Okay, so the print costs and monthly fee at Pictage are crazy...$2 for a 4x6 and that doesn't include the 15% commission. I am looking at going to PrintRoom...anyone use them or have any thoughts on them?

Thanks!

We used and loved Printroom for quite awhile, but there is one major problem they have not reworked. That is they do not have a shopping cart that can be saved iwth a login and password, that also means you do not get the email addresses of those who login to view pictures. We dropped them after two clients in a row were in the middle of a large order, and the printroom system crashed and they lost the big order and had to start over again, in both instances we had them send us the image numbers and we fulfilled the order ourselves. But their prices cannot be beat, and the ease of use is great. But if you have people ordering large amounts of different pictures, it's not worth it.

Who do we love: Digilabs. They do not brand your shopping cart, they allow you total control over fulfillment they will do it all, or do as little as you want them too, and they have these cool new lay flat Asuka type books. They lay completely flat, like a flush mount book, only with paper pages, great for guest books, etc.

So Printroom is good, Digilabs is our favorite, and I know there are tons of other great things out there.

Been w/ Printroom since 2002 (never cancelled them during my "affair" with Pictage in 2005 and 2006)...here is my list of pro / con...

The good...

• fast uploads of gallery thumbnails (full-size files uploaded only when orders are placed)
• very good quality
• affordable (annual fee is just $99), print prices are less than Pictage (though commission is comparable)
• easy interface / storefront setup
• simple accounting reports show per order (and per month) how much revenue and how much profit
• sturdier packaging materials than Pictage (or, at least that was my experience when I was w/ Pictage)
• customer service is more responsive (from my experience w/ both companies)
• Printroom doesn't spam your clients

The "I wish Printroom did this like Pictage but I'm glad I'm not paying $100 a month for it" not-so-good...

• can not organize or sub-folder files or have client create folders...you can organize by groups though and use that feature to seperate the various components of the gallery (i.e. getting ready, ceremony, formals, reception, etc.)
• large prints above 8x10 are rolled (so I typically order larger prints from my local lab)
• doesn't get involved in photographer networking events / forums, etc. like Pictage
• Printroom doesn't collect addresses of those who view the site w/o ordering (though you do capture the info if they order)

Hope this helps.

wow, thank you! Well for me, right now at least I don't care to collect any info if they don't order. As far as the subfolders, right now I don't use them on Pictage. Right now I pay $19 a month but that will be changing soon but I paid like $118 for printing and made $136 so in my opinion on this one transaction I was robbed!

I still might go with PrintRoom, how much is Digilabs?

As a past user of both pictage and printroom, Well said.

With Digilabs our clients create favorites folders, album folders, etc, and we can view them. Its nice for when we want to fulfill orders without paying the commission, for example if we gave a bride 100 4x6's with a package, she could create a folder called 4x6 and put all the images she wants in it, and we could fulfill and ship without using digilabs....

Digilabs packaging isn't pretty but its sturdy, but they will send pics to you and you can package them as pretty as you'd like.

With digilabs we get the email addresses, but they don't spam our customers. Yeah! I'm still getting pictage spam from a wedding I viewed 3 years ago.

Prices for digilabs vary depending on what services you choose but our unlimited upload package with them doing all the fulfillment is around $150 per year. Oh, and thumbnail upload is very easy, quick, very much like printroom. Another thing we loved about printroom is we only uploaded the hi-res files when an order was placed. No need for loooong uploading process of all the images

Actually, try $125 per month! But for what they offer, I am going to make the switch.

Digilabs is $125 per month? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure they're not.I just checked their website and yes they can be $125 per month, but call them cuz I know they have other plans, we're paying $150 per year, unlimited uploads, customizable galleries, and they fulfill our orders.Call them, cuz we're not paying that! no would we.

i've heard awesome things about picpick

http://www.pickpic.com/

So call Kate, she is our rep, and is very knowledgeable about their products, very helpful, etc.

Kate Fayram
Account Manager
www.digilabs.net
kate@digi-labs.net
(866)344-4522 ext. 127
Digilabs, Inc.


Kevin Bergthold

KB Photography

I signed up and Kate is my rep too!

Now, as soon as my current gallery ends, I am cancelling pictage.

Yeah Mike, We love Kate and Digilabs. Did you tell her I sent you? We met her at WPPI, and are always surprised that EVERYONE isn't using them. Hope you love them as much as we do. If not, sorry. But I have a feeling you will. They're so easy.

Jessica

I need to get this wedding edited so that I can start using DL...looking forward to it.

I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic. I love PickPic, I love PickPic. I love PickPic.

I'm switching to photocart. Seems great so far.

Just one question... how do I leave Pictage? Do they allow you to "pause" the account? Or do you have to close down everything? I can't see where I can do this, so would I have to write to them?

+1 billion on pickpic!!! http://www.pickpic.com/

Isn't PickPic expensive and do you have to do your own order fulfillment?

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser here. iProof is eliminating the high cost of online proofing for photographers everywhere while simplifying the entire experience.


New enhanced navigation of the shopping cart was just the beginning.

This month's newest upgrades are:

Zoom! With this new feature your clients can view their images magnified giving them the close-up that sells more for you.

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Send to a Friend Let them send the gallery to everybody they know. A real sales booster which builds a great marketing database for your studio!

No fees or commissions! EVER!





Each week in June we will be adding these new features and if you order iProof before June 30th, you will receive all of the new extras for the same great price!

Do you need to auto-fulfilled?

If not check Photocart or Red Cart with WHCC.

Redcart does have a semi-automatic order fulfillment that sound interesting.

One thing I have to say about Pictage is that when you consider their monthly fee you cannot think that it is just for them to do the fulfillment. That is what the 10% is for.

The $99 a month for Pictage is easily justified if you have a need for an online storage. I have done some comparison for online storage and Pictage is one of the cheapest in that regard. If you are looking for just a shopping cart and do not care for online storage, then the $99 is too expensive.

You cannot just look as "my income was $1,000 and I only received $400 because it may no be an accurate picture and lead you to believe Pictage is ripping you off.

When you client pays for its order, the client is paying for shipping and taxes plus products. The entire amount the client paid is reflected into your account as "income". But your real income is what you charge for your product and Pictage will deduct the shipping and tax plus the cost plus the 10% from what in entered as "income" bringing to what you really earned. You earn from your product and not from the sale total (which includes taxes and shipping.).

For example, you sold a 4x6 for $10.00. The shipping was $2.00 and the tax was 70 cent. The total sale was $12.70. Pictage enters that as "income column" into your account. Later, Pictage will deduct $2.70 for shipping and handling (that wasn't your to start with). This leaves you with $10.00 which is what you charged for your product. From those $10.00 Pictage will then deduct your cost which is $3.00 ($1.00 for the commission fee and $2.00 for the print cost) leaving you with $7.00.... $3.00 for Pictage and $7.00 for you.

It would be an error to think that Pictage took for themselves $5.60 ($2.60 for S/H and Tax plus $3.00 for commission and cost) for that sale because they did not. I believe that many are doing the math wrong and concluding that Pictage is ripping them off.

For their print prices, I totally agree with you that they are more expensive than the norm. But, they also want you to charge more for your prints in order to "absorb" the higher cost and make a real profit. But, the more you charge, the more you keep.

For example,

If you sell a 4x6 for $6.00 Pictage make $2.60 you keep $3.39.
If you sell a 4x6 for $10.00, Pictage makes $3.00 and you keep $7.00

So, while your earning doubled, Pictage only earned 40 cents more. If you want to sell your 4x6 at $6.00 it will look like Pictage is keeping most of the money when in reality is that you are under pricing your product based on your cost. You have to price your product based on your cost if you want to make money.

So Pictage is not stealing your money, it may be that you giving it away to cost if you are underpricing your products.

i was to lazy to read what everyone posted but have you considered instaproofs.com? you can set up your labs with them and they only take a commission when you make a sale. and their commission is less than 15% on top of them letting you host when no one buys for free.

i like to think of pictage as the wart of the photography industry. no one ever thinks it could really be that bad until they get one and then they can't wait to get rid of it. i'm glad to hear that you're moving on and away from the wal-mart like hands of pictage.

-courtney

I'm with Mike on this as I'll be leaving Pictage very soon. I'm just tired of the lack of transparency in the pricing schemes. No matter how many times I read over the price lists, every time I place an order it comes out to be way more than I estimated. The statements have gotten a little easier to read but I still feel like I need a degree in accounting to do so. But I guess the bottom line is they continually make errors on the billing, spam my clients, and take a huge bite out of my profits. It seemed worth it in the beginning and the unlimited storage of my images online is the best feature. After 3 years though I don't think I can justify it anymore.

Digilabs looks really good but I think I may go with the DIY approach for awhile. Skooks cart is looking pretty good.

I too think they need to do better on how photographers are able to understand the pricing of what they are ordering. I think Jeff Jochum gave an example of them making that change once as rebuilding a plane while it is in flight. Kind of REALLY hard to do but I heard they are working on making that finally a reality which is exciting. Hope we see that soon! It would be nice to not have to understand the price of what I am ordering before hand. I love seeing it in the end like I am shopping on Amazon or something.

The only thing I don't understand is why people say that Pictage spams their clients when you have the option to turn off the promotions if you really don't want them but that spamming is creating sales for you and is something that the other sites to not do and do not offer. I am excited that Pictage promotes my images to my clients and gives them deals on prints. They send them promotions for 2 for 1 prints and then they give them an extra print in order to make a bigger sale for me! I love it! Also, if and when a client has an issue they can unsubscribe at any time and if they do not like it they blame Pictage, not me. It is genius!

Just my .02 but I love that feature.