FOCL vs Zenfolio for wedding photographers

An honest comparison of galleries, pricing, video, the print store and the planning side. Where Zenfolio wins, where FOCL wins, with Zenfolio's prices as of September 2026.

We make FOCL, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to be fair. Zenfolio has hosted photographers’ websites and galleries for about 20 years. Prices below are from zenfolio.com/plans-pricing, zenfolio.com/features/video and zenfolio.com/features/selling on 12 September 2026, and from our own pricing page. Check both before you decide.

The short version

Choose Zenfolio if you want a website with your own domain on every plan, a store that can use Zenfolio’s labs or your own printer, booking and scheduling, SMS delivery, or a volume workflow for schools and sports. Zenfolio is a business platform, and galleries are one part of it.

Choose FOCL if you shoot weddings and want the day itself handled: the timeline, the shot list, the family photo list, a couple portal and an offline phone app, next to galleries that give you more storage per dollar, a free plan, and no meter on downloads.

FOCL Galleries also works for portraits, families and events. Create a standalone gallery with a client or session name; no wedding is needed. In Settings → Downloads, choose which sections or individual photos clients can download while keeping the others visible. How download controls work.

Pricing

Zenfolio has no free plan. It has a free trial with no card required. FOCL has a free plan with 3 GB.

Zenfolio’s annual prices were mid-promotion when we checked: first-year annual rates of $7, $11.50 and $20 a month, marked “normally” $9, $23 and $40, ending 15 September 2026 and renewing at standard rates that the page did not show. The table uses monthly prices.

	FOCL	Zenfolio
Free	3 GB, photos only, unlimited galleries and couples	No free plan (free trial, no card)
Around $10 a month	Essentials: 100 GB, $10 monthly or $100 a year	Basic: 15 GB, $9 monthly. No store, no team seats
Around $20 a month	Studio: 500 GB, $19 monthly or $190 a year	Professional: 150 GB, $23 monthly. Store, 2 team members
Around $40 a month	Pro: 2 TB, $39 monthly or $390 a year	Advanced: unlimited JPEG plus 150 GB of video, $40 monthly. 15 team members

At $9 to $10 a month, FOCL gives you 100 GB against Zenfolio’s 15 GB. At $19 to $23, it is 500 GB against 150 GB. At $40, Zenfolio’s Advanced plan is unlimited for JPEGs, so if you keep every gallery you have ever delivered online, Advanced wins that line.

Every FOCL plan, including Free, includes unlimited galleries and couples, your branding, passwords, expiry dates, watermarks, full-resolution downloads and the print store. Video is the one feature that needs a paid FOCL plan.

Downloads and bandwidth

FOCL does not meter downloads or bandwidth. Storage is the only thing we count. A guest can download one section on its own, and large ZIPs are emailed as a link that stays valid for 7 days.

Zenfolio lists digital downloads and access control to original files on every plan, and shows no download cap either. What Zenfolio adds is SMS delivery: 500, 2,500 or 5,000 texts a month by plan. FOCL delivers by email and by link, not by text.

Video

Zenfolio accepts MP4 and MOV files up to 20 GB and 60 minutes each. Basic and Professional play video in HD (1080p); 4K playback needs Advanced at $40 a month, which also gives video its own 150 GB pool, roughly 10 hours. Basic and Professional list one storage number for everything. Selling video needs Professional or above.
FOCL accepts video on paid plans up to 30 GB per file. A video uses the storage its file uses, streams adaptively, and the couple can download the original or a 1080p web version. Videos are never watermarked and never go into the ZIP. Files above about 200 Mbps cannot be processed, so export a delivery version first.

A ceremony edit longer than 60 minutes will not upload to Zenfolio as one file. On FOCL it is one file. See delivering wedding video alongside photos for how much space real films take.

The wedding day itself

This is the real difference, and it is not something Zenfolio tries to do.

FOCL started as a wedding-day app. The same subscription that hosts your galleries gives you:

A timeline of the day with photo moments flagged. Import the planner’s PDF and it fills itself in. On the phone, “+5 min” cascades a delay through the rest of the day.
A family photo list you work through on your phone, ticking off each grouping.
A shot list in sections, assignable to a second shooter.
A couple portal where the couple fills in people, family groupings and their timeline, and nothing lands in your brief until you approve it.
A phone app that works with no signal at the venue.
Team access: 2 seats included, $5 a month for each extra.

Zenfolio’s tools point the other way: booking and scheduling, client payments, automated marketing campaigns, a volume wizard and QR code workflow for schools and sports, and AI culling as a $7 a month add-on. If your studio also shoots seniors, teams or school days, that is a real point for Zenfolio. If you need Saturday run from your pocket, that is FOCL.

Galleries, feature by feature

Both cover the essentials: unlimited galleries, favorites, watermarks, control over originals, email delivery, and a print store (on Zenfolio, from Professional up).

Things FOCL does that we think matter:

Photo search for guests. A guest types “cake” or takes a selfie and gets every photo they are in. You can tag moments so those searches are exact.
Couple Controls. The couple hides photos from their own guests with a short code. You see what they hid and can restore it.
Favorites you can act on, by person or by photo, with filenames to copy and a CSV export.
Shared sets. A link to just the photos you choose, for a florist or a magazine, with your branding.
A design tab with a live desktop and phone preview, 8 cover layouts and 65 type pairings.

Things Zenfolio does that FOCL does not:

A website with a custom domain on every plan, with a blog from Professional up. FOCL offers a portfolio homepage and custom gallery domains on Studio and Pro, without a separate website builder.
A Lightroom plugin for uploading.
Gallery registration from Professional up, paid access to galleries on Advanced, and AI gallery creation and tagging from Professional up.
Booking, scheduling and online payments. FOCL has no CRM, contracts or invoicing.
Automated marketing campaigns and SMS.
Self-fulfillment for print orders.

Print store

FOCL’s prints are made by WHCC. You set a markup over the lab cost and keep the difference; FOCL handles payment and shipping, orders appear in your studio, and payouts go through Stripe.

Zenfolio’s store needs Professional or Advanced; Basic cannot sell. You can use Zenfolio’s integrated labs (availability varies by location) or fulfill orders yourself, build products (5 on Professional, unlimited on Advanced), and run coupons and packages. Zenfolio’s pricing and selling pages did not state a per-sale commission or transaction fee when we checked, so ask Zenfolio before you rely on a number. For the markup itself, see how to price prints in your gallery.

Switching

Moving from Zenfolio to FOCL is a download and an upload. Export your originals, then drag each folder into a FOCL gallery; folders become sections. Your couples get a new link. There is no importer for favorites, comments or visitor history.

The bigger question is your website. FOCL does not build websites, so if your Zenfolio site is your main site, host it somewhere else before you leave.

Which one should you pick?

If you want one vendor for website, galleries, booking, store and marketing, and you shoot more than weddings, Zenfolio is the broader platform, and its $40 plan is unlimited for photos.

If you are a wedding photographer first, want the day handled from your phone, and want galleries with 3 to 7 times the storage for the money and a free plan to start on, that is what FOCL is built for. For the rest of the field, see FOCL vs Pixieset and Pixieset alternatives.