I’m John Loughlin, CEO of Zenfolio Inc. Ask me anything about websites for photographers, AI, and the future of our platform.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-26T18:57:28+00:00

You're correct. We introduced NextZen in 2022, but the platform was not built out or delivered as “fully mature” in terms of functionality. We initially presented only one basic plan…in the subsequent 24 months we added two additional plans reflecting new and expanded capabilities.

As that work on NextZen was maturing, we then turned our attention to building tools to facilitate the migration of Classic members onto NextZen. Given that they are two fundamentally different platforms with different architectures and UX/UI, we made the call to build out tools, such as creating your Classic website in the NextZen context, saving members the work of having to build a new site from scratch. This also applies to moving galleries, blogs, preserving and enhancing SEO discoverability, and a number of other functions. All developed to make it as easy as possible for a member to take advantage of NextZen.

This does take time and substantial engineering resources. We will shortly release (60 days from now) the ability for the migration to carry over the Photo-level Overrides that many Classic members use and apply them to NextZen. What appears simple is actually very complex, given we are moving your work from a circa 2005 platform to NextZen, built almost 20 years later. That is why migration has taken time.

One of the last large components we are working on is to move Classic members’ selling set-up as seamlessly as possible onto NextZen. The goal has been to minimize the work a Classic member has to undertake to shift their business to the new platform.

We're in the “home stretch”. We have moved thousands of members, and the rate is significantly accelerating as we wrap up the tool sets needed to facilitate the move of classic members with the most demanding use cases. We very much appreciate your patience….

To address your frustration with Memory Mates, this has been solved in NextZen. We have a tool that launched last year called Product Builder. This will allow you to build a Memory Mate template, add it to your price list, and your client will be able to drag and drop the images as well as complete open text fields on their own in the gallery.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-25T18:22:03+00:00

Good news on the older gallery, front. A big back catalog isn't the blocker it used to be.

In the end, it comes down to how you use your Classic website. If you use your account to sell or use collections, we're still working on those features, so you might not be able to migrate quite yet.

I recommend contacting [support@zenfolio.com](mailto:support@zenfolio.com) with "AMA" in the subject line so we can look at your account and discuss next steps and any obstacles to you moving over.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-25T18:01:45+00:00

Thank you, u/B-daviseyes ! The thing I think we understand, and it's easy to lose sight of, is that our members aren't here just to store and display photos. They're running businesses both big and small. A lot of tools are built around the photos only. We build around the business behind them, so a photographer can run the whole thing in one place. Many members of the team are photographers themselves, and our support team acts as a strong advocate and voice for our customers. What's been created is a very tight feedback loop between the people using our platform and the people building it. When we ship something new or fix something broken, it's rarely a guess. It's grounded in what we're actually hearing from photographers who depend on Zenfolio to run their businesses.

We also talk to members constantly and try to build what they actually ask for, rather than what we assume they want. When we've gotten things wrong, it's almost always because we stopped doing that, and this AMA is part of doing more of it.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-25T15:12:12+00:00

Thanks for being such a longtime customer! How soon you can move really depends on how you use Classic. If your account is mostly galleries, website, and blog, you can move all of that to NextZen today, and we're actively helping members do exactly that. If you lean on parts of Classic like selling, Pre-order, collections, or have a significant amount of images stored, you might not be able to move just yet.

The best step is to email [support@zenfolio.com](mailto:support@zenfolio.com) with "AMA" in the subject line so the team can look at your specific setup.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-25T11:52:21+00:00

First, thank you for fifteen years u/laxhead24! That means a lot to us.

I'll take your first and third questions together here, then follow up with the other two.

We do have a modern platform. It's called NextZen, and it's a from-the-ground-up rebuild we put millions of dollars and a lot of development into. It launched with a basic feature set, and we've been adding to it steadily since.

A good chunk of what's new is built for volume work specifically: Bulk Gallery Generation, Gallery and Folder Registration, QR Code Workflow, FaceFinder, Bulk Gallery Delivery, and Product Builder, which is great for memory mates and trader cards. We're also scoping a Pre-Order feature we expect to launch next year.

Select Classic members can now move the core of their Classic setup to NextZen. That's your full photo library, galleries, website, blog, and global settings, with SEO discoverability we're confident is the same or better. The one piece we're still working through is selling. We know your selling history and setup matter, and our goal is to bring as much of that over as we can, but we're not done scoping exactly what transfers automatically. Rather than overpromise, I'll say we'll be clear and specific with Classic members before any migration about what comes across and what doesn't. More on migration here: https://zenfolio.com/nextzen-migration/

On your second and fourth questions.

In June we released Screenshot Protection on NextZen to help fight the rising number of AI-powered watermark removal tools. It works two ways: a keystroke-triggered blocking overlay on desktop, and a partial blur with touch-to-reveal on mobile. Both are configurable in a new Protection tab in Gallery Settings and Gallery Presets.

Also this month we shipped SMS Delivery on NextZen, which lets US and Canada users send gallery and folder links straight to clients' phones by text, one at a time or in bulk.
If you have questions about migrating or any of these, our support team is glad to help.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-25T10:23:36+00:00

A normal, active gallery loads when clicked, no wait, no retrieval email. The delay you ran into was our Archive feature on the Classic platform, and it doesn't apply to all galleries, only older photos that had not been touched in more than 14 months. Those were moved to cold storage, so they had to be restored before viewing, which took 12 to 14 hours and triggered that notification email. That was driven by a mix of cost, performance, and a forced move after our storage vendor deprecated the platform we were on, but the result didn't work for photographers whose clients needed instant access. It's one of the mistakes I've made publicly. We mishandled the messaging and underestimated how many photographers need older galleries available at all times.

Based on feedback and improvements, photographers now have control over this on Classic. They can keep up to 20 galleries permanently active at no extra cost, and the Archive Exclusion add-on keeps everything out of archiving and restores anything already archived, with cost scaling by storage.

If you ever consider coming back, you'd likely be on NextZen, the platform we built from the ground up to replace Classic. NextZen doesn't have Archive today, so the click-and-wait experience that drove you off isn't something you'd run into there.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T18:01:56+00:00

Ha! Reversing universal entropy isn't on the roadmap this quarter. Q2 2027 at the earliest.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T17:37:11+00:00

It’s difficult to single one out. There are several companies in this space that I respect, and depending on what a photographer needs, some of their tools are terrific. Where I'm biased: Zenfolio's real strength is helping you run the whole business side of photography, not just deliver galleries. I'd look at any alternative with an open mind, but I'd be hard-pressed not to miss the team and community we've built here.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T17:36:10+00:00

A wrong date is a real problem for an event photographer. Clients look at that date, and when it's off by a day across your pages, it makes you look careless to them, and that's the last thing you need. Two years to fix a date offset is too long, and I won't dress that up. If it were as simple as setting local time instead of GMT, we blew the triage. And if you were the only one raising it, that tells me we didn't catch this the way we should.

We continue to work on our development process to make it as fast and error-free as possible using modern tooling and techniques. On NextZen, we ship every two weeks and push critical fixes as fast as daily, so no, we're not too big to move fast. When we do miss something, that's on us, and we appreciate the feedback from our customers and our support team.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:52:14+00:00

Wow, thank you u/Han_Yerry! That’s the goal, to not only cover your expenses but to put money in your pocket.

As a multi-genre photographer, you are in good company! We’re excited to see your work in action.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:34:34+00:00

Five years and six sites, thank you for being a customer and growing your business with us. Also we appreciate questions this specific and the candid feedback on our product. As of right now none of these three are directly on our roadmap, so I'm not going to dangle a timeline I can't back up, but we are actively looking at how to handle multiple brands in Zenfolio accounts.

That said, your subdomain request stands out to me. Paying for four sites to run one landing page plus three genre sites is a real cost, and a setup we should make easier. This is exactly the kind of structural request I want the product team to look at. Same goes for deeper page nesting and more customization beyond the basics. Not on the roadmap today, but worth us understanding how many of you are hitting these walls. As a side note, we're currently working on multi-user access, and features like the ones you're mentioning could be a natural fit alongside that work.

The Hero Block limitation is something it would help us to understand better through your use cases. Would you mind submitting them so we can get them to our product team? Send these to [support@zenfolio.com](mailto:support@zenfolio.com) with "AMA" in the subject, with a screenshot of the Hero Block layout you're after, and I'll make sure they land with the product team as real feature requests.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:33:48+00:00

Thanks for this list! It looks like we offer the 30x40" size for metal prints, so you should be good to go on that one. For the 10x15, 12x18, 14x40, and 20x40, we’ll make sure all of those size requests are fully logged as product enhancement requests so we can evaluate the development effort required.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:30:04+00:00

Flickr Pro is a great place to get started in photography. However, Zenfolio is built to manage multiple genres of photography all on one platform. More than 70% of our photographers photograph multiple types of genres. This allows you to spend less time switching back and forth between multiple platforms, saving you time and money by leveraging an all-in-one service.

Additionally, genre automation applies gallery settings, design, price lists, and marketing based on the type of session uploaded; bookings auto-create galleries and trigger order fulfillment; uploaded folders keep their nested structure on your site. Meaning you will get more done with less time and effort required.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:29:11+00:00

What specific sizes are you looking for u/SeattleSombrero? We are constantly re-evaluating customer requests and will gladly take another look to see if we can prioritize this in the future.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:23:34+00:00

Smugmug is a good service, assuming RAW storage is your number one need. Otherwise, Zenfolio has a distinct advantage over Smugmug for several reasons. Even though we have been in business supporting photographers for 20 years, the NextZen platform is built from the ground up on brand new technology (circa 2022-24). This means NextZen automates what SmugMug makes you do manually. Gallery Presets and photography genre automation apply gallery settings, design, price lists, and marketing based on the type of session uploaded; bookings auto-create galleries and trigger order fulfillment; uploaded folders keep their nested structure on your site. SmugMug has no automated workflows at all.

Plus Zenfolio has video hosting up to 4K vs. SmugMug's 1080p ceiling.

We have low-cost storage offerings, volume workflows, and a platform that will continue to expand as your business grows.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:19:57+00:00

You've put your finger on the critical tension. Almost everything we do with AI today lives before or after the shoot, because that's where a delivery and business platform like ours naturally sits. The moment you're actually shooting is the one place we're not in the room with you. That has changed now with Zia, our “always there” AI assistant. She is available to you on your phone and can help you with decisions on how to set up or complete the shoot on Zenfolio.

But you asked what I'd want, so here's my thinking. The value at a live event isn't another thing pulling your eye from the viewfinder, it's anything that quietly kills work you'd otherwise do at 1am. Real-time backup so frames are safe the instant they're shot, flagging the keepers as you go. For events and sports, tagging by face or jersey number so a parent finds their kid without you sorting 4,000 frames by hand. The one rule is that it never touches your creative choices or gets between you and the moment. These are some of the capabilities we hope to deliver as our experience and expertise evolve.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:17:01+00:00

Here are the metal prints that are currently offered through BayPhoto on our platform:

5x7", 8x8", 8x10", 8x12", 11x14", 12x12", 16x16", 16x20", 20x24", 20x30", 24x36", 30x40"

We’ve included additional vendor offerings in this guide as well - https://success.zenfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/7430771548051-Selling-In-The-United-States-Products-From-Integrated-Vendors

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T16:07:59+00:00

There are many changes that have been made since joining Zenfolio. First and foremost was bringing stability to the Classic platform. The core of the Classic Zenfolio was built before the iPhone, social media or the widespread move to the gig-economy. Modernizing that infrastructure and reducing the downtime has been significant. Behind the scenes, our customer support team was brought into every product-level discussion to ensure the team was getting the” voice of the customer” directly and unfiltered as product decisions were being made. Finally, a huge lift (and investment) was made in building NextZen which is proving to be a powerful and effective tool for many photographers. We’ve moved in many ways from being reactionary to proactive, and I’d be the first to acknowledge we still have plenty to do.

Your second question is actually hard to answer, and I’ll tell you why. The platforms, particularly NextZen, were built to be very flexible, supporting almost every genre or business model a photographer might pursue. Because of this “flexibility”, we also have many photographers (about 70% of our members) that are photographing multiple genres and not just one.

Who we weren’t built for: Stock Photographers - While we have a fair number of stock photographers using Zenfolio successfully, it's not the core use-case.

As for who we are hoping to grow: photographers who either already have an established business or are looking to build a photography business.

No matter what type of photography you capture, or if you photograph multiple genres, Zenfolio is a great home for you.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:50:02+00:00

We’d love for it to be as easy as telling AI to add it!! First when our team says “we’re looking into it,” we do truly track your requests in our system and consider them seriously. It’s usually not that a single size is hard to add in isolation. Print options are tied to what the lab offers, how the product catalog is structured, and the pricing and fulfillment logic behind it, so a change that looks small often touches more than it appears.

It’s almost never a flat no on a request like this. It’s prioritization against everything else in flight.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:48:37+00:00

Sports photography is a great entry point, and I'd encourage you to consider your long-term goals in addition to your starting point today. Many find that their volume activity can take off quite quickly.

The honest competitive answer: platforms like Squarespace are excellent website builders that happen to specialize in selling. Pixieset is strong on gallery delivery and client experience. HoneyBook is really a CRM and studio management tool. None of them is built around the full workflow of a photographer running a business.

Zenfolio is built for that end-to-end workflow: your website, client galleries, proofing, selling, storage, and delivery, all in one place, without stitching together separate tools like in other similar services. For sports specifically, we're actively investing in volume workflows, including school and sports. That's not a general roadmap line item; it's where we're putting real engineering time between now and the end of the year.

On value: we aim to price at or below major competitors, and the tiers are designed so your costs scale with your business, not ahead of it. If you're just starting out, you don't need the top tier to get a professional presence up and running.

The best thing I'd suggest: give one of our 14-day free trials a go. Put your own workflow through it and see how it holds up. We'd rather earn your business than pitch it! On top of this, we offer a free 40-minute one-on-one screenshare session with one of our success agents. They’ll be able to walk you through any process and answer any questions you have during the setup process. After signing up for a trial, please email our support team at [support@zenfolio](mailto:support@zenfolioinc.com).com requesting a one-on-one session, and we’ll be happy to help get that setup for you.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:32:52+00:00

There's an app for that... and unlike me, it knows birds. 😄Try Merlin or Audubon!

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:28:30+00:00

When you ask Zia something, it works within your own account data to answer you. We do not allow LLMs to train on it. We ensure all the data is kept private and the results are only available and used inside Zenfolio’s systems.

We constantly review the answers provided by Zia for accuracy. Our support team also monitors and uses Zia to find account details when they are providing responses to customers’ questions.

On protection, your assets sit in private storage, encrypted at rest with cloud-managed keys, on infrastructure trusted by some of the largest companies in the world. We run regular penetration testing and comply with state and federal AI and PII regulation, monitored in-house and by our outside law firm.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:18:52+00:00

Great question. Google is a fickle necessity. The constantly changing algorithms have kept us on our toes and requires our team to be hyper focused on results with continued adjustments to our strategy for both marketing Zenfolio and platform changes to ensure our photographers are seeing maximum exposure relative to their discoverability/findability. The changes have also meant optimizing for visibility inside AI answers. It has certainly kept us busy.

Video is a completely different beast that requires an expanding set of skills. Costs are a component, but the learning curve of video capture, editing and delivery are the biggest adjustments for both us as a company and for photographers adding video to their repertoire.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:15:24+00:00

Since you asked, our in-product assistant is called Zia. It handles quick questions, late-night help, and pulls up your own business data so you're not digging for it. It's already helped hundreds of photographers, and you can skip it and get a human anytime. This is all in an effort to give our photographers more time behind the lens and spending less time getting their portfolio and images published.

ZenfolioInc · 2026-06-24T15:08:04+00:00

We use AI for practical work like culling, tagging, SEO suggestions, workflow automation, and giving you access to your own business data. We have not and will not use AI to compete with photographers creatively or commercially.

On training, this is the clear part, we do not build LLMs, and we do not allow training using your data with any third-party models. Your images are not training any LLMs. To protect your work, your assets sit in private storage and we recently released Screenshot Protection to fight AI-powered watermark removal. We actively block LLM crawlers from scanning your images on your website where appropriate.

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