. Note the date on that one: the article carrying the figure was last updated 25 May 2026 and was read on 9 September 2026, so treat it as Pixieset's published entry price rather than as a live quote. A separate article updated 1 September 2026 states that yearly plans offer up to a 20% discount compared with the monthly rate, that a new account starts on a Free plan which does not expire, and that the Suite plan bundles Client Gallery, Website and Studio Manager into one subscription at a discounted price.

That is the whole of what the Pixieset help centre publishes on price. There is no per-tier table and no storage figure for any tier in that source. This is not a small gap, because several capabilities are documented as tier-dependent without a price attached: original-resolution downloads require an upgraded Client Gallery or Suite plan, a custom subdomain for Client Gallery requires an upgraded Client Gallery or Suite subscription, and 4K video delivery is limited to the Pro and Ultimate plans. If any of those matter to you, the upgrade price is the number to ask for first.

ShootProof leads with a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, per its FAQs article updated 22 September 2026. Its plan prices are in the next section, because unlike Pixieset it prints them.

ShootProof changed how it sells storage on 23 September 2026. Its 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, and those estimates are not what you are billed against.

Say plainly what that does to this comparison. The most common complaint about ShootProof, that a photo counter fills up faster than a business grows, no longer applies. Professional holds 1,000 GB of photos, which is more proof-sized work than most studios will produce in a decade, and Premium is unlimited for photos. If you arrived here looking for the old photo caps, they are gone, and a page that pretended otherwise would be wasting your time.

The figures below come from ShootProof's plans page, read 23 September 2026, and 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.

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. The same article publishes international prices; in the Canadian column Starter is C$12 a month or C$120 a year, Standard is C$24 or C$240, Professional is C$36 or C$360, and Premium is C$65 or C$650.

Archiving is the fee that surprises people, and it survived the plan change at the same rate with a wider scope. ShootProof's help centre states archiving costs 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, with one more bill after you remove everything from archiving. 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.

What archiving does to the gallery matters more than the money. ShootProof states that an archived gallery becomes static, that archived galleries are 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 until you make room for it again.

Plan mechanics, from ShootProof's own article on changing plans, which it updated on 23 September 2026: an upgrade takes effect immediately with the remaining plan time prorated onto the new bill and the bill date reset to that day, a downgrade does not take effect until the next bill date, and all plan purchases are non-refundable. Sales tax is charged and remitted in 20 states plus Washington, D.C. Invoicing with customisable tipping and e-sign contracts are marked not included on the Free plan and included on every paid one. Booking and Music plans are add-ons, and ShootProof publishes no rate for either on any page read on 23 September 2026.

This is the second axis where both platforms publish a clear answer, and the answers are different in shape.

Pixieset states that your collections stay online for as long as you have an active subscription, or until you delete them yourself, and that they do not expire unless you use the Auto-Expiry feature. That is an article updated 14 July 2026. If you do set an expiry date, Pixieset states the collection expires at 11:59 pm your local time on the date you set, is switched to Hidden status so clients can no longer view their images, and that this does not delete the images or the collection. That is an article updated 10 August 2026. Cancelling, however, is a different matter: Pixieset states that cancelling fully ends the subscription and removes access to that product, and that refunds are not issued for account cancellations.

ShootProof documents the mechanism rather than a period. A gallery expires on a date the photographer sets, and at 11:59 pm on that date in the studio's time zone the gallery expires and becomes inactive. Expiry is a per-gallery setting that can also be applied to every future gallery through Gallery Presets, and there is a setting to archive a gallery automatically after it expires. That is an article ShootProof updated on 16 September 2026. No page read on 23 September 2026 publishes a default expiry period, so there is no claim on this page that ShootProof galleries expire after any fixed number of days. If you have never touched the setting, check what your presets say rather than trusting a number from a review site.

For contrast, hosted galleries on clientgallery.io do not expire while the account exists, and there is no expiry setting to forget about and no archived state to pay for. The one part that is deliberately time-boxed is the full-resolution handoff, covered below.

Pixieset publishes a full resolution ladder, in an article updated 9 September 2026 and read the same day. Web size downloads come in three resolutions, sized at 640px, 1024px and 2048px on the width. High resolution photos are available at 3600px or Original, and Original resolution requires an upgraded Client Gallery or Suite plan. Video is delivered up to 1080p on the Basic and Plus plans, and up to 4K on the Pro and Ultimate Client Gallery or Suite plans.

Two Pixieset download details are worth knowing before you set a gallery up. Pixieset automatically sets a 4-digit download PIN on collections, applying to both photo and video downloads, per an article updated 1 September 2026. And a download limit is shared between all collection visitors by default; to make the limit apply separately to each person you also have to enable Restrict Downloads to Specific Contacts. That is an article updated 4 September 2026. A pooled limit means one enthusiastic guest can spend the whole family's allowance.

ShootProof publishes nothing comparable on any page read on 23 September 2026. No download resolution ladder was found, so there is nothing honest to put opposite the Pixieset numbers and the row stays empty rather than filled from a third party. What ShootProof does document, in its FAQs article updated 22 September 2026, is permissions: downloads can be limited to the Linked Contact, the number of downloads that contact gets can be capped, individual files cannot be released for free download one at a time, and watermarks applied inside a ShootProof gallery are always removed when a client purchases prints or digital downloads.

Mobile gallery apps are one place Pixieset publishes a figure. Pixieset states its Mobile Gallery App holds a curated selection of up to 200 images, that paid Client Gallery or Suite plans can create an unlimited number of them, and that the Free plan is capped at 3, in an article updated 6 September 2026. It installs from the phone's home-screen menu rather than an app store. ShootProof also sells a mobile gallery app, but its per-plan limits were stated against tier names that no longer exist, so no ShootProof figure is quoted here until it can be re-read.

One plan: 10 $ a month, or 110 $ a year. No print store, no commission, no per-gallery fee, no storage tiers. Galleries carry the studio's own subdomain and no platform branding at all. Face Search is included. There is a two-way Lightroom Classic plugin that publishes proofs from the catalog and pulls the client's picks back in, and sub-galleries inside a gallery for a multi-day job.

Because this page argues about caps, here are ours in plain numbers rather than the word unlimited. Uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB each, and they stay hosted for as long as the account exists. Fair use runs to 1,000 photos per gallery and 500,000 photos per paid account; a free account holds one gallery of up to 1,000 photos. Full-resolution delivery works differently: the photographer uploads a full-resolution ZIP for a 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.

The reason the price can stay flat is what we refuse to store. clientgallery.io hosts JPEG proofs. It does not warehouse RAW files or master video. That is a real limitation, not a footnote, and it is the trade that keeps one number on the invoice.

What is missing compared with both platforms on this page: no print store, no price sheets, no lab fulfilment, no invoicing, no e-sign contracts, no booking, no website builder, and no video hosting of any kind.

Pick Pixieset if your revenue runs through a print lab. A store with price sheets, automatic fulfilment through a lab partner and the option of self fulfilment is a real business system, and the Suite subscription bundling Client Gallery, Website and Studio Manager answers a real problem for a studio that wants one vendor. Two things to settle first: the price of the upgraded plan you will need, because original-resolution downloads, a custom subdomain and 4K video are all documented as requiring one and the tier prices are not published in the source this page uses, and the 15% on the free plan if you were planning to test the store before subscribing.

Pick ShootProof if you sell prints and want a commission-free store on every plan including the free one, with invoicing and e-sign contracts in the same tool rather than in a second subscription. Its ladder is legible: a gigabyte figure for photos, a gigabyte figure for video, and a price, all printed. The move off photo counts made it a stronger buy, not a weaker one, because the counter was the thing that pushed studios off it. Two costs 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. Ask for the card processing rate that its own fees article does not print.

Pick clientgallery.io if you sell no prints, deliver digital files, and want one flat price with no tier to outgrow, your own subdomain from the first day, and client picks landing back in your Lightroom Classic catalog. If you sell prints, or your invoices and contracts live inside your gallery tool, do not switch. You would be trading a business system for a delivery tool, and you would feel the loss in the first month.

Pixieset's help centre documents exports for Studio Manager business data: invoice payments and contacts. Searching it on 9 September 2026 turned up no documented bulk export of a photo library and no documented transfer of collections to another account. An absent article is not a refusal, and Pixieset support is the right place to ask directly, but that is what the published documentation says today.

The import here is built around that gap. From the Pixieset dashboard the studio clicks one bookmark. It reads the whole account through Pixieset's own dashboard API, the endpoints its web app already uses. It carries the collection title, the password, the photo order, and sets reproduced as sections when a collection has more than one set. The event date and any set descriptions are flattened into the gallery's welcome note rather than carried as their own fields. Pixieset is only read and never changed, and no password reaches clientgallery.io. Re-running the import skips what it has already brought over, so a migration can run in stages across a few evenings instead of one long night.

One thing to be clear about before you cancel anything: the import takes Pixieset's largest web size, not your original file. It rebuilds your delivery, not your archive, so keep your masters on your own drives. The mechanics are on the import page.

There is no ShootProof importer. Leaving ShootProof is a manual download and re-upload, and it is fair to weigh that before moving a large archive.

Pixieset figures are quoted from Pixieset's own help centre, each with that article's own last-updated date and the date it was read. ShootProof marketing and help pages were read on 23 September 2026; ShootProof help articles carry their own dates as well.

• Pixieset help centre, How does the 0% commission fee work. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002975072 (article updated 8 September 2026, read 23 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, What is the cost of goods sold application fee. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003793352 (article updated 25 May 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Managing your Pixieset subscription. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003816812 (article updated 1 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Do my Collections expire. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002975012 (article updated 14 July 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, How do I set an Expiry Date to the Gallery. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003479211 (article updated 10 August 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Download Sizes, Available Resolutions. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003793252 (article updated 9 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Collection download settings. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003795572 (article updated 1 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Limiting free downloads and other restrictions. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003008091 (article updated 4 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Setting up your Store. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003791032 (article updated 5 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Connecting a Custom Domain to Client Gallery. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003790972 (article updated 6 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, What is a Mobile Gallery App. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003065892 (article updated 6 September 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, How does my client install a Mobile Gallery App. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003085351 (article updated 23 August 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Exporting invoice payments from Studio Manager. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/4446807981453 (article updated 25 August 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• Pixieset help centre, Exporting Contacts from Studio Manager. help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/35343762224141 (article updated 26 August 2026, read 9 September 2026)
• ShootProof plans: the five tiers with their gigabyte storage and prices, the plan-card row headed Securely store extra photos, commission-free sales and lab prints on every tier, and invoicing with tipping and e-sign contracts excluded from Free. www.shootproof.com/plans/ (read 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, the international price table, and sales tax in 20 states plus Washington, D.C. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008189128 (article updated 22 September 2026, read 23 September 2026)
• ShootProof help centre, Are there any other fees: never takes a commission on your sales, and the four other charges are archiving, credit card processing, Booking and Music plans. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032267 (article updated 21 September 2026, read 23 September 2026)
• ShootProof help centre, ShootProof FAQs: commission-free with every plan, the 14-day free trial with no credit card, download permissions and watermark removal on purchase. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062280593 (article updated 22 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. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032207 (article updated 23 September 2026, read 23 September 2026)
• ShootProof help centre, What does archiving cost: 2.99 $ minimum monthly for up to 25 GB, then 0.05 $ per additional GB, billed retroactively, with photo archiving included on Premium and video archiving not. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322408 (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, galleries can be removed from archiving at any time at no charge, and unarchiving needs enough GB free in the plan. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322448 (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, and a setting to archive a gallery automatically after it expires. help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115009679648 (article updated 16 September 2026, read 23 September 2026)
• clientgallery.io pricing and fair-use figures, homepage pricing section. clientgallery.io (23 September 2026)