Best Website Builder For Photographers In Canada For May 2024

If you are starting a photography business, you need a website. SmugMug is a website builder developed explicitly for photographers. The platform lets you store unlimited full-resolution photos, create a dazzling online photography portfolio and share even large files quickly and easily.

SmugMug offers three plans that range from $13 USD ($17.54 CAD) to $45 USD ($60.73 CAD) per month; you can save up to 33% by purchasing an annual plan. All SmugMug plans come with zero image compression—ensuring your photographs retain their quality—unlimited photo and video storage, automatic backups, 20-plus premade design templates, SEO tools and website customization.

The SmugMug Portfolio and Pro plans include fully integrated order fulfillment, gallery engagement metrics and payment collection via EFT or PayPal.

If you sell photography services, the SmugMug Pro plan gives you everything you need to sell those services and manage your clients. The plan features password-protected client galleries so customers can choose which prints they want, marketing promotions and coupons, client management tools and custom price lists per gallery or image.

Who should use it:
SmugMug is our overall top choice for photographers who want to set up an online portfolio or sell and manage their photography services via a custom website.

You want your photos to be displayed beautifully online, and Squarespace has an impressive reputation for doing exactly that for photographers around the globe. Squarespace is widely known for its gorgeous, award-winning website design templates, which is why Forbes considers it the best website builder for creating photography portfolios.

The Squarespace all-in-one builder makes it easy to create a picture-perfect website quickly. Better yet, Squarespace is exceptionally user-friendly, even for beginners.

All Squarespace plans come with a custom domain, unlimited bandwidth, website metrics and the Squarespace Video Studio App. All plans except Personal also include fully integrated e-commerce, gift cards and unlimited products.

Squarespace pricing plans aren’t cheap; there are more affordable options on the market. However, few website builders offer the design flair that Squarespace brings to the table. Plus, Squarespace is considered one of the best website builders on the market today, yet another reason we highly recommend it.

Learn More: Read our full Squarespace Review.

Who should use it:
Squarespace is the perfect website builder for photographers who want to create a visually stunning online portfolio.

Some photographers are hesitant to build their own websites because they think it’ll be too difficult. Here’s the good news: there’s nothing complicated about building a website with Wix. Forbes considers Wix one of the most beginner-friendly website builders available today.

Wix offers more than 800 templates you can customize for your photography business needs. All paid plans come with a free custom domain for one year, a storage space allotment—which varies by plan—and a free SSL certificate.

Wix pricing tends to run on the higher side, although you can build a limited-feature website with Wix for free. The key difference between the two categories of Wix plans is whether e-commerce is available.

If you don’t plan on selling photos or photography services on your website, you’ll want to go with one of Wix’s four core website plans. Make sure the plan you pick offers the storage space you need—which ranges from 2 GB to unlimited.

Photographers planning to accept payments online will need one of Wix’s Business and eCommerce plans; there are three from which to choose. All e-commerce plans include unlimited products, abandoned cart recovery, social channel selling, customer accounts and secure online payments. Storage space ranges from 50 GB to unlimited.

Learn More: Read our full Wix Review.

Who should use it:
Wix is a terrific platform for beginners building their first photography website.

Perhaps you have heard of Shopify before but don’t fully understand what Shopify is. Shopify is a website builder specializing in helping you create an online store. Selling on Shopify is extremely easy and that’s why this platform makes our list of best website builders for photographers.

With Shopify, you can sell physical products such as photos and items with your images on them and downloadable products, such as photographs for others to use in their creative projects. You can even sell photography services via your Shopify website.

Shopify pricing plans aren’t the cheapest, but you will save 50% when you sign up for an annual plan instead of paying month-to-month. The Basic plan is suitable for most photography businesses that are starting out as it costs $38 CAD per month with an annual plan currently.

All Shopify plans come with unlimited products, 24/7 support, multiple sales channels—including social media and online marketplaces—discount codes, gift cards, unlimited contacts and customer segmentation. You also receive shipping discounts of up to 53% from top providers, including Canada Post, UPS and FedEx.

Learn More: Read our full Shopify Review.

Who should use it:
Shopify is an excellent website builder for photographers who want to open an online store to sell their photographs.

The HostGator website builder powered by web.com is a user-friendly tool for creating basic websites fast. Even better, its first-year fees are affordable for even those on tight budgets; get started for as low as $4.95 USD ($6.68 CAD) per month.

HostGator’s intelligent site builder creates your website for you. Merely answer a few questions, insert your logo, add images and HostGator builds your initial site. You can customize that first website design to your preferences and then launch your site within minutes—not hours, not days.

All plans come with unmetered bandwidth, a free custom domain for the first year, unlimited image storage, email marketing, lead capture forms and e-commerce capabilities. The Website + Marketing, Online Store and Online Marketplaces plans offer calendar management and booking so you can set up appointments for your photography services.

Learn more: Read our full Gator Website Builder Review

Who should use it:
If you need to launch a photography website fast, HostGator could be the ideal platform for you.

Building a WordPress website can be a bit daunting, especially if you’ve never built a website or have limited technical skills. Yet, if you want complete creative control over your photography website, there’s simply no better platform than WordPress.org.

WordPress is open-source software, so it’s free; it’s also one of the most widely used content management systems (CMS) for creating websites. Building a WordPress website will give you complete control over the look and functionality of your photography website.

Choose from tens of thousands of WordPress themes; many themes are free and others will cost on average $19 USD ($25.63 CAD) to $200 USD ($269.86 CAD).You could build your site from scratch if you have strong coding and design skills.

Customize your site using WordPress plugins, which add additional site functionality. There are plugins for all types of features, including e-commerce, appointment scheduling, event calendars, social sharing, client galleries, watermarks, invoicing, client proofing and WordPress SEO.

There are two WordPress options—WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com—and it’s important you not confuse them, as they are quite different. WordPress.com hosts your website for you but comes with tight constraints on what you can do. That’s why Forbes Advisor recommends that photographers go with WordPress.org for their business websites.

With WordPress.org, you must procure hosting for your website separately. The best WordPress hosting services offer secure, reliable hosting at reasonable prices, which range from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars per month, depending on the services you purchase. You’ll also need a domain for your website; the best domain registrars charge between $8 USD ($10.79 CAD) and $25 USD ($33.73 CAD) to register a domain.

Who should use it:
WordPress.org is the best website platform for photographers who want complete control over website design.

Format is a website builder explicitly developed for photographers and other creative professionals. This user-friendly platform is Forbes’ top choice for photographers who want to sell their photography services.

You can try out Format for free for 14 days. Plans range from $12 USD ($16.19 CAD) to $36 USD ($48.58 CAD) per month; save more than 50% by choosing an annual billing plan.

With the Format Workflow and Bundle plans, you can share password-protected client galleries, securely transfer images, collaborate with clients and manage client contracts.

The Format Prints Marketplace is available with all Portfolio Pro and Pro Plus plans. Print-on-demand services are handled through the Format Prints Marketplace automatic global fulfillment channel. Customers can order prints from your website, and Format’s print labs develop those prints and ship orders directly to your customers.

You can also set up an online store on your Format website. Upgrade to the Pro Plus plan for as low as $13 USD ($17.54 CAD) per month (billed annually during the current promotion) to advertise up to 1,000 photography-related products on your website. The Pro Plus plan also gives you 1TB of photo storage, 120 minutes of hosted videos, unlimited high-resolution images, social integration, copyright protection and priority 24/7 customer support.

Who should use it:
Format is a user-friendly website builder for creative professionals; Format works incredibly well for selling photography services.

Often, photographers just need a basic website to showcase their best work and advertise their photography services. Building simple sites is what Zyro does best.

Zyro only offers two plans and each includes unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, a free domain for one year and visitor remarketing tagging. The Zyro drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to set up a new website. The platform offers dozens of designer templates ideal for photography portfolios and business websites.

Upgrade to the Zyro Business plan if you want to accept payments on your website. The Business plan includes inventory management, order management, appointment booking and email notifications. The Business plan also features more than 20 methods for accepting payments and online store functionality that lets you sell up to 500 products.

Zyro doesn’t offer a free trial, but a 30-day guarantee of satisfaction backs all plans. Introductory plans range from $3.90 USD ($5.26 CAD) to $5.90 USD ($7.96 CAD) per month. Renewal rates skyrocket; expect to pay triple or more when your website plan comes up for renewal.

Learn More: Read our full Zyro Review.

Who should use it:
Zyro is best for photographers who need to set up a basic website where minimal design customization is required.

If you’re looking for a free website builder, you can’t go wrong with Weebly. The Weebly platform has a reputation for being beginner-friendly. You can create an attractive, relatively simple website for your business using one of Weebly’s stylish themes, and it won’t cost you a nickel.

Do you want to sell items on your website? That would be a problem with most free website builders, but it’s not with Weebly because even the forever-free plan is e-commerce-enabled.

All Weebly plans come with a shopping cart that can hold unlimited items, automatically calculate taxes, helps you manage inventory and lets you offer coupons and gift cards. Unfortunately, you can’t sell digital products with your free Weebly plan, but you can with any paid plan.

Square ads are embedded in the forever-free and Personal Weebly plan. When you upgrade to either a Professional or Performance plan, Square ads are automatically removed.

If you prefer a few more advanced features, Weebly has three premium plans that let you connect to a custom domain, calculate shipping and print shipping labels. The top-tier Weebly Performance plan also includes product reviews, abandoned cart emails, advanced e-commerce insights and priority support. You can also accept Square or PayPal on the Performance plan; all lower-tier plans only accept Square payments.

Learn More: Read our full Weebly Review.

Who should use it:
Weebly’s forever-free plan is ideal for photographers who need a site but aren’t ready to pay for one yet. Free Weebly sites are e-commerce-enabled, which is rare for free website builders.

GoDaddy is widely known as an affordable, easy-to-use website builder for small businesses. In addition to being a fine tool for website creation, GoDaddy helps you extend your online presence so you can easily sell on social channels and popular online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Etsy.

All GoDaddy plans, even the free version, come with email and social media marketing, payment acceptance via GoDaddy Payments and branded content creation with GoDaddy Studio.

Every premium GoDaddy plan also offers tools to help you create and manage your online listings on Google Business Profile and Yelp. These listings are especially crucial for photographers who sell their services locally.

With the GoDaddy Basic and Premium plans, you can set up a photography portfolio, advertise your photography business and tap into GoDaddy Payments to accept online payments for services.

Upgrade to a GoDaddy Ecommerce plan and get even more features to help you grow your photography business. Accept online payments and deposits for your services, set up an online shop to sell your photography directly to customers or start accepting orders on online marketplaces and social channels, including Instagram and Facebook. You can even set up recurring and one-time events, such as classes where you can teach photography principles.

Learn More: Read our full GoDaddy Website Builder Review.

Who should use it:
If you want to sell your photography products or downloads on multiple platforms—including social sites and online marketplaces such as Etsy and Amazon—GoDaddy may be the best website builder for you.