10 Reasons for Zenfolio Account
Thanks to all those who visited my new portfolio I set up at Zenfolio. Here is why I decided to set up my account there versus so many other services that offer similar setup.
- They use Mpix.com as their (in other words, mine) printing lab, which mean high quality prints.
- They let you keep most of the profit, withholding just the cost of the print and 12% as a service fee, so you get as much as 70-80% of what your customer pays.
- You can get paid any time you want, no matter how much or how little earnings you have in your account.
- They have by far the best formula of how you can price your prints. It's very flexible.
- I love how the images are presented and the ability to modify the look of your web-site, including removal of all Zenfolio logos.
- They are constantly adding features and expanding their web-site.
- You can see all kinds of stats about the activity on your account.
- You can get a 2-week trial of all their services.
- I don't see a whole lot of people complaining about Zenfolio.
- Did I already mention the quality of their prints?
7 comments:
I liked Zenfolio when I was shopping around for a place to sell prints but I found that for my needs instaproofs .com was the way to go. But I mostly do portraits now. If I was any good at landscape work, like you are, I'd for sure go with Zenfolio. :)
I was very close to signing up with SmugMug, but I decided I really wanted to stick with mPix so I followed Ivan over to Zenfolio.
12% doesn't seem like much, but when I see my orders loosing $50 at a whack plus the $100 yearly fee, I start feeling a little greedy. I suppose there is a lot of value in being shielded from the complexity (and fees) of merchant accounts and the like. I'm just cheap!
Anyway I hope Zenfolio lets us use our own design templates soon, but so far I'm content to have a place to sell to my clients.
Thanks for your comment Ryan. It looks like a good platform for portraits.
mojophotoco
Thanks for your comment as well. I agree with you - it's nice that you get to keep most of the profit and it's available to you.
Thansk for this article!
I am still torn between between Smugmug and Zenfolio. I am currently trying both trial accounts but the main reason I am inclined to stay with Zenfolio is because of Mpix which I like a lot. Please, anybody give me a reason not to go with Smugmug!
You said that you didn't like ImageKind because you were hoping to gain new clients by having your photography for sale there. Does Zenfolio promote your work more, or was it more you didn't expect the same thing from them?
Thanks!
Kayla
Dawn -
You still have to do your own promoting, no matter what. The best site for promotion is Flickr because this is where thousands of companies to go every day looking for photos and that is still how I sell or license 9 out of 10 of my photos.
Zenfolio is simply a more user friendly site, looks better and is constantly changing and improving, whereas Imagekind has not changed at all in at least the past 2 years.
Well now i really dont know what to do. Stick with Zenfolio or pay for Imagekind. zenfolio or imagekind zenfolio or imagekind zenfolio or imagekind AAARRRGGH!!!
Ok im calm now... let me explain.
I went with Zenfolio because of all the photo sites out there i could upload just low res jpgs of my images ie they didnt have to be the full print ready completely retouched high res versions that so many other sites require aka imagekind et al. When you still have to use slide film like me (cant afford "proper" digital camera) the amount of time it takes to retouch images and colour correct them is unbelievable. So it was like a dream come true when i came across zenfolio and saw that i could just have the images passable for viewing on screen while i worked on the finished versions. BUT and it is a big BUT it starts getting very messy when it comes to worldwide delivery. Mpix do not deliver worldwide, US and Canada only. At first i wasnt to upset but now im a bit more annoyed about it.
What zenfolio now offer is you can have prints made by photobox who deliver (based on their partnership with zenfolio) outside the US and Canada (which is reserved for Mpix).
The problem here is you get two different types of products. Mpix prints on Kodak Endura, plus you get it framed and photobox prints on fuji crystal archive (to my mind inferior paper) and NO framing!
Now to me it feels like the rest of the world gets treated inferiorly.
Plus its a bit of a mess having to set up all this in the shopping cart. Why cant Mpix deliver worlwide??? It would be so much simpler and perfect!
Also with Zenfolio their SEO is not up to scratch. No alt or title tags for images and users have often complained about their images not showing up in searches outside zenfolio.
Ive recently used imagekind now still on the free version but you need to have finished print ready images on the site so ill just have to slug away with the slides but with all that you say about imaekind im still not sure what to so. At least imagekind deliver wordwide the same product which will be useful for my worldwide domination. (ha ha ha).
Anyway to see my work on both sites click the following
http://hojphotography.zenfolio.com
http://hojphotography.imagekind.com
let me know what you think,
Thanks
joseph
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