Best Web Hosting for Photographers

Not every web hosting service offers the bandwidth, speed, or support team to keep photography websites running.

Don’t waste time scrolling features or exchanging emails with web hosting sites.

We have done the work for you and found the best photography website hosting options.

This guide will prepare you to choose a host for your photography website.

First, you’ll learn who the top hosts are and how their features serve photographers.

Then, you’ll get a snapshot of their policies and a sample of the packages and prices.

What Is Web Hosting for Photographers?

Web hosting for photographers refers to hosting plans developed with a photography website in mind.

You need a good web hosting provider because high-resolution images can take up a massive amount of space. Even a small collection can impact the site’s loading speed and response time.

Photographer hosting packages are meant to help control these problems. They often accomplish this by offering the right specs and features.

What Specs/Features Matter Most When Hosting Photographs?

There are some package specifications and features that are more important to professional photographers, stock photo providers, and other kinds of online businesses.

The top 10 hosts that will be covered next were chosen based on their ability to deliver on these necessities:

Bandwidth

refers to the volume of data transferred between the site, users, and servers. Uploading and viewing photos takes bandwidth, so most professional photographers’ sites will use a lot.

You should go for unlimited bandwidth if you don’t want to worry about it. Unlimited bandwidth (also called unmetered bandwidth) is available with many mid-to-high tiers hosting plans.

If you have a limited budget, you’ll find that some hosts on this list still offer generous bandwidth limits on their basic plans.

Disk Space

refers to the amount of memory your site will be allocated on the server. In other words, it’s the limit of the space you can fill with your entire website, including all images.

500GB of storage space (a typical amount for starter plans) can hold about 100,000 photos. That’s enough if you just need to host a photography portfolio.

You’ll need a lot more than that for photography marketplaces, stock photo collections, and other sites.

You can find some plans that offer unlimited disk space. Alternatively, you can choose cloud or VPS hosting plans that can be easily upgraded as you go.

The Top Photography Website Hosting Services for 2023

The review covers the following hosting sites. Some offer photographer packages, while others are popular with photographers because their standard packages already come with everything necessary.

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting has been in the web host business since 2001 and offers a great variety of shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting plans. It is one of the top hosting providers to this day.

They also offer WordPress plans for those who want to manage their photos on a WordPress website.

Photographers often use this host because of the affordable prices (see budget plan below) and the excellent variety of available apps and compatibility.

A2 features many leading image hosting software, including Gallery, Piwigo, Plogger, Zenphoto, and Coppermine. These programs make it easy to host image galleries, organize them, and set content rules.

Sample Price List

Bluehost

BlueHost is one of the world’s premier hosting services. It is the only host that is directly endorsed by the WP organization. No wonder why it is included in all of the lists of the best hosting providers.

Some photographers favor BlueHost for the quality and ease-of-use of its website builder. This code-free builder has templates and options that allow you to quickly generate photo-focused sites. Bluehost is truly one of the best web hosting sites.

BlueHost is also a friendly option if you’re building your first photography site. All of their plans come with a free domain name and SSL certificate.

Sample Price List

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is one of the most popular hosts in the world and one of the best web hosting sites. It has more than 20 million users who come to take advantage of the low prices and generous amounts of storage.

This web host is another good option for first-time photographers because of its excellent site builder.

GoDaddy already has a library of templates for photography websites in particular. These templates

GoDaddy recommends the Expand plan (see mid-range sample plan below) for photography and other high-resource sites.

Sample Price List

HostGator

HostGator has been a major host for about 20 years. They are frequently featured on best web hosting services lists and for good reason.

They offer a complete mix of affordable WordPress plans and enterprise-level dedicated plans.

Many photographers use HostGator’s WordPress plans because of the price and access to photography-related apps.

The WordPress plans are compatible with some of the top photography site plugins.

The apps include Photography Management, Photo Engine, and Smush. HostGator also has resources to help you find the best free themes for photography.

HostGator is known for its highly-regarded website builder. The builder is included with even the most affordable plans. And they are also some of the best web hosting plans you will find.

Sample Price List

HostPapa

HostPapa is a web hosting service that is known for competitive prices and excellent WordPress support. If you need help with your content management system and your WordPress website, Host Papa is the best web hosting solution for you.

The shared plans start at some of the lowest prices on this list. If these plans don’t meet your requirements, the managed and unmanaged WP plans are also popular with photographers.

Choose the managed plans if you want to avoid doing any monitoring/updating work. For managed plans, these tasks are handled by the host.

HostPapa provides some resources to guide you toward good WordPress themes for photographers.

Sample Price List

InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting has been a hosting provider for more than 20 years.

This web hosting service is popular with photographers because even the most basic plan comes with 100GB of storage and unmetered bandwidth. It may be a good idea to start here even if you decide on different hosting a year from now.

InMotion has some guides ready to help you create a photography website on their hosting service.

Sample Price List

SiteGround

SiteGround is a popular hosting provider that is known for providing great site speed despite unusually low prices for some of the entry-level service tiers.

This web hosting provider is enjoyed by many photographers because it has a content delivery network (CDN) available alongside its plans.

Having a CDN included with your hosting plan can help you provide the page speeds that discerning shoppers/clients demand. You can learn more about adding the CDN to your plan here.

Sample Price List

Squarespace

Squarespace is a web hosting service that’s a little different from the others on the list. You cannot migrate a site into or out of this host.

Instead, you craft a website entirely within the proprietary builder, and you’ll be able to use it as long your subscription is active.

You lose out on some customization options with Squarespace, but many photography websites choose it anyway.

Squarespace is very business-focused, so it comes with tools (such as marketplace creation tools, payment processors, etc.) to help you manage these parts of the photography business.

Squarespace has some resources to guide you through the creation of photography websites.

Sample Price List

tsoHost

tsoHost is a UK hosting provider that is known for its managed hosting. It offers managed WordPress plans, managed VPS plans, and more.

The most basic plan still gives you 100GB of space to grow, and that’s a great amount for an early or first-time site.

You won’t have to worry about ever outgrowing the bandwidth because it also comes unlimited as a standard feature.

tsoHost is cheap enough to test out with no regrets, but some photographers have complained about the spotty customer support.

Support is only available during UK hours, which may not be convenient for some photographers around the world.

Sample Price List

UK2

UK2 is another globally-popular photography hosting provider that is based in the UK. This hosting site stands out for its low prices combined with a great amount of support.

Photographers will get a lot of value out of the CDN service that is available at no extra cost with some WordPress plans.

This content delivery system can speed up your site by delivering photographs from nearby servers.

The UK2 support team is available 24/7/365 in multiple languages.

Sample Price List

Wix Web Hosting

Wix is an online web development platform. Like Squarespace, it handles website setup and design through a proprietary system.

You’ll be able to easily build a site by drag-and-dropping the elements you want, but you can’t migrate what you’ve built to another host.

Wix takes hosting for photographers seriously and includes a lot of valuable features just for them.

The Wix website builder features a large collection of templates for photography hosting sites. The active community has already highlighted some of the top templates that are available.

Sample Price List

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) 

Should I Build a WordPress Site for My Photography?

Yes, you should build a WordPress site for your photography. WordPress is considered an excellent tool for building photography sites. Many of the best web hosting sites we covered recommend their WP plans for photography sites. The most important benefit a WordPress installation brings is access to the world of WP apps.

There are hundreds of apps that help you build galleries, display images properly, and add the gallery effects you want. Just install WordPress to start playing with all the free ones.

Should I Build My Own Website or Just Feature My Pictures on Social Media?

Yes, you should build your own website. Website building is time-consuming, but there are several reasons to prefer building and hosting sites over social media. For one, you’ll have more control over how your pictures are displayed. Services like Instagram limit the size and dimensions of images you upload so that they fit into previews and other features. If these limits force you to cut down or cut out what you can do with photography, then social media isn’t working as a portfolio.

How Much Disk Space Do I Need for an Online Portfolio

The amount of disk space you need for an online portfolio will depend on the number and quality of the pictures that you want to include. One simple way to estimate the space you need is to organize the images that you want to upload into one folder on your computer, and then check the size of that folder. New photographers may need a year of hosting to fill up 10GBs of disk space, while professionals may need terabytes of disk space for single events. Planning for future needs can be a lot trickier. If you are worried you’ll outgrow your speed or space, make sure that you pick a web hosting site that offers enough packages for you to grow into.

Is Advertised Unlimited Storage Really Unlimited?

Unlimited storage is not actually unlimited storage in most cases. When you sign up for hosting, you’ll need to sign agreements that cover how you use the resources provided to you. These agreements often stipulate that you can’t use personal plans to run a high-traffic business. You can be banned from a hosting site or kicked off a plan for creating a drain on resources, even if you haven’t exceeded any storage limit.

Do I Need a Website Builder for My Photography Site?

Not necessarily. But website builders are helpful features that several hosts offer on this list. This feature can be a huge relief if you have never built a website. Many builders let you quickly develop a site by clicking through options or dragging the elements you want to where you want them.

What Are the Most Common Factors Needed to Host a Photography Site?

The most common factors you’ll need to host a photography site are plenty of space, a fast network, and powerful servers. High-definition images are impressive, but they may be time-consuming to load and consume a lot of storage space. Keep this in mind while you explore potential speed enhancements.

Is There a Free Hosting for Photographers?

Free hosting is available for photographers, but it’s not great. Your options are severely constrained, and since many websites aren’t adequately protected, you’re on your own if something goes wrong. Paying for a service that is reliable and safe is preferable.

How Much Does a Photography Website Cost?

A photography website’s price might range widely depending on a number of things. You’ll have to shell out money for hosting and a domain name eventually. Domain names typically cost between $10 and $15 USD annually. When you factor in the cost of hosting, you have your starting capital. A free domain name for one year is a common feature of hosting packages.

Do You Need Technical Knowledge to Run a Photography Website?

No. Technical jargon can be helpful, but it’s not required. Creating and maintaining a website is often a breeze with the majority of hosting companies.

Choosing the Best Web Hosting for Your Photography Site

Choosing the best web hosting company for your photography portfolio or stock image site doesn’t have to be complicated.

The services that you learned about above all have a long history of providing excellent website hosting, competitive features, and low prices.

Now is the time to focus on what’s most important to you and choose the best website host.

Do you want more SEO decisions to feel more manageable? Do you want to learn more about the best web hosting sites or WordPress optimization? Diggity Marketing has these answers and more waiting for you.

Article by

Matt Diggity

Matt is the founder of Diggity Marketing, LeadSpring, The Search Initiative, The Affiliate Lab, and the Chiang Mai SEO Conference. He actually does SEO too.

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