Pixieset Storage Limit Reached: What to Do

Uploading is the thing that breaks. The help center states it directly: "The amount you can upload depends on your remaining storage space and your subscription plan." The same article confirms that storage is the only meter in play, because there is no photo cap: "There is no limit to the number of photos you can upload to a collection. However, all uploads count toward your account's available storage."

The failure surfaces as an upload error. Pixieset's Lightroom plugin troubleshooting article points at the same cause, describing "an error message that you cannot upload" and telling you to "check if you have reached the allotted space for your account". So a failed export from Lightroom and a stalled browser upload are usually the same problem.

The remedy Pixieset gives is one sentence, on the storage article: "You can always delete collections/photos/videos to free up space or upgrade to unlock more storage." That is the whole of the documented guidance.

Two related facts matter while you decide. Collections do not expire on their own: they stay online for as long as you have an active subscription, or until you delete them yourself. And the Auto-Expiry feature does not free anything, because it does not delete. Pixieset is explicit that an expired collection is "set to Hidden status" and that this "does not delete the Collection, or remove it from your Pixieset account". Hiding a gallery will not get you back under the line. Nothing in the account frees itself over time.

Two questions decide how urgent your situation is, and Pixieset answers neither.

Can clients still view galleries you already delivered while you are over your limit? Pixieset says uploading depends on remaining space. It does not say anywhere whether published collections keep serving to clients once the account is full.

What happens to existing galleries if you downgrade to a cheaper tier that no longer holds them? Pixieset publishes no article on downgrading into an over-quota state, and no statement about which collections stay published, which are hidden, or whether anything is removed.

We searched Pixieset's help center on 4 September 2026 and found no article covering either question. We are not going to guess on your behalf, because a guess about a wedding gallery your client is opening this week is worse than no answer.

Do this instead: ask Pixieset support in writing, in one message, and keep the reply. Ask the two questions as narrowly as you can. Are already-published collections still viewable by clients while my account is over its storage limit? If I downgrade from Pro to Plus while holding more than 100 GB, do my existing collections stay published, and if not, which ones are affected and in what order? A written answer from support is the only version of this that you can rely on, and it is worth having before you touch anything.

There is one more piece of undefined ground worth knowing before panic pushes you toward cancelling. The help center says that if you cancel, "your Collections will be kept for a period of time before being deleted". The Terms are harsher, stating that on cancellation or termination "the contents of your account may be removed immediately". Neither document gives a number of days. Cancelling is not a way to buy time.

Delete is the first half of Pixieset's own advice, and it is irreversible. Verbatim: "Deleting content from Client Gallery is permanent. Deletion cannot be undone. Deleted images, videos, and collections are removed from Pixieset's servers and cannot be recovered. If you delete an entire collection, related collection activity such as favorite lists and email registrations are also removed."

Read that last sentence with a real gallery in mind. Say you clear a wedding you delivered two years ago to free a few gigabytes. The photos go, which you expected, because you still hold the masters on your own drives. What you may not have expected is that the couple's favourite list goes with it, and so does the list of email registrations, meaning the record of who asked to view the gallery. If that album order was still built on their favourites, or if those registered emails were a referral list you never copied out, they are gone at the same moment as the files.

There is a second complication. We searched Pixieset's help center on 4 September 2026 for a bulk download, an account export or a backup route, and found none documented. The Export button in the interface produces a spreadsheet, not files. The only documented way to get original files out is the client-facing gallery download, one collection at a time. So "just delete the old ones" is not a five-minute job if you want a copy first. It is a queue.

A practical order of operations for the next hour, whichever direction you end up going.

• Find the actual number. Pixieset's storage article puts it behind the Profile Icon, then Billing, in the Details column under Current Subscriptions. Knowing whether you are 2 GB over or 200 GB over decides everything that follows.
• Export the collection list before you delete a single thing. The Export button gives you a CSV of Collection Name, First Name, Last Name, Email, Download PIN, Collection Password, Client Private Password, Folder Password and Collection URL. That is your passwords, your download PINs and your client contact details in one file, and none of it survives a deleted collection. Be clear about what it is not, in Pixieset's own words: "The export includes folder details only. It does not contain any photos or videos." It is an index, not a backup.
• Delete the things that were never client deliveries first. Test collections, duplicated collections, personal or portfolio uploads, and anything you published twice while fixing an ordering mistake. This is free space with no client attached to it.
• Then look at video and RAW. They are the heaviest things in the account by a wide margin, and RAW uploads exist only on Pro and Ultimate.
• Never delete a collection that is the only copy. If the files are not on your own drives and in one other place, download the collection first. Same for any gallery still inside its delivery window, and any collection whose favourite list you have not yet acted on, because the favourites go with the collection.
• Do not rely on hiding or expiring. Auto-Expiry sets a collection to Hidden and deletes nothing, so it frees no space.

The other half of the advice is upgrade. Pixieset publishes two figures per paid tier: a monthly rate when you pay a year up front, and a higher rate month by month. All figures below are the US dollar figures from the pricing page.

Two honest notes on that table. Pixieset publishes no yearly dollar total anywhere: the annual figure is quoted only as a monthly rate billed annually, so the twelve-month column is our arithmetic on Pixieset's own monthly figures, not a price Pixieset prints. And the size of the annual saving comes from Pixieset: "Yearly plans offer up to a 20% discount compared to the monthly rate."

Understand what an upgrade buys, which is time rather than a fix. Storage is a cumulative pool, not a yearly allowance, so last season's weddings still occupy space this season. If 10 GB filled in a year, 100 GB is roughly nine more years of the same shooting volume, and 1 TB is roughly ninety. If you shoot more, or start delivering video, the arithmetic shortens quickly. You will be back at this decision, just later.

One billing detail before you commit to a year. Pixieset states that refunds are not issued for account cancellations, while plan switches prorate as credit. So an upgrade mid-term is credited, but the year you paid for is not refundable if you leave.

Ultimate is sold as unlimited photo storage, which sounds like the end of the problem. Section 6 of Pixieset's Terms, last updated 20 March 2026, reserves a separate right: "We reserve the right to charge additional fees to users who go above the fair usage amount that is determined to be to be more than 20 GB per collection, and 100 GB of bandwidth per month."

Both halves apply on every tier, including the unlimited one. A single large wedding collection can pass 20 GB on its own. Bandwidth is measured per month, so one busy delivery month counts, not the yearly average. This is worth knowing before you buy Ultimate specifically to stop worrying about limits.

The same section adds a constraint on who the plans are for: "Our client gallery plans are meant for individual photographer business use only. Photography studio and other businesses with more than one photographer should subscribe to Studio plans". The Studio tiers are priced on their own page at 48 $ a month billed annually or 60 $ monthly for 2 TB, 64 $ or 80 $ for 5 TB, and 96 $ or 120 $ for 10 TB, and all three list "No bandwidth restrictions", which does not appear on any regular Client Gallery tier. If there is more than one photographer in your business, the real ladder is that one.

clientgallery.io exists because the storage ladder is the wrong shape for a studio that delivers finished JPEG galleries. There is one plan, 10 $ a month or 100 $ a year, and no storage tiers to climb. Galleries, photos and clients are unlimited under fair use, on your own subdomain, with no platform branding on any client-facing page. Hosted galleries never expire.

Fair use in figures, so it is not a word doing the work. Uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB each, hosted for as long as the account exists. The ceilings are abuse tripwires, not the shape of the pricing: 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 and one gallery. Full-resolution delivery is a paid feature and works differently from storage: you upload a full-resolution ZIP per gallery, it stays live for 3 days per handoff, it can be re-uploaded any time, and 100 GB of standing ZIPs are held per account.

Moving does not mean rebuilding galleries by hand. On the Pixieset dashboard you click one bookmark, and it reads your account through the endpoints Pixieset's own web app uses: every collection, its sets, titles, descriptions, event date, password and photo order. Galleries are reproduced one by one at full size under your brand. Pixieset is only read, never changed, and no password reaches clientgallery.io. Re-running skips what is already imported, so a migration can run in stages without duplicates. That matters in this specific situation, because it means you can copy everything out first and decide what to delete afterwards, with the copies already live. The import page covers the steps, and exporting your galleries from Pixieset covers keeping your own copy of the originals.

If what is filling your storage is RAW files or video, clientgallery.io is the wrong answer and you should stay. It hosts JPEGs. It does not warehouse RAW files or master video, and that is precisely what keeps one flat price possible. Pixieset does take RAW, on Pro and Ultimate, with Ultimate capped at 1,000 GB of RAW, and it carries video with downloads to 4K on those tiers. A studio whose storage problem is footage is comparing the wrong two products by reading this page.

The same applies if your galleries pay for themselves through Pixieset's print store. Every paid Client Gallery tier is commission-free on store sales, so print revenue can cover the subscription outright. clientgallery.io has no print store and no commissions, because it has no store at all. If the store is part of your income, the storage bill is a cost of the storefront, and this comparison does not apply to you.

Pixieset's pricing page shows local currency to visitors in some countries. The figures here are the US dollar figures Pixieset publishes. All Pixieset pages fetched 4 September 2026.

• Uploading to Client Gallery (upload depends on remaining storage and plan, no photo cap, all uploads count toward storage), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003740132-Uploading-to-Client-Gallery
• How do I check my Lightroom Pixieset Plugin Export Settings (the upload error and the allotted space check), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003003591-How-do-I-check-my-Lightroom-Pixieset-Plugin-Export-Settings
• Checking your Client Gallery storage (delete or upgrade, and where the number lives: Profile Icon, Billing, Details under Current Subscriptions), fetched 4 September 2026, https://website-help.pixieset.com/en/articles/7944254-checking-your-client-gallery-storage
• Deleting a photo, video or collection (deletion is permanent, favourite lists and email registrations removed with a collection), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001106771-Deleting-a-photo-video-or-collection
• Using folders to share and organize galleries (the Export CSV columns, and that the export contains no photos or videos), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/31178129650957-Using-folders-to-share-and-organize-galleries
• Pixieset pricing (plan names, monthly and annual rates, storage per tier, RAW on Pro and Ultimate, video, 15% commission on Free), fetched 4 September 2026, https://pixieset.com/pricing/
• Pixieset Studio pricing (Studio 60, 80 and 120 rates, storage, no bandwidth restrictions), fetched 4 September 2026, https://pixieset.com/pricing-studio/
• Managing your Pixieset subscription (yearly plans up to 20% off the monthly rate, no refunds on cancellation, plan switches prorated as credit), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003816812-Managing-your-Pixieset-subscription
• Pixieset Terms of Service, last updated 20 March 2026, section 6 (fair usage: 20 GB per collection, 100 GB of bandwidth per month, individual photographer business use only) and section 7 (contents may be removed immediately on cancellation), fetched 4 September 2026, https://pixieset.com/terms/
• Do my Collections expire (collections stay online while the subscription is active, kept for a period of time after cancellation), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002975012-Do-my-Collections-expire
• How do I set an Expiry Date to the Gallery (Auto-Expiry sets Hidden status and does not delete the collection), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003479211-How-do-I-set-an-Expiry-Date-to-the-Gallery
• How does the 0% commission fee work (0% on every paid Client Gallery tier, 15% on Free), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002975072-How-does-the-0-commission-fee-work
• Pixieset help center searched on 4 September 2026 for an article on viewing galleries while over the storage limit, on downgrading below current usage, and on any account-level or multi-collection photo export. No article covering any of the three was found. This is our check, not a Pixieset statement.
• clientgallery.io plan and fair use (10 $/month or 100 $/year, unlimited galleries, photos and clients under fair use, 1,000 photos per gallery, 250 GB of proofs per paid account, 5 GB and one gallery on free accounts, full-resolution ZIPs live 3 days per handoff with 100 GB standing, JPEG hosting, no print store), checked 4 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/