The Best Photographer Website Builder In 2024

If you're a photographer who wants to attract clients and promote stunning photography services, you should build a website for yourself. It should help you showcase your works and other digital products, create client galleries, and monetize your work online. You can hire someone to construct a site for you — or you can make your own photography website yourself, even if you have no coding skills.

This article should enable you to find the best photography website builder and create an online portfolio so you can establish your business and start selling the artwork. The beginner-friendly solution that we recommend to you should come in handy for photographers of any budget and level of experience.

What Should a Professional Photography Website Include

Before we help you to select a website builder for photographers, let's discuss why you need a site at all and which functions it should have.

A photography business website should enable you to achieve the following goals:

• Promote your personal brand and showcase you own content;

• Attract new clients and help manage appointments with them;

• Make more money online quickly.

A stunning photography website should include the following pages:

• Photography portfolio — this is where you showcase your works to sell prints;

• About Me — here, you share your biography and explain what makes you stand out from your colleagues;

• Contacts — your potential clients should be able to promptly get in touch with you to book a photoshoot (don't forget to list your social media accounts and showcase the Instagram feed with works);

• Online store (optional) — you can sell your prints, photos, albums and other items here.

It might also be wise to include a FAQ section. It should come in particularly handy for wedding photographers. There, you can provide answers to such questions as “How far in advance should I book a photographer for my ceremony?” or “How can I get a discount?”.

Creating an Online Portfolio for a Photography Website

As for the online portfolio, you don't need to upload all your works there. It would be wiser to hand-pick only the best and the most representative pictures. When a potential customer opens your photography portfolio, they should be able to assess your strongest sides and your signature style at first sight.

A typical website builder for photographers does not provide unlimited hosting storage for its cheapest plan — but it shouldn't turn you off. Most likely, that space should be enough for a meticulously curated photography portfolio.

An Ecommerce Website Page

Young photographers often ask whether it makes sense to add an online store to their websites. The answer depends on your monetization model. When you get started, you probably make most of your profit on photoshoots. Then, you can discard an online store. Instead, you should make your contacts visible and showcase your best photos.

To be able to make good money with a store, you should make a name for yourself and know how to promote your photography site. You might try to build a store on a dedicated ecommerce platform that will help you to take off.

But we should warn you: top ecommerce features can't boast such premium looks as sites that were tailor-made for a photographer portfolio. You might need to sacrifice the design for the sake of sales (or vice versa).

Why Do I Need a Photography Website?

Some young artists doubt whether they need a photography website at all. Isn't it enough to have a social media presence to attract potential clients? Social networks are indeed a helpful tool and you can use them for free — but they can't substitute a personal website for the following reasons:

• Social platforms lack customization opportunities. You can share your works there, but you would fail to create a strong aesthetic impression on your own website.

• The algorithms of social networks tend to hide some part of the content in the feed. You can't fully control what your followers see.

• People's perception of art in social networks is distorted by likes, shares, comments, and other indicators. They get distracted too easily.

• One day, you might lose access to your account in a social network. You might violate the rules of the platform, or make a mistake, or your account might get hacked. When you own a photography website, you'll never lose access to it.

How to Choose a Photography Website Builder

Now, let's talk about how to choose a photography website builder. You don't need any coding skills to use the solutions that we recommend in this article. You don't need to be a professional designer either. All the builders that we list have easy interfaces, offer large collections of templates and helpful customer support.

Most of them have either free plans with no credit card required or free trials that allow you to test their functionality before the purchase. Here are the features to look for in a photography website builders that can help make the process more efficient and a bit easier:

• included SEO tools to optimize the website for search engines;

• AI tools to help you generate ideas and create beautiful templates;

• advanced features for marketing campaigns;

• photography-specific templates;

• customization features so you can have creative control.

Bitrix24 - The Best Website-Building Software

Target audience

• All photographers

Primary advantages

• Free domain and hosting

• Intuitive interface

• Excellent help center

Main shortcomings

• A lot of excessive features

Bitrix24 is much more than just a website builder for a photography business. It's a large and versatile gold-standard software system that includes all the tools you need for a business: a contact center, time, task and project management functionality and so on.

This is the only thing that might seem a bit confusing about this product. If you need to build a website, you should simply discard all the excessive functionality.

The drag-and-drop editor of Bitrix24 is highly intuitive, and the selection of designer-made templates is impressive. Even if you have never tried your hand at building a website before, you should be able to create yours in just a couple of hours.

The customization opportunities are very flexible. If needed, you'll be able to use images from a free photo bank or use the numerous website templates to create your photography portfolio.

Your site will be fully responsive and SEO-ready. You can use the Bitrix24 ads network to promote it, add alt text to the pictures, and improve notice in search engines with various SEO tools at your hand. You'll get a free domain name and free hosting.

Whenever you need a consultation, the polite and professional customer support crew will be glad to attend to you. Plus, you can find a lot of informative articles on the official product site and educational videos on its YouTube channel.

Pricing

Bitrix24 is available in a cloud and on-premise version as well as a mobile app for iOS and Android. You can try its basic functionality for free — but please keep in mind that its free plan features only 5 GB of online storage.

The software also provides paid plans with a starting price of $49 per month.

Squarespace

Target audience

• Young and established photographers

Primary advantages

• Visually appealing templates

• Great customization

• Powerful ecommerce tools

Main shortcomings

• Pricing

Squarespace is targeted not only at photographers but at all creatives in general. That's why its templates are eye candy and ideal for people who showcase works of art on the Internet.

Over 40 website templates were purposefully designed with photographers in mind. They are perfect for displaying large, high-quality images. Your portfolio works will look stunning on any device, be it a stationary computer, a laptop, a smartphone, or a tablet.

Squarespace is not the easiest website builder for photographers who lack coding skills — but it's not the most difficult either. You should appreciate its drag-and-drop interface as well as helpful pop-ups that come up every time you hover over an area.

This portfolio website builder enables you to add an online store or a blog to your site if you need it. The support crew will be ready to attend to you through live chat Monday to Friday, from 4 am to 8 pm EDT. Plus, you can send them an email 24/7 and they should respond promptly.

Pricing

If you opt for the cheapest Squarespace plan, you'll need to pay $16 per month. You'll get a custom domain only if you pay annually — otherwise, the price of the domain will start at $23. You can begin with a free 14-day trial and you won't be required to share your credit card number immediately.

Wix

Target audience

• For users with a limited budget

Primary advantages

• Affordable pricing

• Free version

• Ease of use

Main shortcomings

• Too basic templates

As compared to other website builders, it would be incorrect to call Wix a website builder for photographers. This software is one of the generic website builders and was tailor-made for small businesses from all industries.

Its templates collection includes nice options for all types of photographers: from those who work at weddings to photojournalists. By default, some of the templates might not seem too impressive, but you can customize them using third-party apps. Whenever you need a consultation, you can request a callback.

If you lack the time or just don't feel inspired enough to build a photography website with your own hands, you can resort to Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). The system will ask you a few questions to find out what you expect from your website. Then, it will pull data from your social networks — and you'll get a ready-to-use website.

Pricing

Wix Combo plan costs $16 per month and other plans have higher price tags. To save funds, you might want to stick to the Free Forever plan: your storage space will be limited, there will be a lot of ads on your site and a large Wix banner at the top. For young photographers who are just making their first steps in this profession, that's a great way of creating their first portfolio.

Format

Target audience

• Professional photographers

Primary advantages

• Tailor-made for photographers

• Pro shooter features

• Affordable pricing

Main shortcomings

• Not the easiest interface

This is probably the most dedicated website builder for photographers. Its photography templates are sleek and modern. It can boast many specific features that its more generic competitors lack. For instance, you can upload photos directly from Lightroom or Capture One.

You can disable the right-click on pictures so that no one will be able to save and use them without your permission. Format allows you to manage your photography portfolio through the iOS app, but it lacks an Android app. To make money on your prints, photo books, and presets, you can add an online store to your site.

Thanks to the client-proofing system, you'll be able to put together private, password-protected albums for clients. That should be a more user-friendly approach than using email, Dropbox or WeTransfer. If needed, you can protect your works with watermarks.

Pricing

The Basic plan costs $8 per month if you pay annually. This plan enables you to add a maximum of 15 website pages and 1000 high-resolution images. Besides, your selection of themes will be limited. To benefit from advanced functionality, you should upgrade to a more expensive plan. Then, you'll also get a free custom domain and will be able to use the code editor.

SmugMug

Target audience

• Android users

Primary advantages

• Android app

• Pro shooter features

• Tailor-made for photographers

Main shortcomings

• Limited selection of website templates on cheap plans

Compared to Format, which was also purposefully built for photographers, SmugMug has a trickier interface. The full collection of beautiful templates is available only on the most expensive plans — but you can be sure these templates look very professional and are fully responsive.

While Format is compatible only with iOS, SmugMug caters to Android owners too. When you're shooting with your smartphone, you can upload new photos to your site without any delays.

Pricing

This website builder for photographers features ecommerce options, a Lightroom plugin, watermarking, password-protected galleries and the ability to disable right-click on images. Its Basic plan costs $16 per month and includes unlimited high-resolution storage. You can get a 14-day trial without sharing your credit card details.

Pixpa

Target audience

• Client-oriented photographers

Primary advantages

• 50% discount for students

• An opportunity to create mobile gallery apps

• Money-back guarantee

Main shortcomings

• Not the easiest interface

This is a functional and affordable website builder for photographers and other creatives. It might take you some time to get used to its interface but the effort will be worth it. Pixpa allows you to create personalized gallery apps for customers to access on their mobile phones. This feature should enable you to expand your client base and make more money.

This solution smoothly integrates with other apps, including Google Analytics, MailChimp and Spotify. You won't need to pay processing fees for your online store. You'll appreciate the selection of handy ecommerce features, such as the ability to generate discount codes.

Pricing

The cheapest Pixpa plan costs just $4 per month. With this plan, you won't get a free custom domain and the number of images that you can upload to your site will be limited to 100. After your upgrade to a more expensive plan, you'll be able to add a blog and an online store to your site as well as benefit from various website extensions.

To get started, you can request a 15-day free trial without revealing your credit card details. Students have a right to get a 50% discount.

Shopify

Target audience

• For those who want to sell their works

Primary advantages

• Helpful apps and extension

• Powerful shop tools

Main shortcomings

• High transaction fees

• It's good only for professionals who're planning to sell their works

This is not exactly a website builder for photographers but an ecommerce platform that enables you to sell whatever you wish. You can make money on your prints, photo books, workshops or anything else.

People usually do not recommend Shopify as it was not tailor-made for photographers, so its designs and photography templates might seem a bit too basic for a creative's taste. But it enables you to set up an online store with minimum effort and it supports a vast range of third-party integrations, such as Instagram, Facebook and other social media. The more platforms you integrate your shop with, the more sales you should be able to make.

The main drawback of Shopify consists of the fact that it's good only for sales-focused websites. If you build a site only to showcase your works and promote your personal brand, you might consider using some other site builder. Yet those photographers who want to make money on their site should appreciate a wide choice of Shopify marketing tools and payment options.

Pricing

The cheapest Shopify plan costs $29 per month and you'll need to pay to use most templates. You can start with a 14-day free trial.

Zenfolio

Target audience

• School and events photographers

Primary advantages

• Shallow learning curve

• Is perfect for large file volumes

Main shortcomings

• Minimal client support

• Very basic designs

With this website builder for photographers, your site can go live in a few hours after you start working on it. It's true that Zenfolio photography templates look a bit simplistic compared to other builders, and the selection of templates is limited. But the interface is intuitive and you can easily create a very decent portfolio website with your own hands.

On the flip side, the only way of getting a consultation is to fill in a form and wait for an email. The support crew states that they should get back to you in around 4 hours. Unfortunately, there is no email or live chat where you could submit your query.

Pricing

The Starter plan costs $7 per month if billed annually and offers unlimited storage. That's very good news for those who need to handle large volumes of photos. It would be wise to start with a 14-day free trial (and you won't need to share your credit card details for it).

After you upgrade to one of the most expensive plans, you'll discover some special opportunities for school and event photographers, such as password-protected folders and the ability to add packaging and pre-orders for prints.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you found this article informative, and now you better understand how to select a top-notch website builder to promote your photography services. An ideal solution should have an easy interface and an affordable price tag.

It should offer an extensive selection of modern, professionally designed templates. Apart from the opportunity to upload photo galleries to the website, you should be able to enjoy some extra features, such as a blog, an online shop, a ban for right-clicks, Instagram integrations, and SEO tools.

Most builders offer either a free plan or a free trial so that you can test their functionality before the purchase. Among all the solutions that are available on the market, you might want to turn your primary attention to Bitrix24. This free and powerful website builder allows you to build any type of site, including the one for a photographer. You'll get free hosting and a free domain name.