CRM platforms simplify managing a photography business. They give business owners more time to focus on their creative process rather than technicalities. Above all, streamlining your business with a CRM for photographers will save you hours by automating leads, workflows, and scheduling. There are several options for photographers and creatives to choose from–so many that it can be overwhelming to begin. We thoroughly researched and analyzed several platforms to help you decide what software is best for your business. (There are affiliate links in this article that will give you discounts on the CRMs, but any of them will be perfect for you. We only recommend the best in the business.)
The Best CRM for Photographers for 2023
17hats
Over 25,000 small business owners use 17 hats: freelancers, creatives, DJs, writers, bookkeepers, coaches, photographers, dog trainers, virtual assistants, and more. 17hats markets itself as an all-in-one platform for small businesses, offering online scheduling, auto lead response, online payments, invoices, quotes, payment plans, fully integrated CRM, email templates, and lead capture forms. Every small business owner understands the importance of leads, and 17hats ensures leads are at the forefront of the platform.
They offer the installation of a Lead Capture Form on your website and social media accounts and an automated response to each lead submitted. They have a separate section where you can view your leads, have clients book appointments, and pay in one smooth transaction. The software will store reusable templates and electronically send contracts. Your calendar auto-populates when clients book a meeting or an event, and you can add reminders through their customized to-do lists. For recurring clients, you can automate tasks, so you never miss a thing.
Features
Not only does 17hats make your business more straightforward for you, but they also make working with you simpler for your clients by sending electronic quotes, utilizing electronic questionnaires, and sending automatic reminders about past-due documents. Each client has access to their own portal. Integrated online scheduling eliminates phone-tag and creates an efficient way to manage your schedule. The platform allows leads and clients to see your availability, reserve a date and time, make a Zoom link and allow clients to pay when they book.
This CRM for photographers understands the importance of branding in a small business. Users can customize the URL of invoices and contracts, change the fonts and colors, and add a custom logo for client portals, documents, and online scheduling. We use 17hats for our photography business and love the simplicity and personalization of the software.
In addition, 17hats integrates seamlessly with most payment methods. Each quote, contract, and invoice are combined into one document for accessibility. Clients can pay invoices online, and the software even offers payment schedules. They automate recurring invoices and bills, allowing you to choose weekly, monthly, or annual billing. 17hats includes a sales tax report, and a client sales report that details the total amount each client has paid, a product sales report, and a profit/loss report. Their prices range from $15 a month to $60 a month. They offer a free trial for your first three projects.
Dubsado
Dubsado was created to answer the question: can [software management] be better? Dubsado’s platform is similar to 17hats but focuses on making your business easier to manage. They prioritize communication, scheduling, organization, management, and ensuring you get paid. Like 17hats, this CRM for photographers offers customizable form templates, online invoices, automation, online schedule, streamlined workflows that can process a new lead to payment, proposals, client portals, and customized branding.
Dubsado cares so much about supporting the businesses they service that they created a Customer Success team that educates, encourages, assists, and advises your business so that even if you run your business by yourself, “you’ll never be alone.”
Features
Dubsado is an excellent platform for small business owners with multiple brands, but it will cost an extra $10 per month per additional brand. Dubsado is also great for small businesses with multiple users. The first three users are complimentary, although you can pay more for more users. This CRM for photographers continuously expands its software ecosystem and committs to “being a platform that never stops growing.” Unlike 17hats, Dubsado integrates Quickbooks, Xero, Zapier, and Cloudspot. They also connect with video conferencing apps, email providers, and calendar apps.
Pricing
Their prices range from a starter plan for $20 a month to a premier plan for $40 a month, but only the premier plan offers automation. They also provide annual payments for $200 and $400, which will save you over 15% a month. Dubsado meets you where you are at in your business: the starter plan is best for businesses just starting out, while the premier plan is for businesses that need to streamline their process. Dubsado has no time limit for your free trial, but like 17hats, they only let you add three clients. They do not limit their free trial because “it’s important [to them] that you feel comfortable getting to know Dubsado.” They include both starter and premier features in their trial.
Tavé
Tave is a software built specifically for photographers to help them organize, optimize and automate complete workflows. The software includes contact forms that work on any website so that leads can be generated by client interest. If a lead meets your qualifications, Tave automatically sends a request to book a phone consultation. Once the contract is signed, the lead turns into a client, and the client receives an invoice to lock in the date through prompt payment. Their client portal includes quotes, questionnaires, contracts, and invoices so business owners can quickly locate their documents. Built-in contracts and templates allow for easy onboarding for new clients with multiple quotes and optimal add-ins.
Features
Tave created questionnaires to strengthen client relations and easily collect information. Tave also offers to set up customer accounts if they need assistance. Their Pro Services Team will migrate your data from another platform for $2 per job and provide a full Pro Services Account Setup with one-on-one training for $199. They customize the account to your business, set up job types and workflows, and move all of your previous templates and client data into Tave. This CRM for photographers has a 100-job limit. Finally, they will train you how to use the software to ensure efficiency and understanding.
Pricing
They have a gallery of complete workflows to choose from created by industry professionals. Lead and job reports monitor leads, conversion rates, and product sales. Understanding which leads contribute the most to your business allows you to focus on how and where you market your services. They estimate that an hour and forty-five minutes are saved during a standard workflow. Tave offers three plans for their software.
The Solo plan includes access to all features, unlimited support, two users, and one brand for $21.99 per month. The Boutique plan includes everything in the Solo plan but allows six users and four brands for $29.99 per month. Their most extensive plan, the Studio plan, includes everything in the Boutique plan but allows unlimited brands and ten users for $43.99 a month. Each user added after ten will cost $4.99 per additional user. Tave offers a 30-day free trial.
Honeybook
Over 100,000 independent businesses use Honeybook to manage their day-to-day obligations. With this CRM for photographers, you can easily create and send invoices to ensure you get paid, send contracts, book appointments and meetings online, and automate replies, follow-ups, and tasks. Payment can be processed online, and autopay is available to keep clients on track. HoneyBook prioritizes your clients’ experience and your business experience on the platform. They divide the platform’s goals into three groups: to save time, delight your clients, and keep you organized. They want clients to choose services, sign contracts and send payments easily while giving you more time to focus on creativity and innovation rather than managing your business. Customizable and interactive proposals integrated with your branding make for a simple business.
Features
Rather than creating new tools, Honeybook integrates its software with platforms you already use as a business owner: Quickbooks, Zoom, your email, and more. By arranging workflows and cash flows on the same page, you can easily track your progress and numbers at a glance. They track your income, expenses, success rate, and bookings. The HoneyBook app allows you to access your business anywhere and sends notifications to your phone when you receive new inquiries, signed contracts, or payments. HoneyBook members get paid ten days faster. Once a contract is signed, the client will automatically receive any necessary files or emails.
When scheduling on this CRM for photographers, you can apply different session types to ensure clients are booking you for the appropriate amount of time. Users will have a branded and cohesive experience–all on one platform–from inquiry to payment. You can remove availability for both days and times and add time buffers before and after a session to ensure you have time to prepare.
Unlike other platforms, they offer many resources and free tools for customers, including a live chat feature, a pros marketplace, free account migration, webinars, a blog, an invoice generator, a business personality test, product education, and more. The Rising Tide is a free monthly guide that assists businesses in selling their service, creating effective email marketing, and helping you plan your business for the upcoming months.
Pricing
Their referral program allows you to give friends 20% off their first year and gives you up to $200 off for each client who joins–with unlimited invites. They guarantee they have everything your business needs, and their customers would agree: 93% of members would recommend the software to a friend. Honeybook offers a “free” trial that costs $1 monthly for six months with the code “rokeeandco” at checkout.
Studio Ninja
Studio Ninja advertises itself as the world’s highest-rated studio management software “built for photographers, by photographers.” According to the founders, life is simply too short for administration. The Melbourne-made platform was designed to be simple. Targeted toward busy photographers, the platform is user-friendly and can quickly be set up in 30 minutes. Since it launched, this CRM for photographers has worked with over 20,000 photographers. Studio Ninja keeps track of all your clients, jobs, invoices, contracts, and workflows.
Features
New features are released every month to all subscribers. They migrate data for free and offer 1-on-1 demonstrations with their experts. All data is cloud-based and secured on Amazon Web Services. They send follow-ups to clients. This platform is excellent for photographers with clients in different countries, as they are multilingual and allow you to choose which language for each shoot. Like HoneyBook and Dubsado, you can connect Studio Ninja to a variety of commonly used business apps like Xero, Quickbooks, Gmail, Pic-Time, Fundy, Shootproof, Google Calendar, Stripe, and Paypal.
Partnerships
This CRM for photographers most prominent feature lies in its partnerships. Each Studio Ninja subscriber has exclusive access to each partner’s features and benefits. Flothemes offers WordPress themes for photographers, while Freedom Edits is a community for outsourcing image editing. Narrative software allows photographers to cull images with AI power and create blogs in minutes. Swift Galleries is an in-person sales and wall art design tool. Archipelago Lightroom Presets offers optimal customization. Subscribers also have access to Photo Biz XPosed interviews by Andrew Hellmich with the world’s premier wedding and portrait photographers. The NINJACAST Podcast features successful photographers who will help you build your brand, discover marketing strategies, and improve your workflows.
Pricing
Everything they do puts the user in the center: they add suggestions and industry friends into an ideas pool. Then, they analyze patterns in the suggestions, weigh the feature’s capability, create a plan to integrate the feature over the next year, design the feature, utilize user and beta testing, refine the feature, and engineer the product before releasing it to subscribers.
This CRM for photographers also has very flexible payment plans, allowing clients to pay as they go or pay annually and get two months free. Studio Ninja offers a Pro package and a Master package. The Pro package is designed for one company, allows three contact forms, and has unlimited features for $249 a year or $24.90 monthly. The Master package is for larger businesses: they can have up to three companies, unlimited contact forms, and unlimited features for $365 a year or $36.50 a month. They also offer a 30-day free trial.
Sprout Studio
Sprout Studio is another photography-based platform made by photographers. This CRM for photographers’ strives to make you more money, have happier clients, get organized, look great, and save time. The platform focuses heavily on business: they believe that running a successful photography business is 80% business and 20% photography. Users, or “sprouters” as the company calls them, make double the money of the average photographer and save 28 hours a month, more than hours saved on other software systems. Clients self-book their sessions by choosing their package, signing an automated contract, selecting their date and time, and fulfilling payment at the time of booking. You can build different price lists and quotes to offer to your clients.
Features
Users can create the option to select different session types based on the type of photography requested–a tool that benefits you and your clients. Acceptable payment methods include Stripe, Square, Paypal, and manual payment methods like e-transfers, cash, or checks. Each client has its own client portal where they can view their galleries, invoices, questionnaires, and contracts. Design Proofs allow clients to provide feedback on books, album designs, and photos. You can also send invitations to clients to book appointments. Sprout Studio caters to your business, including branding and colors on each page. You can send bulk emails at once or create an email drip campaign with scattered messages. You can even import CSVs, build sign-up forms, and apply workflows to your leads and shoots.
Sprout Studio’s magic lies in the online galleries they create for each client, which include automatic watermarks, digital downloads, lab fulfillment, 3D visualizers, custom themes, slideshows, and album proofing. Photographers have complete control of the galleries–down to the cover of what the client sees when they open it. Clients’ galleries can be auto-submitted to a lab to create physical copies without extra work. They even have an online shop that automatically ships your orders to your clients. Clients can get credit for prints and products they have already purchased.
This CRM for photographers also helps you quickly transition your current leads and sessions if you already use a CRM system. They created the Sprout Studio Concierge Service to transition your clients, contacts, shoots, orders, invoices, leads, and previous payments to Sprout. Depending on what you want the Sprout team to migrate, it can cost anywhere from $99 to $499. You also have the option to migrate your data on your own.
Education
Sprout Studio has an extensive list of reports and analytical charts to help you understand your business: business health, sales analytics, booking trend performance, analytics, contact analytics, income report, sales report, accounts receivable, expense report, mileage report, general ledger, and a sales tax report. The software comes with a Sprout Assistant that helps you manage your clients. The founders describe it as “having a full-time studio manager whose job is to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.”
They also offer pricing calculators for wedding albums, newborn sessions, 8×10 prints, and a growth potential indicator score to determine how much to charge or if an opportunity is worth exploring. Sprout Studio is the only platform to offer a free “course” for clients–appropriately titled Sprout School. According to their data, Sprout Studio users who finish Sprout school in under ten days are 5x more likely to find success. The course includes modules, lessons, and checklists.
Pricing
This CRM for photographers is the only platform to have an entire page dedicated to a side-by-side comparison of Sprout Studio versus other CRM alternatives. Compare CRMs such as Bloom, 17hats, Dubsado, HoneyBook, táve, ShootQ, and Pixifi. This chart is helpful for anyone researching what software to choose for their business. They also compare their own four different plans side-by-side.
The Lite Plan–created for new businesses–costs $17 per month and includes CRM, galleries, email marketing, and scheduling. It can hold up to 10 active shoots and galleries, three users, two brands, and 50 GB of photo storage.
The Basic Plan costs $34 per month and includes CRM, galleries, email marketing, and scheduling. It can hold up to 20 active shoots and galleries, three users, two brands, and 100 GB of photo storage.
The Pro Plan features an all-inclusive package for $49 per month that includes everything in the Basic Plan, plus design proofs, virtual IPS, a template library, unlimited active shoots and galleries, 2X photo storage, three users, and two brands.
Finally, large teams should use the Studio Plan. It includes everything in the Pro plan, 3X photo storage, and unlimited users and brands. For each plan, you have access to all archived shoots. They offer a 21-day free trial for each plan.
Picsello
Picsello is a brand-new platform made by photographers to help you maintain a sustainable and growing business. This CRM for photographers creates a solution to the many confusing and non-integrated CRM platforms. Above all, Picsello’s design strives to be user-friendly but still able to manage your invoices, pricing, marketing, selling, and upselling.
Features
Nothing is more valuable than your time, and Picsello wants you to make the most of yours. Built with a “mobile-first” design, their mobile app allows you to run your business from wherever you are located. The Picsello Studio Manager includes prewritten emails, simple booking, invoicing, and contracts. You can send marketing emails to your clients and share content on social media from one system. They create galleries for each client and include digital upsells to allow clients to access their photos quickly.
Picsello wants you to succeed as a photographer. They spent three years analyzing pricing worldwide to create a “Smart Profit Calculator.” This software combines the most significant components of your business with your individual information to create fair but reasonable pricing. Picsello also offers “Business Coaches” that provide types and advice from professionals. They have several resources available to download: pre-shoot checklists, how to make profitable mini sessions, and an e-book detailing how to start a photography business.
Let Us Know Which CRM For Photographers You Choose!
The creation of CRM platforms was a game-changer for business owners of any kind. But they have been particularly beneficial to photographers. From easy booking to simple payment to easy access for clients to view their photos, these platforms will allow you to focus on what photographers are best at: documenting once-in-a-lifetime moments through photography. So, check out the CRM for photographers today and let us know which one is your favorite!
If you’re looking for more helpful resources, check out our SEO blogging and refresh services! Additionally, head over to our coaching page to see how we turned our business into a 6-figure business within a year.
CRM For Photographers Discount Codes
Skipped to the end to find the discounts? We don’t blame you.
- 17Hats: Get 50% off your subscription plan!
- Dubsado: Get 20% off your first month or year!
- Honeybook: Get 50% off your first year!
- Sprout Studio: Get 20% off your first month or year!
For more helpful blogs, check out the links below!
