CRMs for Wedding Photographers Compared

Whether you are just starting out looking at CRMs or considering switching from the one you’re currently on, the good news is, there is a wide variety of CRMs on the market to suit all businesses, ranging in functionality, ease of use, aesthetics, and of course, price.

I’ve put together a table of how I see the major players comparing with each other in the categories I think are the most important.

What is a CRM and do I need one?

One of my biggest regrets in my wedding photography career was not getting a CRM sooner. If you are taking payments for your photography, sending quotes & contracts, and are making more than $1000 a year, I don’t think you’ll find a better return on investment than investing in a CRM.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, but it is your ticket to offloading crucial parts of your business like sending quotes, signing contracts, getting paid, scheduling appointments, and providing your couples with a client journey. A reliable CRM will handle these things far better than you can yourself and is such an easy way to free up your time and headspace if you’re currently trying to track all of these things on your own.

Which wedding photography CRM is right for me?

In our business, we get to work behind the scenes with wedding photographers from all over the world in different stages of their business, so had a unique opportunity to look into how these CRMs help and where they hinder.

No CRM is going to be perfect for everyone.

Someone starting out who is desperate for simplicity is going to have different needs to someone running a studio with 10 associate shooters.

These recommendations are my opinion only. However, that opinion has been formed on a lot of feedback from working with a lot of photographers who are invested in improving the back end of their business.

The Best Wedding Photography CRM if you are starting out

If you are legit starting your wedding photography business from scratch, and you don’t yet have a website, gallery, CRM, nothing. Looking at Pixieset makes a lot of sense. If I were starting out today, that’s where I’d go. Their integrated website builder, client galleries, online store and CRM are all designed for simplicity in mind. Their website builder in particular is reason enough to start with them, as the Flex Blocks make it super simple to put a beautiful-looking site together. I tested it out and made this website in a day: Reel Queens.

The CRM itself, while simple, is by far the most limited on this list, and you will soon grow out of it if you start doing well. Or, by that time, they will have caught up and started offering automated workflows. The absence of automated workflows is a head-scratcher for anyone offering a CRM, but I am confident Pixiest will provide this in the future.

Pixieset will allow you to begin your business without needing to invest too much time into learning and setting up different platforms so you can dive straight into generating leads.

The Best Wedding Photography CRM if you’re a solopreneur, and are using Pic-time or Pixieset for your galleries/online store

This next category, we’re looking at wedding photographers who are more established, already have a website, and are comfortably using Pic-Time or Pixieset for their client galleries and online store. So all you’re looking for is a reliable CRM that looks good, is easy to use and ideally, doesn’t cost a fortune.

I feel very confident advocating for Studio Ninja.

It’s the cheapest option on this list, packing a lot of value into that price point because it’s not trying to be everything. It’s very intuitive to use, provides great migration and 1 on 1 training for free so you’ll be set up in no time, and is one of the few CRMs that considers users with different tax situations and even languages.

Where it will start to fall short for you is if you grow a team, require more advanced automations, or if you just really need to have your galleries and CRM under one roof. I also wish they would include a template marketplace.

17Hats is another great alternative that stays in its wheelhouse and delivers a lot for the price you pay. Where it excels over Studio Ninja is in reporting and offering a template marketplace. Where I think it needs improving is in its design, both back end and client side.

The Best Wedding Photography CRM if you want everything under one roof

There is only one option, in my opinion, if you prefer to have your CRM and client galleries under one roof and you are beyond the ‘starting out’ phase.

Sprout Studio not only provides a robust CRM, client galleries, but also have an integrated print lab (that offers free shipping to the US, Canada and Europe) and has even incorporated email marketing. Quite an impressive feat.

Email marketing is probably one of the most underutilized marketing tools among wedding photographers, so if having that option as part of your package encourages you to start it, that’s a win.

I also really like their template marketplace. This is a great way to save a ton of time and not need to write those templates yourself.

Given how much is going on, I found it a little less intuitive to get started. If you’re already using Pic-time or Pixiest for your client galleries and Flodesk or Mailchimp for your email marketing and are happy with those platforms, you might prefer a CRM only option. Especially since the price clearly factors in everything you get.

The Best Wedding Photography CRM if you are running a team and have a degree in computing science

The most powerful CRM, in my opinion, is Tave. It’s automation capabilities are fantastic and it really factors in businesses who are not just one person.

The problem is, with great power comes great headaches. It is also the least intuitive CRM with the worst aesthetics. So if those two things mean nothing to you and you’re looking for the most functionality, Tave is the CRM for you.

The Best Wedding Photography CRM if you will not compromise on Client-Side Aesthetics

I don’t think Honeybook and Dubsado can be beaten for offering beautiful and customizable client portals, quotes and questionnaires. That’s clearly something they both prioritise and it opens up great opportunities to benefit from freelancers who can provide services and templates to get your client experience as on brand as possible.

If that is your main criteria for a CRM, and you happen to operate in the US, these will be great options for you.

Having said that, there are some drawbacks to consider…

We run Wedding Workflows on Dubsado and what they’ve neglected, in my opinion, is reliability and a backend that is more complicated than it needs to be. We’ve had a lot of problems with automations not sending emails and their stance is that you need to check each time if an email has been sent automatically. That seems to completely negate the benefit of automation. After using Studio Ninja for my photography business, I am also acutely aware of how needlessly complicated the back end is. And if you use a different tax system to the US, forget it.

For Honeybook, they were incredibly successful at getting market share with aggressive introductory offers. They are leveraging the hope that the pain of switching CRMs will be greater than the pain of incurring a massive price hike. That will be the test. They are now more than double the cost of Studio Ninja, for reference.

I will say, their AI companion is an interesting and useful feature, but my guess is that in 12 months, every CRM will have this.

Conclusion

Competition is fantastic, I think we are all blessed with so many options and each company competing for our service by releasing awesome features. Even just 10 years ago, there was not a lot out there for photographers, and now CRMs seem to be popping up like content creators. It feels like every week I see a new CRM that’s “by photographers, for photographers” so you will be spoilt for choice.

All CRMs should save you time and reduce your headaches, but I would say the defining questions you need to ask yourself when selecting the right one for you are:

1. How painless is it to get started, either from scratch or migrating over. What kind of support is available?
2. Does this CRM handle tax the way I need it handled?
3. Am I the only one in my business or do I have a team?
4. Does the back end make sense to me or does it melt my brain?
5. What will it look like for my clients on their end? Am I happy with that representation of my business?
6. Do I need features like client galleries, album proofing, email marketing or am I happy with what I’m currently using?
7. How active are the ownership in their respective facebook groups in responding to questions and feedback?
8. What does the collective satisfaction seem like of the members of those facebook groups? Are users always quick to jump to the defense of the CRM when someone posts a complaint or does everyone have the same complaints that go unanswered?
9. What will I be paying in the long term once my initial discounted period is over? How does that compare with the others?
10. Who owns the company? Are they the same ones that founded it? Are they more motivated by squeezing the most features in for my money, or squeezing the most money out of me?