best website design for photo and video companies
The best website builder for photographers in 2021
The best website builder for photographers is a must if you're looking to share your portfolio and promote your photography work online. It can let you continue to spend your time taking great pictures rather than having to learn how to design a striking web page. There are a lot of options out there though, and it takes time to research which is right for your needs.
To make things easier, we've put together this guide to the best website builders for photographers. The options in this list require no coding skills and offer templates specifically pitched at photographers. If you do know about code, some of these builders will let you get hands on to customise your templates more precisely, but it's by no means necessary, and most of these tools will allow you to create a great-looking site in minutes.
To decide which website builder is right for you, you'll need to decide what kind of site you want, how much help you need with the design process, and how much you're willing to spend over the long term (note that hosting and support costs mean that a good website for photographers is an ongoing cost rather than a one-off). The website builders below each have their strengths depending on your budget and whether you want to sell prints, upload password-protected galleries, or link the site to your Instagram.
For more tips on how to choose, jump to how to choose the right website builder for photographers. If you don't need a website builder specifically for photography, we also have a more general guide to the best website builders overall and a guide to the best website builder for artists.
The best website builder for photographers: the top 3
If you're in a hurry to get started, below you'll find direct links to our top three choices as the best website builders for photographers. Scroll down further for the full guide to learn more about each of these and more options.
The best website builders for photographers in full
01. Squarespace
The best website builder for photographers overall
Specifications
Free trial: 14 days
Free version: No
Pricing: $12-$40 / £10-£30 per month
Customer support: 24/7 email, live chat Monday-Friday: 4am-8pm EDT
Reasons to buy
+Beautiful templates +Highly customisable +Great ecommerce features
Reasons to avoid
-More expensive than rivals
The top of the crop when it comes to the best website builder for photographers is Squarespace. It's not aimed exclusively at photographers but more generally for creatives and artists, but it's a smart choice for creating a photography website. Squarespace has one of the best selections of clean and elegantly minimal, professional-looking templates.
All expertly made, they really help ensure your work looks its best online, both on desktop and on a tablet or mobile screen. And, after all, for a photography site, this is the most important thing. There are templates designed specifically for photography, but they aren't the only ones to consider. In general, Squarespace's templates across the board tend towards showcasing large, high-quality images, so they're all worth looking at.
Squarespace's drag-and-drop interface makes it fairly easy to create a site. There are pop-ups to help out every time you hover over an area. It isn't quite as intuitive as some web builders, but you certainly don't need any prior experience of building websites – or any knowledge of coding.
If you want to add a blog or an online store to sell your prints and photobooks, those features are all easy to use too, and there's 24/7 email support with good response times, plus live chat Monday to Friday (4am-8pm EDT). Squarespace may be more expensive than many of its rivals, but we feel the extra cost is well worth it if you want your work to really shine. See our Squarespace review for more details.
02. Wix
The best cheap website builder for photographers
Specifications
Free trial: 14 days
Free version: Yes
Pricing: $9-$19.50 / £3-£18 per month
Customer support: Submit ticket or request callback 24/7
Reasons to buy
+Easy to use +Cheap prices +Free version
Reasons to avoid
-Templates are basic
There are lots of website builders aimed specifically at photographers, including Format, Smugmug, Pixpa, Photoshelter and Zenfolio, but number 2 on our list is actually the non-specialist website builder, Wix. It's even more of an all-rounder than Squarespace, aiming to cater for all kinds of small businesses rather than creatives specifically, but it offers a good selection of easy-to-use photography templates for everyone from wedding photographers to photojournalists.
Wix's templates aren't quite as sharp looking as Squarespace's or Format's, but there are more options to customise them using third-party apps. At the opposite end of the scale, if you really are technically challenged, Wix offers a mega-easy way to create a website via Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). This asks you questions about what you want your website to do, then uses your social media info to generate a fully working website for you. If you need a website quickly with a minimum of fuss, this is an option.
However, one of the strongest selling points of Wix, other than how delightfully simple it is to use, is that its prices are extremely competitive. There's even a 'free forever' plan. If you opt for a free site, it will be covered with ads and limited in terms of storage, so you won't want to go that route for a full portfolio, but it could be an option for a simple calling card site with your contact details. However, for as little as £3 per month, you can build a more fully featured photography site. Wix also offers phone assistance (via callback) and other support methods. For more details, see our full Wix review.
03. Format
The best specialist photography website builder
Specifications
Free trial: 14 days
Free version: No
Pricing: $12-$25 (about £9-£19) per month
Customer support: Via email
Reasons to buy
+Focused on photography +Pro shooter features +Low prices
Reasons to avoid
-Interface can be tricky
Format shares similarities with Squarespace but is purely focused on the creation of photography portfolios. That specialist laser-focus means it has a lot of useful features for the busy working photographer that other website builders lack. The most useful of these is the client-proofing system. This allows you to collate private, password-protected albums for clients – with watermarked images if you choose. If you often share dozens, or even hundreds, of images from your shoot, this is a great time saver that beats messing around with email, Dropbox or WeTransfer, and it's much more user-friendly for the client too.
Another great time-saver is being able to add images to your website directly from Lightroom or Capture One. And, if you're worried about copyright theft, you can disable right-click on the images in your portfolio to stop visitors downloading them without permission. You can also manage your portfolio on the go using the iOS app, and you can generate extra income from photobooks, prints, Lightroom presets and such by adding an online store.
Format's sleek, modern templates are beautifully minimal and show your work off to great effect, but we put it at number 3 on our list because we feel that Squarespace still has the edge, both in the design quality of its templates and the ease of use of its interface. Squarespace's business and ecommerce features are also more extensive. That said, it's a close contest and Squarespace is more expensive. If specific features like client proofing and disabling right-click are important for you, then Format could be the better choice.
04. SmugMug
A great website builder for photographers who use Android
Specifications
Free trial: 14 days
Free version: No
Pricing: $8.40 - $50.39 per month
Customer support: Via email, 24/7, 364 days a year
Reasons to buy
+Focused on photography +Pro shooter features +Android app
Reasons to avoid
-Fewer templates on cheap plans
SmugMug's proposition is similar to that of Format's. Also focusing specifically on photography portfolios, it offers password-protected galleries, watermarking, the ability to disable right-click on images, and a Lightroom plugin. Its fully responsive templates are well crafted and they look smart and professional. There are also good ecommerce options to add for making some extra income.
Professionally, that's all correct and useful, but on the whole, we've found SmugMug's interface to be a little trickier to use than Format's. We're also disappointed to see that, unlike most web builders, you only get access to the full range of templates on the pricier plans. On the plus side, unlike Format, SmugMug offers an app for Android as well as iOS, allowing non-Apple users to also manage their sites and upload new images while out on the job. That may in itself be enough to sway you towards this option.
05. Pixpa
The best option for generating photo gallery apps for clients
Specifications
Free trial: 15 days (plus 30-day money-back guarantee)
Free version: No
Pricing: $7-$16 per month
Customer support: Via email or live chat
Reasons to buy
+Build mobile gallery apps +Money-back guarantee +Half-price for students
Reasons to avoid
-Interface not the easiest
Pixpa lies somewhere between Squarespace and Format/Smugmug. It's aimed primarily at photographers, but also at other creatives, such as designers, artists and architects. Its interface can be a little clunky to use in practice, but it's still fairly straightforward once you get used to it. However, what really makes Pixpa stand out is the ability to create personalised mobile gallery apps for clients.
In a world in which many people are spending more time on their phones and less on desktop computers, this is a smart feature that could just help you snare more commissions. You might even consider charging for it as an extra, in the case of wedding customers, for example. You can see an example gallery here.
Pixpa also offers good integrations with other apps, including Google Analytics, MailChimp and Spotify, and some nice ecommerce features, including the ability to generate discount codes. You pay zero payment processing fees for your online store (compared with, say, 3 per cent to Squarespace). Just note that Pixpa doesn't just offer a 15-day free trial but a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're a student, you can get 50 per cent off the full price.
06. Shopify
The best website builder for selling prints and workshops
Specifications
Free trial: 14 days
Free version: No
Pricing: $29-$299 per month
Customer support: Via email, phone and live chat
Reasons to buy
+Lots of handy shop tools +Plenty of apps and extensions
Reasons to avoid
-Only worth it for sellers -Transaction fees
If one of your main aims is to make some money directly through your photography site by selling prints, photobooks, workshops or anything else, Shopify is well worth considering. While it's fairly basic in web-design terms and not the most visually attractive option for photography, Shopify makes it very easy to set up an online store, and it's possible to have something up and running within minutes.
The vast range of third-party integrations makes it easy to integrate your Shopify site with Instagram, Facebook or another platform, streamlining customers' journeys from seeing one of your images to buying a print. It offers plenty of payment options, and there are marketing tools that allow you to plan promotional campaigns.
Shopify costs more than other site builders, with a minimum monthly cost of $29. If you have no interest in selling photos or anything else, it simply isn't worth it – you'll get more value elsewhere. It's also worth noting that there are transaction fees if you don't use the Shopify Payments transaction system. This racks the cost up still further.
07. Zenfolio
A good website builder for school and events photographers
Specifications
Free trial: 14 days
Free version: No
Pricing: $5-$44 per month
Customer support: Via email
Reasons to buy
+Handles large file volumes +Very easy to get started
Reasons to avoid
-Fairly simplistic designs -Minimal customer support
Zenfolio is one of the more popular portfolio websites for photographers and it has a lot going for it – most famously perhaps that its interface is very easy to use. You can have a decent-looking portfolio site up and running within minutes of starting a plan or 14-day free trial (which you can get without putting in any credit card information). The portfolios offered don't have the most exciting designs, and there could be more of them, but they do the job.
If you're going to be working with large volumes of photos, Zenfolio is a good choice since even its cheapest plan offers unlimited storage, meaning you can batch-upload albums and galleries. The more advanced plans provide special support for school and event photographers, with password-protected folders and the ability to add packaging and pre-orders for prints.
A drawback, however, is the lack of live customer support is an annoyance. there's no phone line, and the site has dropped its live chat support function, so if you need help, the only option is to use the contact form and wait for an email – average resolution times are listed as four hours. The product features page promises "Live chat and phone support with actual humans," but we certainly can't find it – and even more annoyingly, potential new customers can schedule a sales call, but there's no equivalent function for existing customers.
How to choose the right website builder for photographers
A website is almost a must for any photographer these days. No matter whether you want to attract professional clients, or just have a nice-looking space to show off your images to peers, a dedicated website is the way to do it. In the guide above we've picked out what we think are the best website builders for photographers right now, but if you're feeling a little lost, there are a few things to consider in order to narrow down your choices.
Start by deciding which features you need, and which ones you don't. Here are a few things to ask yourself in this respect.
- Do you want to sell things through your website, like prints of your photos, or workshop spaces? If so, a website builder that offers good storefront functionality and makes it easy to receive payments is a good choice. You might want to consider Shopify for this.
- Are looks and design important? If you want a sleek minimalist look but you're not too sure about coding, then a website builder with a good range of attractive templates will help you realise your vision. Squarespace and Wix are unquestionably the market leaders here, and if you are a coder, both of these will also let you get under the bonnet and use custom code.
- How many photos do you plan to upload? If you only want to include a few of your absolute best shots then pretty much any builder will work, but if you need to upload multiple galleries with sub-folders and password protection (i.e., if you do school photography or something like that) then some site-builders won't be suitable. Smugmug, Format or Zenfolio will be your best choices in this case.
- Finally, what's your budget? You'll get better results if you're willing to spend a little on creating and maintaining your website, but we recognise that not everyone is in a position to do that. Squarespace offers super-sleek templates but it is a little more expensive, while Wix is very economical and even has a free plan that will give you a basic website to at least start your online presence.
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Tom May is a freelance writer and editor specialising in design, photography and tech. He is author of Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books. He has previously been editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.
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Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/buying-guides/best-website-builder-for-photographers
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