Since I don't want to badmouth a good company, I will just say that I am with one of these, and thinking about going to the other. I do have the paid, Professional account. I would like to know if anyone here was with one and went with the other, if so which do you like? No long explanation neccesary, just a quick reply as to which you like. I do mostly sports, part time, and only upload 1000 pictures a month or so.
If you have not been with both companies, please do not reply.
We have been using PhotoReflect for over 2 years and have been very happy with them. I like their model best:
- no fees until you sell something, then 18% of the transaction.
It was a little difficult to set up at first, but I think they now have people who walk you through the process to make sure it is done right. With unlimited uploads, unlimited catalogs and you can even have as many sites as you want, I think it is a win-win.
I never bother checking the other sites because I know they all want $$ up front, monthly or yearly and none of them have been around as long. As a result, I can't really comment on the others.
Every company has it's good and bad. You have to make the most of what they are offering and take advantage as far as you can go with it.
I'm looking at digilabs to do this for me. It's $150 up front then 17% of transactions, or I think I can pay $40 p/m with no 17%.
They do prints, albums, wallets and they also can provide branded presentation boxes which I like the sound of. I called them up before and asked tham a few questions about cropping etc and they handle everything like resizing, cropping (so an 8x12 into an 8x10) and she told me that if they can't get a decent crop they'll make it the bigger size for free. Sounds cool.
I have looked at PhotoReflect, but stay with SmugMug for a couple reasons.
1. You have the opportunity to fully customize your site using HTML and scripting.
2. I upload to my SmugMug site directly from Lightroom. Since I have moved 90% of my post processing from PS to LR, it saves me huge amounts of time.
That does not mean I think SmugMug is perfect. They continue to have more server downtime than I like, and they still don't have a system for offering customers a discount on purchases.
To get the most out of PhotoReflect, you really need their Darkroom software. There is a free version, but the Pro version is $1400....ouch.
