The Portland Metro Photographic News

PMPN Picks SmugMug.com

PMPN is frequently asked by to suggest a photography hosting/sharing provider.  We have researched many of the current popular hosting services.  We have gone through the sign up and website creation process for several of these.

Dollar-for-dollar and feature-for-feature, SmugMug is PMPN's top pick.  Whether you're an amateur or pro photographer, SmugMug has a plan that will match your requirements.  Whether you need a simple website to share images with family and friends or you need a full-blown, full-featured customized website to sell your pictures on-line, SmugMug has a plan for you.  Whether you're a novice at website creation or a seasoned HTML professional, SmugMug's site creation tools, features and plans are tailored to fit your technical comfort level.

Let's get this topic out of the way -- right now.  None of SmugMug's hosting plans contain the word FREE.  Why?  Because it cost real money to maintain a hosting service when a company provides users with a website service that contains NO ads or spam AND provides UNLIMITED file storage.  All SmugMug users pay for their sites.  The cost of the plans is determined by the degree of sophistication and features your site requires.  SmugMug does offer a trial period to give you the opportunity to take a test drive and kick the tires.

The Standard Plan

At $39.95 per year, this basic plan will serve the needs of most casual and family photographers.  Among the features of the Standard Plan include:

• Unlimited storage
• An assortment of design themes
• No ads
• Maximum single image size of 12MB
• Ability to make your site private
• Ability to embed flash slideshows in forums and blogs
• Send emails with photos included
• Allow family and friends to edit images
• Enable product sales
• Enable or disable viewer comments
• Email notifications of comments

Just about everything a soccer mom or Little League dad would want.

The Power Plan

For $20 more ($59.95 per year), serious photographers can move up to SmugMug's Power Plan.  Of course, this plan includes everything in the Standard Plan plus these additional features:

• Replace the SmugMug page header with your own
• Additional customization options
• Use your own domain name
• DVD Quality video uploads

The PRO Plan

When you're business goal is to sell your photography, SmugMug's PRO Plan is the best solution at $149.95 per year.  All the tools become available to sell your prints online with minimum hassle.  Selecting the PRO plan adds these features to the Power Plan above.

• The maximum individual image file size is increased to a more professional 24MB
• Ability to upload HD Quality video (up to 10 minute clips)
• Passwords for those assistants who help with your website
• Add custom watermarks to pictures
• Set picture selling prices
• Sell digital downloads
• A complete selling workflow (SmugMug takes the order, pays the credit card processing fee, ships the prints to your customer and provides customer support as well as real-time reporting of all sales.)
• Ability to print whatever you want on the backs of pictures

SmugMug Pro Account (click for Pro Plan Information)

SmugMug uses Bay Photo and EZ Prints to fulfill each customer order.  This is perfect for those photographers who use outside labs to print their images.  Best of all, you make 85% of every sale.

What most impressed PMPN was SmugMug's customer support.  SmugMug did NOT know PMPN was reviewing hosting services.  We looked like a typical customer.  We signed up for the free trial period, and began constructing our site.  We took time off for the holidays.  SmugMug sent us emails because our activity had stopped.  They asked if any help setting up our site.  Each time PMPN called with a question, we were immediately provided the answer.  That's refreshing.

Although SmugMug is a much larger organization than they want you to believe, they have successfully maintained that coveted "small business" customer service focus.  All of the photographic hosting services PMPN reviewed had their strong points.  But it was SmugMug that offered what we considered to be the best "one stop" shopping for the majority of the photographic community.

From a website visitor or customer's viewpoint, some ofthe most attractive, professional looking, fastest and user friendlysites we have visited are SmugMug driven.  SmugMug produces some of the fastest running flash-based sites we've seen. And the pictures are BIG.  Great for showing off your finest images.

If there's a shortcoming to SmugMug's services (in our opinion), it's the inability to accommodate selling pictures that are made by the photographer.  Photographers are limited to SmugMug's photo processing providers.  If you make your own prints, you will have to find another hosting service or develop (pardon the pun) your own website.

You won't find Danica Patrick on SmugMug's site.  But you will find a friendly service provider, with lots of creative options, and - most likely - the solution to your photo hosting needs.

Check it out for yourself!

Take the SmugMug quick tour!

FREE Trial SmugMug - The Ultimate in photo sharing