Framekit vs Zenfolio 2026: Prints or Portfolio?

Photographers weighing Framekit vs Zenfolio are usually running one specific calculation: what the store earns against what the store costs. Zenfolio's answer is a flat 7 percent per order, which is one of the more honest numbers in this category.

Our answer is that we do not have a store for prints at all.

That sounds like a concession and it is one, but it is also the whole shape of the comparison, so it belongs in the first paragraph rather than buried in a feature table.

Framekit is an AI website builder that carries client galleries, a portfolio site, video review and a digital store on one account, with no print fulfilment anywhere in it.

A client gallery platform is software that hosts and delivers finished photographs to the people who commissioned them, and most of them also sell prints.

Full disclosure: Framekit is our own product, and this comparison hands an entire category of photographer to Zenfolio in the first section. That is not modesty, it is arithmetic, and any comparison that dodged it would be worthless to a photographer who sells wall art.

How We Compared Them

We delivered the same 40-image portrait session and the same 900-image wedding through both, priced an identical $6,000 print year, and built the portfolio side of each platform with the same eight projects.

The honesty split:

• Measured hands-on: both deliveries, the client-facing experience, the portfolio builders, and what each platform refuses to upload.
• Verified from primary sources: Zenfolio's plan tiers and its flat commission from Zenfolio's own site, read September 2026. Framekit's from the shipped plan configuration.
• Not tested: Zenfolio's booking and CRM modules end to end, and its lab fulfilment, which we have no equivalent of.

No speed or performance figures appear for either platform.

Framekit vs Zenfolio at a Glance

The weighting: the print row decides this outright for photographers who sell physical products, and the site row decides it for photographers who do not. Everything else is a tiebreak.

In one lineZenfolio is a selling platform with a website attached and Framekit is a website with delivery attached, and your revenue model picks one.

Where Zenfolio Wins

Zenfolio wins in three areas, and the first is decisive enough that photographers in that group should stop reading here and go and sign up. There is no version of this comparison where we are the better answer for someone selling wall art.

It sells prints, and cheaply. A flat 7 percent per order is genuinely competitive in a category where markup commissions commonly run to 15 percent.

On a $6,000 print year that is $420 against roughly $900 on a markup-based platform. Framekit charges nothing on prints because it sells none, which is worth exactly $0 to a photographer whose income includes wall art.

Lab fulfilment is handled. Orders, production and shipping happen without you touching them. Doing that yourself, which is the only route on Framekit, means a lab account, your own invoicing and your own shipping problems.

Booking and client admin. Zenfolio carries scheduling and client management modules. Framekit has no invoicing, no deposits, no contracts and no calendar, so a photographer who wants the booking flow in the same tool will find us missing half of it.

Where Framekit Wins

Framekit wins on three points, and all of them matter most to photographers whose income is the shoot fee rather than the print order. If that describes you, the commission arithmetic above simply does not apply and this is the section that decides it.

The portfolio is the product. Zenfolio's site builder is template-led and adequate. Framekit generates a multi-page portfolio around your actual work, on your own domain, with project pages and SEO output.

For photographers competing for commissions on the strength of a portfolio, that difference wins jobs that a print store does not.

Delivery carries no commission and no ceiling. Galleries are unlimited on every plan including free, with a password and a separate download PIN, and nothing is taken from a delivery because there is no store in the middle of it.

One plan covers more of the business. The same subscription carries video review with timecoded comments, decks for proposals and treatments, and a store for digital products such as presets and LUTs at a fee falling to 0 percent on the $39 Business plan.

Zenfolio does none of those three.

In one lineif nothing physical is being sold, the commission comparison is irrelevant and the comparison becomes site against site.

The $6,000 Print Year, Priced Honestly

This is the calculation most photographers arrive at this comparison carrying, so here it is without spin, including the row that makes us look worse. The numbers assume a photographer selling roughly $6,000 of prints and albums across a year.

The third row is the honest one. Our total is lower because the revenue is absent, not because we are cheaper.

A photographer selling $6,000 of prints on Zenfolio Basic nets about $5,472 after commission and keeps a platform that produced the sale. The same photographer on Framekit nets $0 from prints unless they run a lab account themselves.

In one linecompare the money you keep, not the fee you avoid, because a zero commission on a sale you cannot make is not a saving.

The Other Calculation: A Photographer Who Sells Nothing

Shoot-fee photographers, which is most commercial, editorial, event and corporate work, have the opposite arithmetic.

Shoot-fee photographers, which covers most commercial, editorial, event and corporate work, have the opposite arithmetic, and it is worth running separately because the store is simply irrelevant to them.

The only question left is what else the subscription buys for roughly the same money. Zenfolio Basic at about $108 a year gives galleries and a template site.

Framekit Starter at $84 gives galleries, a generated portfolio on your own domain, decks for proposals, video review links and a digital store if you ever want one.

In one linewithout print revenue, Zenfolio's main advantage evaporates and the comparison is decided by the portfolio and the extras.

Running Both, Which Some Photographers Should

A split that works for photographers with meaningful print income and a portfolio that needs to be better than a template: deliver and sell prints through Zenfolio, and run the public portfolio, proposals and any digital products on Framekit.

It is two subscriptions, about $192 a year at the entry tiers, and it is worth it only if the portfolio is actively winning you commissions.

If your work arrives through repeat clients and referrals rather than through the site, one platform is the sensible answer and it should be the one that sells prints.

How to Choose: A Decision Guide

Take these questions in order and act on the first one you can answer yes to. The first two are disqualifying rather than merely indicative, so if either applies then nothing further down the list should change your mind.

1. Do prints, albums or wall art make you real money? Yes: Zenfolio. We sell no physical products at any price.
2. Do you want booking, scheduling or client admin in the same tool? Yes: Zenfolio. We have none of it.
3. Does your portfolio need to win commissions on its own? Yes: Framekit, where the site is generated around your work on your own domain.
4. Do you also deliver video, send proposals or sell digital files? Yes: Framekit, which carries review, decks and a store on the same plan.
5. Is your income entirely shoot fees? Yes: Framekit, since the commission comparison does not apply to you.
6. Both true? Run both, at about $192 a year, but only if the portfolio is earning its keep.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Framekit sell prints like Zenfolio?

No. There is no print lab, no album ordering, no wall-art upsell and no fulfilment on any Framekit plan, and no upgrade adds them.

Photographers whose income includes physical products earn more on Zenfolio even after its 7 percent commission, because 7 percent of a sale you make beats 0 percent of a sale you cannot.

Selling prints alongside Framekit means running your own lab account and invoicing.

Is Zenfolio's 7 percent commission good?

By category standards, yes. A flat 7 percent per order is cheaper than markup-based commissions that commonly reach around 15 percent, and it is predictable, which matters more than the headline when you are forecasting.

On a $6,000 print year it is $420. The commission only stops being relevant if you do not sell prints at all, at which point Zenfolio's main structural advantage does not apply to you.

Which has the better website builder?

Framekit, and this is the clearest win on our side. Zenfolio's site is template-led and serviceable, built as an attachment to the gallery product.

Framekit generates a multi-page portfolio around your work with project pages, an about page and SEO output on your own domain.

For photographers whose commissions come from the strength of the portfolio, that is the difference that pays for the subscription.

Do both platforms take a commission on client delivery?

No, neither does. Commission on both applies to store orders rather than to handing a client the photographs they paid for.

Framekit takes nothing on delivery on any plan including the free one, because there is no store in the transaction at all.

This is worth checking on any gallery platform you price, since a few take a cut of paid downloads as well as prints.

Can I deliver video through Zenfolio?

Zenfolio's focus is stills, and video review with timecoded client comments is not part of it.

Framekit carries review links on the same storage pool as galleries, with per-file caps of 500MB on Free, 1GB on Starter, 2GB on Pro and 3GB on Business.

For a hybrid photo and video shooter that consolidation is one of the stronger reasons to look at us, and it is unrelated to the print question.

How much storage do I get on each?

Zenfolio tiers storage by plan, with its entry tier around $9 a month.

Framekit pools 10GB on the free plan, 50GB on Starter at $9 a month, 300GB on Pro at $19 and 2TB on Business at $39, shared across galleries, the site, review files and the store.

Budget roughly 1GB per delivered job and 1GB to 2GB per wedding, and clear delivered galleries to stretch any plan considerably.

Is Framekit cheaper than Zenfolio?

On subscription, marginally: $84 a year on Starter against about $108 for Zenfolio's entry tier. That comparison is only meaningful for photographers who sell nothing physical.

If you sell prints, the correct comparison is total money kept, and Zenfolio wins it decisively because the revenue exists there and does not exist here.

Can I move my galleries from Zenfolio to Framekit?

Not automatically. There is no importer in either direction, so a move means re-uploading the galleries you still need live and rebuilding the site.

Most photographers only migrate active deliveries rather than an archive, which makes the job smaller than it sounds.

Move your domain first if it is registered through the platform, and keep the old account running for a month so existing client links stay alive.

Which is better for a wedding photographer?

It depends entirely on whether albums are in your packages. If they are, Zenfolio sells them and Framekit does not, and that settles it.

If your packages are all-digital and you deliver files rather than sell products, Framekit's unlimited galleries, own-domain delivery and included portfolio site make it the better value, particularly if you also deliver a film and would otherwise pay for a video tool separately.

What does Framekit do that Zenfolio does not?

Video review with timecoded client comments, decks for treatments and proposals, a digital product store with a fee that falls to 0 percent on the $39 Business plan, and a generated multi-page portfolio rather than a template.

Whether any of that is worth more than a print store depends on your revenue model, which is the one question this comparison keeps returning to.

Final Verdict

The split here is unusually clean. Zenfolio is a selling platform: a flat 7 percent per order, lab fulfilment handled, booking and client admin included, with a site attached.

Framekit is a portfolio and delivery platform: galleries with no commission, a generated site on your own domain, review links, proposals and a digital store, with no physical products anywhere.

Who should not use Framekit. Any photographer whose income includes prints, albums or wall art, which is a large share of portrait, family and wedding work.

Anyone who wants booking, scheduling and client admin in the same product. Both are real gaps and neither is closing.

Who should. Photographers paid in shoot fees rather than product sales, hybrid shooters who also deliver video, and anyone whose commissions depend on a portfolio that looks better than a template.

For them the print commission is a number that never applies, and the comparison comes down to what else the subscription carries.

Related readingthe best client gallery platforms compared, the best commission-free client galleries, and what client galleries cost.

Zenfolio plan tiers and commission read from its published pages in September 2026. Our gallery and storage limits come from the shipped plan configuration, checked the same month.