ShootProof Charging for Archived Galleries: What It Actually Costs

Two published rates do all the work: a $2.99 monthly minimum that buys up to 25 GB, and $0.05 for every gigabyte beyond that. The table below applies those two rates to three archive sizes. The dollar figures in the last three columns are arithmetic on ShootProof's published rates, not prices ShootProof quotes as such.

Read one row across and the whole model is visible. A 100 GB archive is 25 GB of base plus 75 GB of overage. Seventy-five multiplied by five cents is $3.75. Add the $2.99 minimum and the month is $6.74. Whether that 100 GB sits in three galleries or three hundred makes no difference to the bill.

One tier is exempt. ShootProof states plainly: "If you're in the Unlimited plan, archiving is included in your plan." The plans page says the same thing in its feature matrix, where the row for storing extra photos reads "Archive for a fee" on Free, 1,500, 5,000 and 25,000, and "Archiving Included" on Unlimited.

This is the part that costs a photographer work rather than money. Archiving is not a cheaper shelf that clients can still reach. ShootProof describes what happens: "When you archive your gallery, the gallery will become static... Archived galleries are not live for client viewing."

So archiving to stay on a lower plan takes the delivery offline. The link you emailed the client stops being a working link. If a bride comes back eighteen months later for a print file, or a commercial client wants the shoot again for a new campaign, you are doing an unarchive round trip before you can answer.

Coming back out is free, but it has a condition attached. ShootProof: "Galleries can be removed from archiving at any time at no charge... you'll need to be sure you have enough space available in your monthly plan." The plan you archived to stay inside is the same plan the gallery has to fit back into. If your live storage is full, the unarchive is blocked until you free space or move up a tier, which is the cost you were avoiding in the first place.

Archiving is billed in arrears, and ShootProof says so twice. Once in the price itself, "Archiving is billed monthly for the previous month's usage", and once in the exit case: "When you remove all galleries from archiving, you will still incur one more bill since archiving is billed retroactively for the previous month when the service was used."

Nothing improper about that, it is how metered usage works. It is worth knowing because it surprises people who unarchive everything, watch the archive empty, and then see a charge land anyway. The charge is for the month you already used. Budget one extra cycle whenever you plan to stop.

Archiving only makes sense in the context of the plan it protects, and that plan structure changes in nineteen days. ShootProof states: "Our plans will transition from photo-count-based storage to GB-based storage on September 23rd, 2026." It also states: "Our plan prices are not changing." A reader deciding today needs both tables, so here they are.

The plans live today, in US dollars, plus applicable taxes:

The plans from 23 September 2026, as ShootProof publishes them:

Two things follow for anyone weighing an archive bill. First, ShootProof itself offers archiving as the remedy for the migration: if an account holds too much data for the equivalent new plan it is moved up automatically, with a one-year discount to the old price, and the alternative it names is "You can archive your photos to free up space." Second, the archiving rates are unchanged for photos after the transition. The one addition is at the top: photo archiving stays included on Premium, while video archiving there is charged at "the standard archiving monthly fee of $2.99 for the first 25 GBs, and $.05 for each additional GB".

Often, yes, and the honest framing is not that ShootProof is gouging anyone. Archiving is cheap in absolute terms. A studio sitting on 500 GB of finished work pays $26.74 a month by the arithmetic above, and the gap between the 5,000 and 25,000 plans is $12 a month at the monthly rate. If archiving is what keeps a large back catalogue off the next tier up, that can be a rational trade, and for a studio with years of delivered galleries it usually is.

The real question is not the money. It is whether taking delivered galleries offline is acceptable to you. For plenty of photographers it plainly is. Once the client has downloaded their files, the gallery has done its job, and a static copy is a reasonable place for it to end up. If a client comes back, unarchiving is free and the round trip is an email and a wait.

It is not acceptable if a live back catalogue is part of what you sell. Photographers who promise ongoing access, who reshare old galleries as referrals, who want a client from three years ago to open the original link and have it work, are paying in customer experience rather than dollars. That is a different bill, and it does not show up on an invoice.

clientgallery.io removes the question rather than answering it. There is one plan, $10 a month or $100 a year, with no storage tiers, no per-gallery fee and nothing to archive. Delivered proof galleries stay live for as long as the account exists, on your own subdomain, with no platform branding on any client-facing page. Hosted galleries never expire, so an old link keeps working without an unarchive step and without a decision about which clients are worth keeping online.

Because that only works if the numbers behind "unlimited under fair use" are stated, here they are. Uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB each, hosted for as long as the account exists. The fair-use ceilings exist as abuse tripwires: 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, handled separately: 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.

Read against the archive tables, the comparison is a flat $100 a year against a plan plus a metered storage line that grows every season you shoot. It is a fair comparison only if you deliver finished JPEG galleries. If you need RAW files or master video sitting on the platform, this is not the tool, and the next section says who should stay put.

ShootProof deserves credit on this subject rather than a hatchet job. Commission is zero on every plan, including Free, and ShootProof states it flatly: "ShootProof never charges a commission on your sales." The complete official fee list is archiving plus credit-card processing through ShootProof Pay, which is a short and unusually honest list. Your branding, logo and watermark are included on every tier including Free, with no branding-removal upcharge published anywhere. And the archiving itself is genuinely inexpensive at $2.99 for the first 25 GB.

So a studio that sells prints, albums and wall art should stay. A storefront that takes none of your margin is worth real money, and a print business that earns back its subscription several times over should not move platforms to save $12 a month on storage. The same goes for anyone who needs video hosting, which the new Starter, Standard, Professional, Advanced and Premium plans all carry in some quantity.

clientgallery.io hosts JPEGs. It does not warehouse RAW files or master video, and it has no print store and no commissions because it has no store at all. That is the trade that keeps the price flat and identical for every studio. If your galleries are finished client work and you get paid separately, the trade is a good one. If your galleries are a sales channel, it is not, and ShootProof is the better fit.

All ShootProof pages fetched 4 September 2026. Prices are the US dollar figures ShootProof publishes, and every ShootProof plan card adds "Plus applicable taxes". The monthly and twelve-month totals in the first table are arithmetic on ShootProof's two published archiving rates, shown so they can be checked.

• What does archiving cost ($2.99 minimum for up to 25 GB, $.05 per additional GB, billed monthly for the previous month's usage, included on Unlimited, one final bill after you stop, video archiving charged on the top plan after the transition), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322408-What-does-archiving-cost
• How do I archive my photos and remove them from Archiving later (archived galleries become static and are not live for client viewing, removal at any time at no charge subject to available space), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322448-How-do-I-archive-my-photos-and-remove-them-from-Archiving-later
• ShootProof plans (five tiers, photo caps, stated storage, annual and monthly rates, "Archive for a fee" against "Archiving Included", branding and watermark on every tier, plus applicable taxes), fetched 4 September 2026, https://www.shootproof.com/plans/
• Photo Plan Change FAQ (transition to GB-based storage on 23 September 2026, plan prices not changing, the new plan table, automatic move to a larger plan with a one-year discount, archiving offered as the remedy), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/42846503437591-Photo-Plan-Change-FAQ
• Are there any other fees (the complete official fee list: archiving plus credit-card processing), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032267-Are-there-any-other-fees
• What does ShootProof cost ("ShootProof never charges a commission on your sales"), fetched 4 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008032167-What-does-ShootProof-cost
• clientgallery.io plan and fair use ($10 a month or $100 a year, one plan, no storage tiers, galleries that never expire, proof JPEGs of about 0.6 MB, 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), checked 4 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/