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Best Photography Website Hosting Sites

To succeed in any industry, you’ll need a professional online presence.  A business web site is still required in this social media-driven age, especially if you’re looking to stand out as a professional photographer.

Sharing your photographs and style is paramount to getting photography work and selling your prints. However, most photographers don’t have time to learn all of the ins and outs of technology and hosting.

In this article, we’ll be doing the legwork for you, and reviewing 14 of the best photography sites that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Having a professional online store or portfolio allows your work to spread globally, as people no longer need to meet you in person to see your work. If you sell prints, then that can be done easily with all of the photography hosting sites that I’ll review.

To decipher the very best solutions for photographers we’ll look at:

1. Ease of use

2. Price range

3. Storage capacity

4. Photography themes

5. Gallery options

6. Photographer tools (like client proofing)

1. Wix (FREE)

BEST FOR – Beginners

As a creator, you’ll want to your website to showcase your work in the best light. Wix is top of our list as it is so easy to use (even for complete beginners with no technical experience) and offers some nice themes, designed to showcase a portfolio of artistic work. I love the fact that you can upload your work to a private gallery with Wix. This will come in handy if you want to reveal your work to a select group of people. Additionally you can use the link to show to a prospective client or gallery.

Recommended: Check out our full Wix review here

You can choose from 40 Photography templates from Food or Fashion Photography to Wedding Photography.  “Wix Pro Gallery” is free and really easy to add to any of the templates on Wix. it has nine layout options and allows you to upload thousands of photos and even videos. Your visitor can hit the heart icon to let you know what photos they like best. There is built in image control where you can control the quality of your images and more…

Packages & Pricing

If you’re looking to accept online payments and sell your work through your Wix website then you’ll want to upgrade to one of the ecommerce plans. The main difference with the three ecommerce packages from Wix is the amount of disk space that you get. You also get a professional logo with the higher tier plan.

Click Here To Visit Wix

Pros

 Get started for free

✔ Paid plans have a 14 day money back guarantee

✔ Create a website from your mobile device

✔ Fully customizable templates

✔ Over 40 Photography templates to choose from

✔ Easy to use drag and drop interface

✔ Paid plans offer a free domain name

✔ Signup in seconds with your Facebook account

✔ Photography specific templates

✔ Up to £250-worth of ad credits

✔ Access to 1,000s of templates and additional tools in the App Market

Cons

✘ Advert supported, so your FREE Wix website will have adverts

✘ Just 500 MB disk space and 20 GB Transfer for free account

2. Hostinger (£2.59/ month)

BEST FOR – People who have some technical ability

Hostinger has everything you need to set up a professional Photography website. They are offering Premium hosting+website builder solution for just £2.59 per month to easily set up your photography portfolio. You will get 100 websites, free email, free domain, 100 GB SSD storage,  unlimited bandwidth and unlimited free SSL.

Read our full Hostinger review here

Packages & Pricing

If you are comfortable with the ins and outs of web hosting, then Hostinger could be for you. With Hostinger you are in control as your website will be hosted on your own server. The prices are also considerably lower than most of the site builder based Photography hosting. Hostinger also have AI Tools: Logo Maker, Heatmap, and Content Writer. If you want to upgrade to get some more space, host more websites you can do so with their Business plan or Cloud Startup plan.

Get an additional 10% by using our code UKWEBHOST.

Pros

✔ Cheap and professional

✔ Easy Web builder

✔ 99.9% Uptime Guarantee

✔ 24/7 Live support

✔ Easy to use control panel

✔ 30-day money back guarantee

✔ Easy drag and drop AI Website Builder

Cons

 ✘ Need to be comfortable with being in control of all aspects of your website

3. Pixpa (£4.75/month)

BEST FOR – end-to-end management for photographers

Pixpa is an exciting end-to-end business platform that is perfect or Photographers. Pixpa is specifically designed for creatives to share their portfolio and manage their business. With Pixpa you can share your images, create a blog and store client proofs all in one place, making it an ideal solution for Photographers.

Clients can view proofs and purchase images directly from your Pixpa website. What’s more you can sell your images as downloads, so that you don’t even have to do anything to make money once you have uploaded your images. Client galleries are available for you to create specific apps for your clients.  Basically, Pixpa has everything that you need to run your creative empire, hence it is top of our list!

Packages & Pricing

Pixpa offer 2 distinct packages. The first plan is called “Start” and is just £4.75 per month. With the start package you get everything you will need to get started – including themes, 200 images, unlimited galleries and unlimited gallery apps. If you find yourself running out of space then you can upload to the “Grow” Plan for an extra £2.38 per month, which will allow you to upload unlimited images.

Click Here To Visit Pixpa

4. A2 Hosting (£3.16/month)

BEST FOR – A more hands on approach to designing and creating your Photography website

One reason that A2 Hosting is great for photographers is that they offer a Turbo Hosting option that is 20x faster than other hosting providers. A2 Hosting offer several high powered 1-click solutions for Image hosting including: Piwigo, TinyWebGallery, Coppermine, Chevereto and Lychee. Each option has its own USP and can be installed on A2 Hosting in seconds. They also have a custom Gallery option that allows you to upload images, create albums and watermarks.

Packages & Pricing

From just £3.16 you can get Gallery Hosting from A2 Hosting that is perfect for Photographers.

Pros

✔ Free HackScan Protection

✔ (DDoS) Protection

✔ Turbo Hosting

✔ 99.9% Uptime Commitment

✔ 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support

Cons

✘ For the more advanced tech savvy user

5. Weebly (FREE)

BEST FOR – Complete beginners

Another great web builder that has massive appeal to Photographers is Weebly.  Just like Wix, Weebly is fantastic for people with limited technical ability when it comes to creating websites. Weebly has a fantastic built in e-commerce solution that allows you to easily sell your photographs directly from your website.

Weebly’s drag and drop website creator is really easy to use to customize your website exactly the way you want it The stats dashboard allows you to see your visitors and overview your website. Weebly offers both free and paid options, so you can get started today with nothing down and only pay when you publish or require extra resources.

Recommended: See how Weebly stacks up against Wix

Packages & Pricing

You can get started on Weebly for free, however if you require additional resources or features then you can upgrade. There are quite a few options when it comes to upgrading inside Weebly. They have plans at £6.33, £9.50, £19.80 and £30.09 per month. You get nice £80 worth of Google Ad credit with all of their plans.

Pros

✔ Update website from your phone

✔ Sell your photos

✔ Professional themes

✔ 30 day money back guarantee

✔ 500MB to unlimited storage space (depending on the package you select)

✔ Change your template when live

✔ Clean and simple templates

✔ Perfect for beginners

£80 Google ad credit

Cons

✘ Limited add-ons

✘ Restricted flexibility

Pros

✔ 15 day free trial

✔ Create personalized photo galleries

✔ Mobile gallery apps

✔ Flexible and scalable

✔ Enough space for a large number of original images

✔ Manage access rights for collections

✔ Price lists

✔ No commission on sales

✔ SSL certificate

✔ Integrated e-commerce features

✔ Connect your domain name

Cons

✘ Everything hosted on Pixpa, which could pose problems if you rely on their site for everything

6. BoldGrid (£3.95/Month)

BEST FOR – Photographers who want to use WordPress but don’t know how

BoldGrid is owned by InMotion hosting. Designed to make the whole process of creating a WordPress website easier, Boldgrid has some nice solutions that suit Photographers. For example they have hundreds of themes to choose from with a multitude of WordPress plugins that give your website added functionality.

It’s easy to set up your portfolio over on Boldgrid, which is one of the reasons they made it into our top 14 list. Boldgrid offer some great features such as automatic backups, which means that your website and photos will always be safely stored as a backup (in case anything goes wrong with your website, or it gets hacked). With Boldgrid you can simply drag and drop features rather than getting into the whole WordPress development side of things.

Packages & Pricing

You can try out Boldgrid for free (with limited features). If you decide that Boldgrid is for you then they offer one upgrade option – an annual plan at £47.50 per year.

Pros

✔ Great for beginners

✔ Drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG editing

✔ 200+ FREE wordpress themes

✔ 90 day money back guarantee

✔ Automatic Backups

Cons

✘ No photographer specific tools

✘ Just one upgrade option

7. Squarespace (£30/month)

BEST FOR – Complete beginners

If you are looking to create a blog and a portfolio to showcase your Photography work then Squarespace is a great option. Squarespace has a great easy to use drag and drop web builder that allows you to create galleries in no time. They also have a very helpful customer support department if you should get stuck at any point.

There are a few other features that are perfectly suited for creatives, for example Squarespace offer a free portfolio app to showcase your work and allow clients to view your gallery. Additionally you can arrange openings and shows via the event features.

Packages & Pricing

It’s a good idea to get started with the Squarespace free trial, where you’ll get two weeks to try everything out. If you are looking to upgrade then the ecommerce pricing is pretty expensive at £30 per month.

Pros

✔ 24/7 Customer support

✔ Free portfolio app

✔ 14 Day Free trial available

✔ Mobile ready pages

✔ Full screen slide shows

✔ Light box feature

✔ Cropping feature

✔ Clean templates

Cons

✘ Expensive

8. 500px (FREE)

BEST FOR – Connecting with other photographers, access an existing Photographer community

500px is an exciting social network of Photographers. More than 15million Photographers are on 500px collaborating and sharing their work.  As with most social media channels you get your own feed, where you can share your work with the 500px community. 500px has an online marketplace much like the Facebook marketplace where photographers can exhibit and sell their work.

Packages & Pricing

500px is an ad supported community. However, you can upgrade to view the community feed without adverts. Additionally you get unlimited uploads. There are two options (both billed annually) – “Awesome” and “Pro”.

Awesome is £3.16 per month (£37.92 per year) and gets you in depth statistics, unlimited uploads and ad free browsing. Pro is £4.74 per month (£56.88 per year) and gets you everything in the “Awesome” package plus priority listings and a customizable profile.

Pros

✔ Free account creation

✔ Limited uploads on free account

✔ Get started instantly

✔ People to communicate with and share your work

✔ Apps for iPhone and Google Play

✔ Keep up to date with the photography industry

Cons

✘ People outside 500px can’t see your feed inside the community

✘ Ad supported

✘ Not as professional as a website

9. Zenfolio (£3.96/month)

BEST FOR – Great for – end-to-end digital Photography business tools

Zenfolio is voted No.1 by Photographers as they have tailored the whole business around the needs of the Photographer, offering everything from unlimited photo storage to selling photo sessions. You can get started for free and create the perfect digital space to advertise your Phototgraphy services. You can create a stunning Photography website within minutes with Zenfolio. There is no need to think about running out of storage space with Zenfolio as you can upload unlimited images with the paid plans.

Packages & Pricing

There are three packages to choose from – Starter, Pro and Advanced. All of the packages feature unlimited image storage. However, if you are looking to integrate your Paypal account and accept payments, then Pro will be the package for you. Pro is £15.84 and offers all of the features you’ll need to run a professional Photography business. The advanced option is for those that have a growing business. You can also pay annually to save money.

Pros

✔ Created just for Photographers

✔ Unlimited image upload

✔ Create your website in minutes

✔ Partnership with top printing companies

✔ Cost effective

✔ Pay annually or monthly

Cons

✘ Chat and email support only for highest tier membership

10. Shopify (£22.96/month)

BEST FOR – People who don’t need the additional Photography business tools and are more focused on the ecommerce platform

Shopify might not be the first Photography website host that springs to mind, but it is one of the best ecommerce hosting companies. Many art galleries rely on Shopify to showcase and sell artwork, so it seemed fitting to add it to our list of great Photography hosting websites.

With Shopify you can add on a great deal of features to help you promote your store, for example promo codes. On the Shopify website you can browse successful art and photography stores to assess how you could benefit from creating a Photography store with Shopify.

Packages & Pricing

The “Basic Shopify Store is £22.96/month, which is 6x the price of many of the other basic photography sites. However, many restrict access to ecommerce in their lower packages. With all of the Shopify stores you’ll benefit from unlimited product listings. The only thing you’ll be missing out on, that are offered at the higher levels of service are reports and gift cards. Shopify also offers a “Shopify Lite” plan that allows you to sell directly on Facebook or your own blog for just £7.13 per month.

Pros

✔ 14 Day FREE trial

✔ No credit card needed for free trial

✔ Professional ecommerce stores are easy to set up

✔ 24/7 customer support

✔ Process payments directly from Shopify

Cons

✘ Lacks advanced Photographer tools like proofing and gallery apps

✘ Very expensive

✘ Commission added to purchases

11. Format (£4.75 per month)

BEST FOR – Portfolio websites

Format is a website builder that has been created specifically for portfolio websites, such as a professional Photographer’s website. You can use your own domain name, and Format will even help you set that up.  Format offers a complete end to end solution for Photographers with some great support and features like eCommerce being available on all plans.

Packages & Pricing

You can get started with Format for free. You don’t even need to provide your credit card details, which is awesome. The free trial lasts 14 days, which should be more than enough time to figure out if Format is the web builder solution for you. The paid packages start at just £4.75/ month for their “Enthusiast” package. Here you can upload up to 100 images, if you want to upload unlimited products with Format that will cost you £19.80.

Pros

✔ Can pay monthly

✔ 14 day free trial

✔ No credit card required for free trial

✔ Pricing is reasonable

✔ Sell directly from your website

✔ Proofing feature

✔ Collection of responsive themes

✔ Flexibility to change plan

✔ 24/7 support

✔ Blogging support

Cons

✘ Slightly more expensive than other portfolio website builders

12. SmugMug (£4.74)

BEST FOR – Beginners that want to get started with a  free trial

Smugmug offers completely customizable image websites that are perfect for Photographers. They provide an easy to use drag and drop site editor. You can also customize your site to match your brand. However, these features are restricted to the higher price bands. You can get started with Smugmug for free with their 14 day free trial.

Packages & Pricing

SmugMug plans are a bit more expensive than the others on the list, however they do allow unlimited image uploads on all of their plans.  The basic plan is £4.74 per month, however you can’t sell images with that plan. The Pro plan offers client tools to help you run your whole enterprise.

Pros

✔ 14 Day free trial

✔ Great for beginners

✔ No credit card required

✔ Features created specifically for photographers

✔ 24/7 customer support

Cons

✘ You can only sell your images on their more expensive plans

✘ Prices displayed exclude VAT

13. Photodeck (£9.50/month)

BEST FOR – Fast SEO friendly photography galleries

Photodeck has optimized their websites for SEO and speed, a very basic but clean approach to presenting your Photography portfolio. They also offer hundreds of easy to use customization features so that you can showcase your photos and videos exactly as you want, in line with your brand. They also have a private gallery feature.

Packages & Pricing

Photodeck is a lot more expensive than the other websites that we have covered so far. However, their USP is the SEO and server performance. The starter package rom Photodeck is called “Essential” and costs £9.50 per month. With this package you are restricted in terms of the amount of images and videos you can upload (just 3 video clips).

For the professional Photograper their “Business” plan is £35.63 per month. If you’re looking to sell photos directly from your site, the you’ll need to go for the “Standard” (£19.80/month) or “Business” packages.

Pros

✔ Average load time 20ms

✔ Zero commission eCommerce stores

✔ 14 day free trial

✔ Mobile friendly

✔ Pay monthly or yearly

✔ No contracts, cancel any time

Cons

✘ Expensive

✘ Limited storage on low plan

14. Photoshelter (£7.92/month)

BEST FOR – Full stack Photography tools

Photoshelter is an all in one business solution for photographers. They provide a wide range of features from galleries to client proofing tools to save you time and effort. Currently Photoshelter supports 80,000 with their online tools and websites, showcasing some 400 million images, impressive. They offer a wide range of features, including proofing tool, mobile app, social sharing and image licensing.

Packages & Pricing

Client proofing is only available on the two higher tier packages. Photoshelter has everything that you need to run a professional photography business and some great security features.

Pros

✔ New York support team

✔ 14 day free trial

✔ Cancel anytime

✔ 100+ features developed for Professional Photographers

✔ Enhanced security features

Cons

✘ Credit card required for free trial

✘ No refunds or money back guarantees

Other Available Options For Photographers

If you don’t want to go to the bother of creating a full blown website then you can use a photo hosting website. These sites allow you to store and share your images without creating a front end website. The best examples are Dropbox, Flickr, Imgur, Photobucket and Google Photos.

You can also share your work on social media. Instagram is a fantastic platform for photographers to share their work. However, if you are looking to upscale your photography business, then creating a fully-fledged online web presence, complete with an ecommerce store is a brilliant option. Combining social media with your website to drive traffic to your space on the web remains a great way to get more people to see your work.

14 Best Photography Hosting Companies #photography #hosting #image Share on X

Jann Chambers

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