If you are a photographer, where do you save your shots? Maybe in a hard disk or a different online storage platform. If you save your photos on a hard disk or other online platforms, how do you share those photos? Perhaps you are sharing on your social platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, or any photo-sharing website like Pixels, Pixabay, etc. But there is a very good platform for you, where you can find these facilities in one place. And that’s SmugMug.
SmugMug is a premium platform, where you can store your photography portraits, share those with people, and most importantly you can make money by selling those photos and videos online.
In this review article, we will see SmugMug review, and see how it works, what its features are, how much it costs. Before going to the SmugMug review, see the table of contents below. This will help you understand the platform properly.
Table of contents
What is SmugMug?
SmugMug is an image hosting service that helps photographers to store photos & videos, share those photos & videos with everyone through a website, and earn money online by selling these photos & videos.
If you are a photographer, then this place is a safe and secure place for you to grow your professional photography passion. Because it is a 19-year-old platform, which has been providing safe storage and money-making sales platform to its users.
To get a better understanding of SmugMug, let’s take a look at its history.
History of SmugMug
SmugMug was founded on 3 November 2002, by Don MacAskill and his father Chris MacAskill. At that time, they did not have much capital to start it. They started it from their home. But now they have a total of 28 people working in five countries.
You must have heard the name of Flickr. On 20 April 2018, SmugMug acquired Flickr from Oath Inc. Since 2002, SmugMug is one of the world’s leading independent photo-sharing sites.
What features are SmugMug offering?
You will find the 3 most important services in SmugMug.
- Photo Storage
- Photo Sharing
- Photo Selling
How much storage you will get in SmugMug?
Where do you save your photos? There will be a hard disk or there will be an online storage platform. But are they safe? Can you store unlimited photos & videos?
Once your hard disk exceeded the storage limit, what will you do? You will need to buy a new hard disk. In an online storage platform, you have to buy additional storage.
But SmugMug provides you unlimited storage facility. You can store your original image without compressing any size. It’s a secure, reliable place to store your photos & videos.
How can you share your photography with the help of SmugMug?
Where do you share your photos and videos? Maybe you are sharing on your social media. Beyond social media, you have to make your online presence a professional.
Nowadays websites are very popular on the internet. Big companies are using websites to sell their products and services. You can also share your photos and videos with everyone on the internet by creating a beautiful website with the help of SmugMug.
Keeping the professional photographer in mind, SmugMug provides handy features like beautiful website templates, drag and drop customization, password-protected galleries, image organizing tools. SmugMug helps photographers to create their own professional photo websites.
Without any prior knowledge, you can create your own professional website and share your photos & videos with everyone.
How can you make money with the help of SmugMug?
As I told you earlier, that you can store your photos and videos on SmugMug, and you can present your photography to the world by creating a beautiful website. With the selling tools of SmugMug, you can earn money by selling your photos & videos online.
You can convert your photography passion into a professional business with the help of SmugMug.
SmugMug is associated with the world’s finest print labs to keep beautiful photos in one frame. You can provide the facility to print your photos in different sizes and different frames for your visitors. It also has the facility of digital downloads. With the help of which you can license your photos for commercial works at a specific cost.
There are very outstanding all-in-one sales tools available on SmugMug. It takes care of everything from payment and order fulfillment to delivery of your business.
Detailed information on available tools & features on SmugMug
Photo Storage
You will get the below facilities for storing your photos & videos.
Unlimited cloud storage: You can store unlimited photos & videos without any hassle.
Automatic upload: You can upload your photos directly from your mobile device or computer with the help of its apps.
Save original photos without any compression: You can save your full-resolution photos without losing any size.
Save your biggest photo files: You can upload a single image file up to 150 MB.
Keep your photos organized: With the help of SmugMug’s easy organization feature, you can organize and share your photos with your visitors, the way you want to show your images.
Photo Sharing
You will get many tools & features to make a professional website.
Photo Website Builder
You can customize your photography website with the help of SmugMug’s website builder and its easy-to-use tools.
What are those easy-to-use tools?
Professional-looking website templates: You will find beautiful & professional-looking web templates to design your website.
Custom domain: You will get a custom domain name you make your own URL. You can choose a custom domain name according to your interest.
SEO optimized tools: You can make findable your files for your visitors and search engines by adding titles, descriptions, and keywords to your photos.
Drag-and-drop tool: You can customize your website’s design with the help of SmugMug’s easy drag-and-drop tools.
HTML and CSS customization tool: If you have any knowledge about HTML and CSS, then you can build a website you are dreaming of.
Photo Security
You will get many security features from SmugMug to secure your stored photography.
What type of protection you will get to secure your photos?
Photo privacy control: You cannot show all your stored photos to everyone. You can secure every photo with SmugMug’s detailed privacy settings. You can apply photo privacy settings to any gallery, page, or folder on your SmugMug site. You can also add a layer of photo privacy by choosing password protections or granting access only to specific people.
Watermark Protection: You can put a watermark on your photos so that the visitor knows that all the shared photos and videos belong to you. You can license your photos for commercial work at a specific cost.
Right-click protection: If someone wants to use your images by right-clicking without your consent, then with the help of this right-click protection, you can secure your photography.
Data privacy: Sometimes the question may come to your mind that is your data safe in SmugMug? SmugMug says that it will never share or sell your data, photos, or information with anyone.
Photo Selling
SmugMug is a platform where you can earn money by selling your photos online. Here you will find many sales tools as below:
Client-friendly tool: There are many client-friendly tools available on SmugMug like favorite galleries, private galleries, and personal event sites, etc. With the help of these tools, you can show your photos to your visitors and convert them to your customer.
All-in-one sales tools: If you are starting an online selling business, you need to use different tools for receiving orders, delivering the product, and receiving payments. But with the help of the all-in-one sales tool available in SmugMug, you can easily sell your photos. They take care of everything from payment and order fulfillment to delivery of your business.
Top-quality print partners: SmugMug partners with the world’s best print labs. With the help of these labs, you can easily print your photos.
Pricelist tool: You can set your own price easily with the help of the price list tool in one place. You can apply all your prices in multiple galleries or you can make a custom list for each gallery or client.
Make a Brand asset for yourself: You can make a custom logo sticker to add thank you cards to your order. It will help you to build a brand name for yourself.
Adobe Lightroom Integration: Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing tool. With the help of this tool, you can edit your photos. In SmugMug, you will get Adobe Lightroom facility to edit your uploaded photos.
Catalog
You will find many product catalogs here, with the help of which you can print and sell your photos.
Wall art print: You will find different types of wall art materials of different sizes here. With the help of these materials, you can print and sell your photos by decorating them with different sizes and different materials.
Paper prints: SmugMug offers a variety of finishes and sizes, from small to super-sized paper prints. You can take a print of your favorite photos and share them with your closest one.
Keepsakes: You can turn your photos into fun and fantastic gifts with the help of this tool.
Books and album cover: You can keep your favorite shots memorable by creating 8 to 50-page books and album covers.
Digital downloads: With the help of digital downloads, you can license your photos for commercial works at a specific cost.
SmugMug Price
SmugMug is not a free platform. It’s a premium image hosting platform. It has 4 different plans.
- Basic plan: $7 monthly, $55 per year
- Power plan: $11 monthly, $85 per year
- Portfolio plan: $27 monthly, $200 per year
- Pro plan: $42 monthly, $360 per year
Basic plan
If you choose the basic plan, you will have to pay $7 per month. If you want to pay annually, you will get a 35% discount. You only have to pay $55 per year.
What facilities will you get in this plan?
- Unlimited photo and video storage
- Zero image compression
- Automatic backup from any SmugMug app
- A professional photo website
- SEO tools
- Drag and drop customization
- Built-in stats and analytics
- Prints and gifts from top print labs
- Photo organizing tool
- Bulk image management tool
- Adobe Lightroom editing tool
- Privacy controls for photos
- Password protection for photos, galleries, and pages
- 24/7 Customer care support
Power Plan
This plan comes with $11 per month. If you pay annually, you will get a discount of 36% and you have to pay just $85 annually.
What facilities will you get in this plan?
You will get all basic plan features & some additional features.
- All features of the Basic plan
- 20+ premade design templates
- Custom font and color themes
- HTML and CSS customization
- Your own domain name
- Right-click protections
Portfolio plan
If you choose the portfolio plan, you will have to pay $27 per month. If you want to pay annually, you will get a discount of 38%. You have to pay only $200 per year.
What facilities will you get in this plan?
In this plan, you will get all the features of the power plan, and some important additional features will also be available.
- All features of the Power plan
- Sales of 1,000+ prints, products
- Digital downloads facility
- Fully integrated order fulfillment
- Collect profits via EFT or Paypal
- Custom shopping cart, backprinting, and print marks
- Watermark protection
Pro plan
In this plan, you will get all the features of SmugMug. For this plan, you have to pay $42 per month. If you want to pay annually, you will get a discount of 29%. You have to pay only $360 per year.
What facilities will you get in this plan?
In this plan, you will get all the features of the portfolio plan and some additional important features.
- All the features of the portfolio plan
- Pricelists per gallery or image
- Client management tools
- Marketing promotions, coupons, and packages
- Branded thank-you cards, and stickers
You can try SmugMug for 14 days as a free trial.
Conclusion: If you are looking for an online storage platform to store your photos and videos, then SmugMug is the best platform for you. Here you can easily store your photos & videos, you can share those on a professional website and make money online with the selling tools. So what are you waiting for? Change your photography passion to your professional business.
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