Compare SmugMug vs. Zenfolio vs. PhotoShelter
Which of the three top professional photo sharing sites is best for you?
Smugmug vs. Zenfolio vs. Photoshelter.The three best photo sharing sites on the planet, compared head-to-head. There are many similar features among them, but there are also significant differences in how you can display, sell, and promote your photos and videos. Compare prices, and get the best possible price and biggest discount on any of the three photo sharing services when you use the coupon codes below.
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Try Smugmug Pro Free for 14 days! Customize your headers, add your logo, sell pictures, make a profit!
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Try PhotoShelter, the most premium of all photo sharing services, now and save up to $55 with our exclusive discount code:
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Product
|
Smugmug |
Zenfolio |
PhotoShelter |
| Full Review | |||
| Overall Rating |
4 Stars Save up to 40% on Any New Zenfolio Account with this code: |
5 Stars Save 10%, up to $55, off a new account with this EXCLUSIVE coupon code: |
|
| Sell Photos to make a profit? |
Yes, you keep 85% of the Profit above SmugMug's minimum prices |
Yes - You keep 88% to 96% of the profit depending on product type (prints compared to digital downloads) |
Yes, you keep 90-93% of the profit (that's a low transaction fee of only 8-10%)
|
| Customizable Galleries? |
Yes, fully customizable
galleries from many styles pre-made, and the ability to import your own
CSS style sheets and change just about anything you want. |
Somewhat customizable, including
logo, about me page, photographer photo, and 7 different styles of homepage. Can modify text colors and styles. Cannot arrange layouts or modify any CSS. |
Yes, nine great looking template layouts, all with a very professional look and feel. Or, completely customize the layout of both the homepage and gallery pages with your own CSS. |
| Replace Site logo with your
own? |
Yes, including custom
headers and footers. |
Yes, you can replace the name and
basic info,as well as add your logo in various places. Cannot fully modify header or footer. |
Yes, add your own logo, and customize header and footer. |
| SEO Features | Some SEO features, you can modify page title and footer info if you know how. |
Zenfolio has good assistance with SEO on your site. For your homepage, and each gallery, you can specify the title and description, as well as other SEO based fields throughout the site. | Yes, great SEO features show you exactly where and what to do to rank well in search engines. Includes a great guide on how to optimize your account for SEO (photographers SEO cookbook), plus an SEO tool to check your site against known benchmarks and provide recommendations. |
| Social features |
Yes, very good social features. Easy integration with facebook, twitter, and many other social bookmarking sites like reddit and digg. Users can comment
on your photos, and send links to friends. RSS feeds available. Create cool custom badges and slideshows for sharing. |
|
Yes, the best array of features PSR has ever seen! Easily publish your photos on 280+ social networking and bookmarking sites of your choice. RSS feeds and embedded slideshows, as well as an embeddable search box for external sites that is really cool. |
| Disk Space, Max Size of
Photo Upload |
Unlimited Storage and bandwidth. Photo size up to 24 megabytes . |
Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth with unlimited and premium plans. 12 MB photo upload limit except with premium, 24 MB limit. |
Storage and bandwidth depend on account type, from 10-1000 GB storage and 5-50 Gig bandwidth a month. No max photo size. |
| File Types |
JPEG, GIF, PNG (RAW, TIFF, PSD with
SmugVault at extra cost) |
JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF |
Any photo file type, including RAW and PSD, is allowable |
| Sell Photo Books
and other gifts? |
Yes, wide selection. Two photo fulfillment labs to choose from. |
Yes, wide Selection. |
Yes, wide Selection. |
| Add Videos? |
Yes, up to 20 minutes in 1080p HD quality (up to 3GB in size). No limit on the number of video clips you can upload. |
Yes, Zenfolio now supports HD 1080p video files up to 2GB in size and up to 15 minutes long. No limit on the number of video clips you can upload. |
No Video Supported |
| Sell Digital
Downloads? |
Yes, multiple sizes with different license terms available. |
Yes, multiple sizes with different license terms available. | Yes, multiple sizes with different license terms available. |
| Customize Domain Name? |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Watermarks and copyright
protection |
Yes, but you must supply a PNG watermark before uploading photos to a gallery. Can only watermark pictures as you upload, cannot change or add them after the fact - kinda a bummer and one of our only complaints with SmugMug. Right click protect your photos to prevent visitors from saving a copy. |
Yes, very nice watermark manager with 4 defaults to choose from, or create your own. Can apply to photos instantly, or easily remove them. Right click protect your photos to prevent visitors from saving a copy. |
Yes, very nice watermark manager with ability to add text or photo watermarks. Right click protect your photos to prevent visitors from saving a copy. |
| Geotagging capabilities |
Automatically accesses Geotag info, or manually geotag your photos to see them on a map. | None |
None |
| Keywords and Search |
Add keywords to any photos. Search box only searches photos on your site so you can sell more. Smart galleries can automatically upload keyword tagged photos to galleries. | Yes, keyword tag your photos. |
Yes, keyword tag your photos and search from your homepage, gallery pages, or even an external site of your choice. |
| Privacy |
Can password protect galleries
or just hide them so you need the link in order to view. |
Can password protect galleries. |
Can password protect galleries or hide them. |
4x6 | 8x10 | Postcard Wholesale Prices |
4x6 - $.19 to $.38 based on finish. Color correction included free. 8x10 - $1.99+ Postcard - $12.95 per 20 |
4x6 - $.19 for value prints (no color correction), .29 for normal prints 8x10 - $1.99+ Postcard - $5.40 per 12 |
4x6 - $.19 for value prints (no color correction), .29 for normal prints 8x10 - $1.99+ Postcard - $5.40 per 12 |
| Cost (per year) | $150 a year Pro Account
Save 20% on Any New SmugMug Account with this code:
|
$50/year (Unlimited Storage, but cannot sell pictures) $100/year (Unlimited Storage, can sell pictures) Save up to 40% on Any New Zenfolio Account with this code: |
$9.99/mo Basic (10G storage) $29.99/mo Standard (60G storage) $49.99/mo Professional (1TB - 1000G storage) 10% discount for PhotoSharingReviews Readers! Save 10%, up to $55, off a new account with our EXCLUSIVE coupon code:
|
| Give 'em a spin! |
Best Offer - Try Smugmug |
Best Offer - Try Zenfolio Professional |
Best Offer - Try PhotoShelter Professional |
Sorry, no user reviews have been submitted just yet, why don't you be the first and add one now!
Add your own Zenfolio Vs SmugMug Vs PhotoShelter review, click here
Smugmug Professional Account Review
Smugmug Professional Account is $150 and includes all the features you need to setup and customize your own photo website. You can set your own print prices and make 85% of the markup. You can even sell digital downloads in three sizes with personal or commercial use licenses. SmugMug will take the order, pay the credit card processing fee, and ship prints right to your customer. Easy for you to upload and arrange. Easy for your admirers to navigate and buy prints. Upload 100s of photos with a few click. Bulk caption, bulk move, and bulk delete. The best part is that you can really make the site look like your own. Even replace SmugMug's logo, header, footer, and color scheme with your own. Automatically apply custom watermarks to your photos, and protect your photos so nobody can “right click” save them. You can also add IPTC keywords to your photos before uploading to SmugMug, and our search engine will return results matching those keywords. It's a way for you to embed hidden search terms in your photos.
Likes:
Free Trial, Completely customizable interface, create an entire site with Smugmug's tools. Great photo management tools, including many bulk upload options with some just for the mac. Backprint photos with your website and photo ID for easy reorders. No disk space or bandwidth limits.
Dislikes:
Some options are a bit complex to setup, because there are so many choices. No different price levels for pro accounts.
Give Smugmug Pro a spin: Get Your Free Smugmug Trial Now!
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Photo Shelter Professional Account Review
PhotoShelter is a bit of a different animal when it comes to photo sharing and photo selling services: Forget about free options, and there really is no "basic" option. Even the PhotoShelter basic account, by all definitions, is designed with the professional in mind. Costing only a bit less than SmugMug's Pro account, its not cheap at about $10 a month. The question is, does PhotoShelter's advanced features make it worth the extra investment? Well, for one thing, 65,000+ photographers have decided yes, and signed up for accounts. In PSR's opinion, we would say it depends. PhotoShelter isn't for everyone, and for showing off your latest vacation pictures or sharing photos with friends, it is definitely overkill. But if you are a serious photographer, and you want to display your work and network with other serious photographers (pro and otherwise), this is THE premier place to do so. PhotoShelter is unique in that they have built an organization around helping photographers get noticed, get ranked in Goggle and other search engines, and find wither paying customers or paying photography gigs. If that is your goal, then there simply is no better and no better photo sharing site at which to do so.
Likes:
Fantastic, elegant themes appropriate for professionals. Full customization options including CSS modification, logo addition, custom domain names, etc. If you want to customize it, there is a way in PhotoShelter. Extremely helpful SEO tools and social bookmarking tools make getting the word out about your photos as easy as possible. Integration with your blog or other photo site made simple. Community of expert photographers at your fingertips.
Dislikes:
Price is highest of the bunch. Limits on bandwidth and storage by account level. No Video.
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Give it a spin: Get PhotoShelter's Best Offer
Zenfolio Professional Account Review
Zenfolio offers a very slick and professional looking experience designed with both professional and aspiring beginner photographers alike. They make it very easy to create great looking portfolios, add slideshows, and sell your photos. for $100 a year if you opt for the professional account, it is a bit cheaper than SmugMug yet offers a lot of same functionality. The only way you would be disappointed with Zenfolio is if you want your homepage to look a specific way, and its not one of the 7 ways zenfolio has to offer. Overall, Zenfolio is a highly recommend way to get your photos online!
Likes:
Clean, "Zen-like" Interface, Easy to setup print prices, watermarking feature easy to use and apply to photos already uploaded. Print prices are a bit high compared to other sites, so you make a bit less profit. Easy to customize, great social media sharing features. Can modify the URL of your galleries to be whatever you like. SEO features make it a bit easier to optimize your site to get more traffic. Now with video, it is a lot more competitive against SmugMug's feature set.
Dislikes:
Cannot create a true "custom" look and feel. Can only change the text, and some other attributes. Cannot modify the CSS.
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9EN-BKB-H6W
Give it a spin: Free Zenfolio Professional Trial and Print Offer
