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 partly exempt, and only partly. ShootProof states: "Photo archiving is included in our Premium plan. However, video archiving is not included in the Premium plan and will still incur a minimum cost $2.99 for up to 25 GB, with an additional $.05 per additional GB." The plans page says the same thing in its feature matrix. The row is headed "Securely store extra photos", and it reads "Archive for a fee" on Free, Starter, Standard and Professional. On Premium it reads "Photo archive included" and, on the line below, "Video archive starting at $2.99/mo".

That split is the one thing on this page that changed on 23 September 2026, when ShootProof replaced its photo-count plans with GB-based ones. If you deliver video as well as stills, the top plan no longer buys you an archive with nothing metered inside it. Photo archiving is included. Video archiving is billed at the same two rates as everyone else pays, so the first table on this page applies to your video archive even on Premium.

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", and "To unarchive a gallery, you'll need to be sure you have enough GB space available in your 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 gigabytes 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 changed on 23 September 2026. ShootProof no longer meters the number of photos you keep online. It meters gigabytes, and it states so plainly: "ShootProof plans are billed either monthly or yearly and are determined by the amount of GB storage needed." If you are reading an older comparison built on 1,500 and 5,000 photo ceilings, it is describing plans ShootProof does not sell.

The plans as shootproof.com/plans/ prints them today, in US dollars. The annual totals are the ones ShootProof publishes in its help centre; the plans page prints the same annual price as a per-month figure.

One tier is deliberately not in that table. ShootProof's help centre documents an Advanced plan at 2000 GB of photo storage and 100 GB of video for $51.99 a month or $519.99 a year, and the public plans page does not show it. It is documented rather than on sale, so it does not belong in a table of what you can buy today. If you are quoted it, the figures above are what ShootProof publishes for it.

Two things follow for anyone weighing an archive bill. First, the archiving rates themselves did not move: $2.99 for the first 25 GB and $.05 per additional GB, exactly as the first table on this page prices them. Second, the only change is at the top of the ladder, and it goes against you rather than for you. Photo archiving stays included on Premium. Video archiving on Premium does not, and ShootProof states it "will still incur a minimum cost $2.99 for up to 25 GB, with an additional $.05 per 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 Standard and Professional 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 $110 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 galleries" are stated, here they are. Uploaded photos are browser-compressed proof JPEGs, hosted for as long as the account exists. The fair-use ceilings exist as abuse tripwires: 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, 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 ZIP uploads a month per account.

Read against the archive tables, the comparison is a flat $110 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. ShootProof states it will "never take a commission" on your sales, and its plan matrix marks commission-free sales as included on all five tiers. Besides the plan charge it names four possible fees: archiving, card processing at checkout, the Booking add-on and Music plans, which is a short and unusually honest list. Branding, logo and watermark read "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 ten or twelve dollars a month on storage. The same goes for anyone who needs video hosting, which Starter, Standard, Professional and Premium all carry in some quantity and Free does not carry at all.

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.

Every ShootProof page on this list was fetched on 23 September 2026, and each help-centre article also carries the date ShootProof last updated it. Prices are the US dollar figures ShootProof publishes. ShootProof states that sales tax is charged and remitted on subscriptions in a listed set of US states. 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, one final bill after you stop, photo archiving included on Premium and video archiving on Premium charged at the same rates), article updated 22 September 2026, fetched 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008322408-What-does-archiving-cost
• How do I archive my galleries and remove them from Archiving later (archived galleries become static and are not live for client viewing, removal at any time at no charge, unarchiving needs enough GB space in the plan), article updated 21 September 2026, fetched 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 plans (the five public tiers and their GB allowances, the per-month annual rates of $9.17, $16.67, $26.67 and $50.00, the feature matrix row "Securely store extra photos" reading "Archive for a fee" on Free, Starter, Standard and Professional and "Photo archive included" plus "Video archive starting at $2.99/mo" on Premium, branding and watermark marked Included on every tier), fetched 23 September 2026, https://www.shootproof.com/plans/
• How do your plans work (plans are billed monthly or yearly and are determined by the amount of GB storage needed; the annual totals of $99.99, $199.99, $319.99 and $600; the Advanced plan at 2000 GB and 100 GB of video for $51.99 or $519.99 that the public plans page does not show; the list of US states where sales tax is charged), article updated 22 September 2026, fetched 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008189128-How-do-your-plans-work
• Are there any other fees (the four named charges besides the plan: archiving, card processing, Booking and Music plans), article updated 21 September 2026, fetched 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, on every plan), article updated 22 September 2026, fetched 23 September 2026, https://help.shootproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062280593-ShootProof-FAQs
• clientgallery.io plan and fair use ($10 a month or $110 a year, one plan, no storage tiers, galleries that never expire, web-sized proof JPEGs, 1,000 photos per gallery, 500,000 photos per paid account, one gallery of up to 1,000 photos on free accounts, full-resolution ZIPs live 3 days per handoff with 100 GB a month), checked 4 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/