Photography portfolios & client delivery
Choose the platform around the job: public presentation, private proofing, delivery or sales. Then prepare a clean, portable gallery before you commit.
Shortlist by documented capabilities, then run the same real client journey in each trial. These are editorial fit judgments, not hands-on performance rankings. Official sources checked October 5, 2026.
Our practical shortlist: Format for a portfolio connected to proofing; Pixieset for a separately configurable website and client gallery; SmugMug for a photo business with gallery access and sales; Squarespace for project-led presentation. The best choice depends on your workflow and the exact paid plan.
Portfolio + proofing workflow
Format documents private client galleries, image favoriting, download-size controls and watermarks in its Workflow product. Its Lightroom publisher can create and update galleries. Check which portfolio and Workflow allowances your intended plan includes.
Official client-gallery capabilities · Current plans
Trial question: can a client select favorites and receive the approved image size without extra email?
Website + configurable delivery
Website and Client Gallery have distinct default domains; an upgraded product or Suite plan is required for a custom domain. Gallery settings separately control full-gallery and single-image downloads, PINs and web or high-resolution sizes. Check the product-specific plan, rather than assuming Website includes every delivery capability.
Domains · Download controls · Plans
Trial question: do your public site and private gallery use the domain setup and download permissions you expect?
Photo galleries + sales workflow
SmugMug lists password-protected galleries, client selections, digital and print sales, no-code website building and Lightroom integration. Confirm which current plan supplies your exact sales and client-management features, along with fulfillment terms and fees.
Official features · Current plans
Trial question: can you reproduce one private selection and one actual product sale with the intended plan?
Project-led public presentation
Squarespace documents portfolio pages, gallery sections and image blocks as ways to present work. That makes it a reasonable candidate for a portfolio built around projects and narrative. The cited portfolio guidance does not establish a dedicated favorite-and-deliver proofing workflow; demonstrate that requirement separately before purchasing.
Official portfolio guide · Current plans
Trial question: can you present an entire project clearly on a phone and provide your actual delivery workflow?
Build an ordered web gallery with captions and alt text. Resize images locally and export a ZIP containing real JPEGs, a portable HTML gallery and a matching JSON manifest. No account or vendor API is involved.
Load the demo or add your images. Files remain in this browser tab.
The demo is three original generated landscape illustrations, not commercial photographs. Processing uses native Canvas JPEG encoding; fflate 0.8.2 creates the actual ZIP. JPEG output removes transparency and does not preserve EXIF metadata. White is the transparent background. No upscaling. Not RAW/HEIC support, print masters, color-managed retouching or a platform migration service. Large images need browser memory; process a small batch first.
Image bytes are held in memory, never uploaded by this tool or saved across reloads. Reset releases previews and prepared files. Reordering or editing text updates the export immediately; changing resize settings marks prepared images out of date.
A public portfolio persuades. A client gallery delivers. Sometimes one service does both, but the permission and download details matter as much as the template.
Use images you own and a realistic client task: view the project on mobile, leave selections, retrieve one web image and receive final files. Keep a separate offline master archive. A polished trial homepage does not prove your delivery process.
Record the product and tier, monthly versus annual billing, renewal cost, storage and gallery limits, domain registration, transaction/fulfillment fees and any add-on. This guide does not quote unverified prices or calculate savings from invented vendor fees. Obtain the actual quote and test your required capabilities.
Export your original files and project text first. List existing public URLs and shared client links, then ask the intended vendor how redirects, custom domains and private gallery links work. This preparation tool creates a new portable gallery; it does not export accounts, orders, passwords or vendor-specific metadata.
Use a private browser session and a phone. Check gallery passwords separately from download permissions. Watermarks and right-click restrictions are deterrents, not guarantees against copying a displayed image. Obtain client consent for public portfolio use.
Start with the client-delivery requirements you actually need: private access, favorite selections, full-gallery downloads and any print sales. Pixieset, Format and SmugMug document relevant gallery capabilities, but the intended plan and client experience still need a trial.
No. The ZIP is a portable local HTML gallery, resized JPEGs and a JSON manifest. You can review it locally and adapt it for your host. It neither signs into a platform nor makes anything public.
No. The longest edge and JPEG quality are editable preparation choices. Use the vendor's current upload guidance and review image quality. Never replace your originals with these web derivatives.
No ranking improvement is guaranteed. Keep useful public project text, descriptive captions and stable URLs; inspect what can actually be crawled. A private gallery is not a public portfolio page.