Smugmug and Zenfolio have been the search results for lots of photography website builders. They are popular website builders among photographers. If you ask me what makes them special among other top website builders. My answer would be they have been built specifically for photographers unlike other website builders who offer general features but maybe not be suitable for the photographers
Comparison: Zenfolio vs Smugmug
| Features | Zenfolio | Smugmug |
|---|---|---|
| Photography related domains for free |  | |
| Photography Themes | 25+ | 25+ |
| Client Proofing |  | |
| Client gallery protection | | |
| Photography Store | | |
| Photo Blog | | |
| Water Mark | | |
| Disable Download or Disable right click | | |
| Privacy Control For Client Albums | | |
| Control Image Downloadable Sizes | | |
| Photo Storage | 100GB | Unlimited Cloud storage for free |
| High-Resolution Images | Zenfolio has set 2040 pixels wide as the maximum after that image will be compressed. maximum size will be 65 MB. | You can upload images up to 50MB and Smugmug doesn’t compress them, it will be having original quality |
| Client Contracts | | it doesn’t have contracts that can be created and sent to their system, However, you can set up a Wufoo form to collect and give information you would like to share. |
| adobe Lightroom integrations | | |
| Image format | JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG. | JPG, PNG, GIF |
Ease of Use
Both Zenfolio and Smugmug provide a 14-day free trial. Zenfolio is easy to use as it just takes 2-3 steps to get started. Users can create accounts just by using a name, or email. Then it takes users through 3 steps to get started with the platform. The platform provides plenty of beautiful portfolio layouts.
Smugmug in comparison to Zenfolio might not be easy to get started. It will be easy once you get along with the platform. The platform has some good themes & gallery options but it lacks blogging and add-ons. Smugmug has made it easier for users for creating and selling prints in the niche marketplace.
Themes
| Zenfolio | Smugmug | |
| Themes | 25+ | 25+ |
| Free Themes | 25+ | 25+ |
| Mobile-Friendly | Yes | Yes |
| Theme Customization level | Good | Good |
| Prebuilt Sections | Yes | No |
Zenfolio has 25+ website templates that are compatible with mobile devices. These themes have been built well to assess all kinds of photographers like explorer, canvas, discover, portland, etc.
Zenfolio themes
Zenfolio has provided a beautiful prebuilt galley layout. This layout contains multiple types of galleries like Masonry, Grid, Stacked, Landscape, etc. Users can also create custom gallery layouts.
Zenfolio gallery layout
Smugmug has 25+ beautiful themes to choose from. As can be seen from the theme library the portfolio themes are photography oriented.
Smugmug themes
The process of creating a portfolio is easy on the Smugmug.
- Users can head over to the library section to create a gallery or to add images to the existing gallery.
- After uploading the image click on view on the site to customize settings.
Smugmug uploading images
Editor
The theme editor of Zenfolio is well organized. The site pages are easy to access and all the pages can be edited by a single editor. The Zenfolio editor has over 120+ prebuilt block elements which can be customized for various styles, alignments, etc. Some of the blocks have parallax and scroll effects features.
Zenfolio editor
Zenfolio blocks
The Smugmug theme editor has various options for theme customization. The theme editor has plenty of content blocks that can be dragged & dropped onto the editor. The theme has plenty of theme styles, colors, and layout options to customize it.
Smugmug theme editor
Selling Features
Photographers/artists will be looking to sell their art to clients. Both Zenfolio and Smugmug provide this feature. Zenfolio offers good selling features, users can sell prints, canvas, and digital arts. The User can create products and assign different pricing as per the image resolution.
Zenfolio Selling
Zenfolio has integration with some third-party printing labs. These printing labs have their own pricing plans. In the below screenshot, we have displayed a bay photo as my print lab and they offered 2 plans for fine art categories.
The users also have an option for self-fulfillment which lets them create their own price lists for clients. Zenfolio accepts payments through Stripe. It also provides shipping settings for third-party print labs, self-fulfilled orders, etc.
Smugmug lets users sell physical & digital products. Smugmug too has integration with print labs like BayPhoto, WHCC, Laxely Colour, etc. These third-party prints lab has provided price lists for various prints.
Pricelist on Smugmug
As can be seen in the screenshot below. Bayphoto lab provides various arts & prints and the charges associated with the arts.
Bayphoto prints
Pricing
| Zenfolio | Smugmug | |
| Trial period | 14 days | 14 days |
| Starting price | $6/mo | $13/mo |
| eCommerce price | $15/mo – $30/mo | $28/mo – $42/mo |
| Starting storage pricing | $1.99/mo | $3/mo |
Zenfolio has 3 plans
- Portfolio – $3(monthly plan) $6(annual plan)
- PortfolioPlus – $7.5(monthly plan) $15(annual plan)
- ProSuite – $15(monthly plan) $30(annual plan)
Zenfolio Pricing
Zenfolio provides a storage capacity of up to 100GB. If users want more storage then there are storage upgradation plans. Apart from these storage plans, there can be extra pricing inform of add-ons, tools, etc.
Zenfolio storage plans
Smugmug too has three pricing plans
- Power – $13/mo or $110/year
- Portfolio – $28/mo or $225/year
- Pro – $42/mo or $360/year
Smugmug Pricing
Smugmug too has some storage plans if you are in need of some additional storage.
Smugmug Storage Plans
SEO & Blogging
Both Zenfolio & Smugmug has very basic SEO feature. They allow editing titles and descriptions. Zenfolio allows adding Alt-text on images Whereas Smugmug considers the image titles as Alt-text which can’t be altered later. In Zenfolio users can preview the search engine optimization & social posts right from the dashboard. Zenfolio & SmugMug themes are mobile responsive which helps in mobile SEO & Improves better user experience. They both provide a ready-made sitemap, robots.txt (can’t be edited),
Zenfolio facilitates the creation of blogs. Users can add new pages and then using 120+ prebuilt blocks users can create beautiful photo blogs. Smugmug doesn’t have a blogging facility yet.
Add-ons & Tools
Zenfolio provides some good tools
Bookme – This tool facilitates setting up the booking and offers services to clients. The bookme tool costs $0.99/month.
Photo refine – This tool helps in optimizing images using AI technology. It helps in process of Auto grouping & rating, fast culling, facial recognition, etc.
Lightroom – It provides integration with Lightroom classic. Using this feature users can upload images directly to Lightroom.
In Zenfolio users can create triggered emails based on user behaviors. Zenfolio provides pre-built templates to create email automation. If a customer favorites the gallery then prebuilt emails can be triggered for repurchasing.
Zenfolio smart pricing feature
Smugmug doesn’t have apps like Zenfolio. but it too has an integration with Lightroom classic to upload images, edits, galleries, and access clients’ photos for smooth proofing.
In Smugmug, through an email newsletter users can collect customers’ email addresses. it doesn’t provide an inbuilt email marketing tool
Smugmug has various integration with image software and services to provide special discounts. This integration includes popular image software like Pics art, adobe, flicker, etc.
Smugmug Integration
Support & Resources
| Zenfolio | Smugmug | |
| ✔ | ✔ | |
| Live chat | ✔ | ❌ |
| Phone | ✔(advanced plans) | ❌ |
Zenfolio has brilliant support & resources. Users can contact Zenfolio support 24/7 through email, live chat, and phone support which is limited to advanced plans. Users can schedule a meeting with customer success specialists. Zenfolio provides plenty of resources in the form of videos, blogs, notes, etc. Zenfolio provides plenty of setup instructions.
Smugmug Support
Smugmug provides support through email only. Smugmug’s customer success team is quick to reply to customer queries. Smugmug also has active communities where fellow users also help in solving queries.
Smugmug support
Pros and Cons : Zenfolio vs Smugmug
| Zenfolio Pros | Zenfolio Cons |
| 1. It has over 120+ website building blocks | 1. Chat & Phone support is limited to the advanced plan |
| 2. It has economic pricing | 2. There might be additional costs in form of add-ons. |
| 3. It has plenty of good tools & features | 3. Not easy to navigate & doesn’t have a search box |
| Smugmug Pros | Smugmug Cons |
| 1. Integrations with other photography services | 1. No Blogging feature. |
| 2. Themes editor has plenty of theme styles. | 2. Expensive plan as compared to Zenfolio. |
| 3. Let you sell in the photography marketplaces and ship your prints. | 3. 15% transactional charges on sale profits. |
Conclusion: Zenfolio vs Smugmug
Both platforms are good for photographers. Both platforms have almost equal and beautiful themes but Zenfolio themes look more professional and have an easy editor in comparison to the SmugMug. Zenfolio also has lower pricing as compared to Smugmug. Zenfolio has blogging options, multiple tools, and resources as compared to Smugmug. Among Zenfolio and Squarespace I would give 70% preference to Zenfolio and Smugmug 30%.
Declan Kingston mainly works around strong Data to create powerful visuals, complex graphs to make the right decision for companies. He has been working in this field for over 8 years, has a strong knowledge of eCommerce platforms and website builders. He has worked with Ethereum and Looker Data Sciences, Inc. (now part of Google Cloud).
