Client gallery platforms compared: what each one actually costs in 2026

Every gallery platform looks the same on its home page. The differences only show up on the bill, and by then you have a year of galleries living inside one. Here are the five tools most photographers actually choose between, what each charges in September 2026, and the kind of photographer each one suits. Prices move, so check them before you commit.

Pixieset

The gallery everyone has seen. Client Gallery is $10 a month for 10 GB, $20 for 100 GB, $30 for 1 TB and $50 for unlimited, and the store comes with every plan. Above 100 GB that is the cheapest storage in this list.

The catch is that Pixieset is four products. The website builder and Studio Manager are separate subscriptions, and the Suite that bundles them starts at $35 a month, or $28 billed yearly, and runs to $65. If you only want galleries, Pixieset is hard to beat. If you want a site and invoices too, you are paying three bills.

Pic-Time

The automation one. Professional is $25 a month for 100 GB, or $21 billed yearly, and Advanced is $50 for unlimited. What you are paying for is AI search that lets a guest find their own face in a thousand-frame gallery, and store campaigns that sell prints on a schedule while you sleep.

It has portfolio pages for sneak peeks, but not a full site on your own domain, and no bookings or invoicing at all. Pic-Time expects you to bring HoneyBook or Studio Ninja for that, which is another subscription. If print sales are the core of your business, the automation earns its price. If they are not, you are buying a gallery at gallery-plus prices.

ShootProof

The one priced by photo count rather than gigabytes: $9.99 a month for 1,500 photos, $19.99 for 5,000, $31.99 for 25,000, and $60 for unlimited. It ships contracts with e-signatures, invoices, and a simple portfolio site on every plan, which is more studio tooling than most galleries include.

Photo-count pricing rewards big files and punishes volume. Deliver 800 frames a wedding and the 1,500-photo plan is gone in two jobs, the 5,000-photo plan in six. But the file size never matters, so if you hand over a small number of very large frames, it is the cheapest way to do it. The flat $60 unlimited plan is genuinely simple.

Zenfolio

The closest thing to an all-in-one on this list, and the oldest. $9 a month for 15 GB, $23 for 150 GB, $40 for unlimited JPEGs. A portfolio site is included on every tier, invoicing arrives in the middle tier, and bookings are a $10 add-on until the top one.

The thing to know is the commerce fee: Zenfolio takes 7% of every sale before payment processing, on top of your subscription. Sell $2,000 of prints in a season and that is $140 gone. Its print lab integration is mature enough that some photographers happily pay it, because orders ship without them touching anything.

Google Drive, and why it is not on this list

Plenty of photographers still deliver in a shared folder. It is free for 15 GB, everyone already has it, and it works. It is also a folder: no favourites, no proofing, no store, no download tracking, and a client who has to scroll a grid of filenames to find themselves. It is a fine place to keep files and a poor way to hand over work you want to be paid for.

Where Piczel sits

Piczel is $10 a month for 100 GB, $30 for 300 GB and $60 for 1 TB, and every plan carries the gallery, the portfolio site on your own domain, the store and the studio tools. There is a Free plan with 15 GB that stays free and a 30-day Pro trial. We take no commission on anything you sell.

We are not cheapest at every tier and will not pretend otherwise. Pixieset gives you a terabyte of gallery storage for $30 where we charge $60. Zenfolio has an unlimited plan for $40. ShootProof has contracts and we do not. Pic-Time has AI face search and we do not.

The part nobody else does

If you shoot in Nigeria, every platform above bills in dollars on a card. Piczel bills in naira at local prices through Paystack: ₦10,000 a month for Studio, ₦30,000 for Pro, ₦60,000 for Studio+. That is the difference between a subscription you can actually keep paying and one that breaks the month your card stops working abroad.

How to choose

Galleries only, storage-hungry, happy with separate tools: Pixieset. Print sales are the business: Pic-Time or Zenfolio. Contracts matter and volume is low: ShootProof. You want one bill for the gallery, the site, the store and the paperwork, and you want to pay in naira: that is the one we built.

Whatever you pick, pick on the second year, not the first. Moving a back catalogue is the expensive part, which is why we move yours by hand, at no charge, while your old galleries stay live.