What to look for in a photography CRM
A CRM used to mean a place to keep client names. For a working photographer it now has to carry the whole job from inquiry to gallery, or you end up with five tabs open and a Sunday night of copy and paste.
The checklist
- Inquiries land in it directly, from your site or an embedded form.
- Email threads file themselves under the right client.
- Contracts build from the project and sign online.
- Invoices run in installments with autopay, and clients pay you directly, not through the platform.
- A booking page with your real availability and calendar sync.
- Galleries with favorites, downloads and a print store, not a separate subscription.
- A website, or at least a form that lands where you work.
- An assistant that drafts and does, not a chatbot that answers.
- Works on your phone, including on a shoot day with no signal.
The trade-off to decide first
All-in-one products cost more per month than a bare CRM and less than the stack they replace. Add up what you pay for galleries, scheduling and your website before you compare subscription prices.
Questions
- Do I need all of this on day one?
- No. Start with the inbox, contracts and invoices, and turn on the rest as you replace each tool.
Try it on your own business
Fourteen days free with a card on file. Nothing is charged until the trial ends, and you can cancel before then from Settings.