Menu

Our work is supported by affiliate commissions. Learn More

Our work is supported by affiliate commissions. Learn More

The Best Photography Website Builder

In this article I'll explain why I recommend two website builders above all others for photography websites and portfolios.

By Steve Benjamins

Steve Benjamins

Updated Jan 5 2024

In this post, we’re going to show you the two best website builders for building high-quality, photography portfolios.

We’ve spent the last few months researching portfolio websites and trying different website builders— so you don’t have to.

Our conclusion: Squarespace and Format are the top-2 best website builders for photographers.

Overview

Website Builders Rankings

Compare: Ecommerce

Feature Squarespace Format
Online store Yes Yes
Digital Products Yes Yes
SSL Certificate Yes Yes
Custom Email Notifications Yes — You can customize customer order emails. No — Customers receive a default order email.
Payment Processor Stripe, Paypal, Apple Pay, Square, and Afterpay Paypal ⁠— No direct credit card option
Product variations Unlimited variations 1 variation — For example: size or color but not both.
Taxes Yes — You have to manually add taxes for states and provinces. No — You can’t charge taxes to your customers.
Integrations Aftership, Delighted, Easyship, Printful, inFlow, Orderdesk, Aftership, Printique and more None
Analytics Yes No
Appointment Scheduling Yes No
Customer Accounts Yes No
Sell on Instagram Yes No
Discount Codes Yes Yes

Compare: Photo Galleries

Feature Squarespace Format
Instagram Feed Yes Yes
Disable Right Click Can be done with code injection. Yes
Automatic Watermarkers No ⁠— you can use a plugin like Powr, though. Yes ⁠— Automatically watermarks to client galleries (not website galleries though).
Focal Points Yes ⁠— Images can have a focal point that is cropped around. Useful for square thumbnails. No — You can't set an image focal point.

Compare: Client Proofing

Feature Squarespace Format
Client Gallaries No — You’ll need to use a 3rd party (Ex: Pixieset) for client galleries. Yes ⁠— Workflow is Format’s client management system.
Password Protected Pages Yes Yes

Other Features

Feature Squarespace Format
Social Media Sharing Yes Yes
Blogging Yes Yes
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Yes Yes
Bandwidth Unlimited Unlimited
Photo Storage Unlimited storage Limited - Starts from 100 GB, so nothing to worry
Upload images from Desktop Desktop, Dropbox, Lightroom, Capture One
Video hosting No Yes
Slideshow Yes Yes
Photography Tutorials No Yes
Customer Support Yes Yes

More Photography Website Builders

Squarespace and Format are our recommended photography website builders— but there are definitely other website builders worth checking out for photography:

Pricing

Feature Squarespace Format
Plans (Annual) Personal $12 / month Business $18 / month Basic Commerce $26 / month Advanced Commerce $40 / month Free Workflow Plan ⁠— only 10 client galleries Pro $15 / month Pro Plus $25 / month Premium $40 / month
Custom domain Yes Yes
Domain Name $20 / year $20 / year
Free Domain Name For 1 Year Yes ⁠— on annual plans Yes ⁠— on annual plans
Free Professional Email from Google for 1 Year Yes ⁠— except on Personal plan Yes ⁠— except on Free and Pro plans
Gmail Hosting $72 / year / email $72 / year / email

Frequently Asked Questions