What does a client gallery platform cost?

Client gallery platforms generally price one of two ways: a subscription with a storage allowance, or a per-gallery or per-transaction fee. Entry-level plans across the category tend to sit in the low tens of dollars a month, with the price rising as storage or features do.

Rather than quote competitors' numbers, which change, here is how to work out which model costs *you* less.

The two models

Storage subscription. You pay monthly for an amount of storage and deliver as many galleries as fit. Predictable, and it rewards deleting or archiving old work. It punishes the photographer who shoots rarely but keeps everything forever, because you pay in the months you do not work.

Per gallery or per transaction. You pay when you deliver, or the platform takes a cut of print and download sales. Nothing to pay in a quiet month, which suits seasonal work. It gets expensive at volume, and a sales cut can become the largest line item if selling is a real part of your business.

The rough rule: steady volume favours a subscription; sporadic volume favours per-use. Work out your galleries per year and your total stored gigabytes before comparing anything.

The costs that are not on the pricing page

• Storage growth. The bill is not what you store now, it is what you will store in three years. Ask what happens when you exceed the allowance - overage, a forced upgrade, or a stop.
• Transaction fees on sales. A platform cut sits on top of payment processing, which is its own two to three percent.
• Your own domain. Frequently a paid tier feature.
• Removing the platform's branding. Also frequently a paid tier feature, and worth checking before you assume your galleries look like yours.
• Getting out. The one nobody checks. Find out how you export everything before you need to, because a platform you cannot leave has priced itself however it likes later.

A sensible way to compare

1. Count your galleries a year and estimate gigabytes per job.
2. Project storage three years out, not today.
3. Add the sales cut against what you actually expect to sell, not what you hope to.
4. Include the tier that gets you a custom domain and your own branding, if those matter.
5. Check the export path.

How Encore does it

Encore is a storage subscription with a free tier, and storage is the metered resource: plans differ by how much you can hold. Custom domains and removing Encore's branding are paid-tier features, which is stated on the pricing page rather than discovered at the point of need.

If your volume is genuinely sporadic, the section above about per-use pricing applies, and a subscription may be the wrong shape for you.