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Self-Hosting for Photographers: Portfolio and Client Delivery

Photographers pay hundreds for portfolio hosting and client delivery. Self-host your portfolio, proofing galleries, and file delivery.

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The Photography SaaS Tax


  • Pixieset: $15-40/month
  • SmugMug: $13-42/month
  • ShootProof: $10-40/month
  • Pic-Time: $20-50/month
  • Zenfolio: $7-30/month

    • Plus cloud storage for RAW files:

  • Adobe CC: $10-55/month
  • Google One: $3-10/month

    • A working photographer easily spends $50-100/month on hosting and delivery.


    Self-Hosted Alternatives


    Portfolio: Ghost or WordPress

    Beautiful, fast portfolio site with blogging for SEO.

  • Customize completely
  • Optimize images yourself (no vendor compression)
  • Own your SEO

    • Gallery/Proofing: Piwigo or Lychee

    Self-hosted photo management with client-facing galleries.

  • Piwigo: Full-featured, plugin ecosystem, client proofing
  • Lychee: Beautiful, modern, simpler

    • File Delivery: Nextcloud

    Share large files with clients. Password-protected links, expiration dates, download tracking.


    RAW Storage: Nextcloud or MinIO

    Store RAW files on your own server. No recurring per-GB fees.


    Photo Editing: Immich

    Google Photos alternative. Auto-organize, face detection, timeline view.


    Cost Comparison


    SaaS Stack

    Pixieset + Google One + Adobe CC = $50-100/month = $600-1,200/year


    Self-Hosted Stack

    TinyPod server: $5/month = $60/year

    Run portfolio + gallery + file sharing + storage on one server.


    Savings: **$540-1,140/year**


    Storage Considerations


    Photographers need lots of storage. A wedding shoot produces 30-100 GB of RAW files.


    Strategy

  • Hot storage (SSD): Current projects and portfolio images
  • Cold storage: Completed projects archived on cheap storage
  • Offsite backup: Encrypted backups to Backblaze B2 ($0.005/GB/month)

    • 100 TB on Backblaze B2: $500/year

    100 TB on Google Drive: $600/year (Google Workspace)


    Both are reasonable for serious photographers.


    Getting Started


    1. Deploy Ghost for your portfolio on TinyPod

    2. Add Piwigo for client galleries

    3. Set up Nextcloud for file delivery

    4. Configure domain: portfolio.yourname.com, gallery.yourname.com

    5. Migrate existing portfolio content

    6. Share gallery links with next client

    7. Cancel old subscriptions as you're comfortable

    Self-Hosting for Photographers | TinyPod | TinyPod