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Client gallery checklist: 25 things to check before you switch

A 25-point checklist for choosing a client gallery platform: storage, downloads, video, privacy, favorites, store economics, branding, email, migration and pricing traps.

Updated October 2026

Switching gallery platforms costs a week of uploads and a season of couples asking why the link changed, so it is worth doing once. This is a list of 25 things to check on any platform before you move, grouped by what bites later rather than by what the pricing page leads with. Score each candidate yourself. No product passes all 25, including ours. We make FOCL, and it fails number 20. The examples under each item are from pricing pages and help centers checked on 12 September 2026.

How to use it

Open each candidate’s pricing page and help center side by side. Answer every item for the plan you would actually buy, not the top plan, because most “yes” answers on a compare table belong to the top plan. Write the plan name next to each yes. Then weight the sections by your business: a print-heavy studio cares most about 17 and 18, a photo-and-film studio about 8 to 10, a photographer with a lot of guest traffic about 5 and 11 to 14.

The checklist

Storage

  1. Which unit is metered: gigabytes, photo count, or hours of video. Get the figure for the plan you would buy. ShootProof counts photos today and gigabytes from 23 September 2026; Pixieset counts video in hours; everyone else counts gigabytes.
  2. What happens at the cap. Storage is a running total across every gallery online, not a monthly allowance. Ask whether uploads stop, or the account is moved up a tier.
  3. The fine print behind “unlimited”. Pic-Time’s help center says use over 20 GB per gallery or 100 GB of bandwidth a month may incur fees on its unlimited plan, and that the plan is for individual photographers. Ask every platform for the equivalent text, because most do not put it on the plan card.
  4. Archiving. Is there a cold tier, what does it cost, and how quickly does a restore come back. ShootProof’s archive starts at $2.99 a month below its top plan and archived media does not count against storage.

Downloads and bandwidth

  1. Bandwidth or download counts. Read the terms, not the plan card. Some platforms never cap; most do not say either way.
  2. Full resolution on your tier, plus a web-size option for phones. CloudSpot’s free plan caps downloads at 2048px.
  3. Section downloads, a download PIN, and how a big ZIP arrives: in the browser, or as an emailed link, and for how long the link stays valid. A couple on hotel wifi will not sit through a 6 GB browser download.

Video

  1. Hosted, or embedded only. CloudSpot embeds YouTube and Vimeo links, and the download happens on the other site.
  2. How video is metered (hours, its own pool, or shared with photos) and the per-file size and duration caps. SmugMug allows 20 minutes and 3 GB per file; Zenfolio 60 minutes and 20 GB; FOCL 30 GB per file with a bitrate ceiling. See client galleries that host video.
  3. 4K on which tier, and whether the client downloads the original or 1080p. Pixieset’s 4K starts at Plus; Zenfolio’s at Advanced.

Privacy

  1. Password, email registration, expiry date, no search-engine indexing: which are on your tier. Expiry is also your storage policy; see wedding gallery expiration policy.
  2. Hide from everyone, and separately from guests but not the couple. Two different switches. Many platforms have only the first.
  3. The couple can hide photos from guests without emailing you.
  4. Guest face or selfie search can be switched off per gallery, if the platform has it at all.

Favorites and proofing

  1. Favorites follow the client across devices and can be split into named lists, so “album” and “parents’ prints” are not one pile.
  2. Export favorites as filenames or a CSV for the album designer or the lab. Without this, favorites are a nice thing the couple did that you retype by hand.

Store economics

  1. Commission on your tier, what it is charged on (your markup, or the whole order), and whether collecting payment yourself changes it. Pic-Time is 15% on Free and Beginner, 8% on Professional and 6% on Advanced when Pic-Time collects, and 0% on those two if you collect yourself. ShootProof is 0% on every plan. SmugMug keeps 15% of your profit. CloudSpot is 15% on Free and Entry, 0% above. Zenfolio’s rate is not published.
  2. Labs, countries, tax, shipping, payout. Which labs, where they ship, who collects tax, who handles shipping, and how and when you are paid, including any minimum. SmugMug pays out from $5 in the US and $10 elsewhere.

Branding

  1. Logo, studio name, typeface, watermark, and removal of the platform’s own tag: which tier. Pic-Time removes its branding from Professional up; CloudSpot removes its logo from Entry up and adds yours from Lite.
  2. Custom domain, if your brand needs one. Zenfolio includes one on every plan, SmugMug from Portfolio, PASS from Standard, Pic-Time from Professional. FOCL includes custom gallery domains with Studio and Pro.

Email delivery

  1. The platform sends the delivery email, with an editable template, a preview of the exact email, and the password or PIN included so the couple has one message to keep.
  2. An activity log: who viewed, favorited and downloaded, so “we never got the link” is a question you can answer.

Migration

  1. A full-resolution export of every gallery in one go, and whether they offer a migration-in service. Pic-Time lists one on paid plans. The export matters more than the import: it is your exit, whichever platform you choose now.

Pricing traps

  1. Annual versus monthly, and what “billed annually” charges today. Promotional first-year prices renew at standard rates: Zenfolio’s annual toggle, CloudSpot’s $3 a month for 3 months, PASS’s $1 first month. The number you need is the year-2 price.
  2. Add-on fees and announced changes: extra seats, extra brands, booking, archiving, video storage, sales tax on the subscription, refund policy, and any plan change with a date on it. ShootProof’s 23 September switch is the current example.

What the list does not do

It does not rank anything. A product that scores 22 on paper is still the wrong one if it fails the 3 you weighted, and a product that scores 15 may be right if those 15 are yours. Use it with the best client gallery for wedding photographers for the paid-tier comparison and the storage math for what each answer to items 1 to 4 costs over 3 years.

One more rule: answer item 23 before you upload a single wedding. The platform that makes leaving hard is the one you least want to be locked into.

Run FOCL Galleries through the list

Storage is the only thing metered. Downloads and bandwidth are never capped, unlimited galleries on every plan, and 3 GB free. Custom gallery domains are included with Studio and Pro.

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