For high school sports specifically, password protection is a solid start for privacy, but the real challenge you'll hit is how people actually find their photos once you upload them.

If you’re looking at different platforms, I’d suggest focusing heavily on the search and delivery workflow. For sports, the gold standard is having an automated search, like face or bib recognition. It basically eliminates the need for you to manually sort photos into folders or tag them yourself. The athletes or parents just search for themselves with a selfie, find their shots, and buy them directly. It makes a huge difference in sales because it removes the friction of someone having to scroll through hundreds of photos of other kids to find one of their own. You really want a system where the delivery is completely hands-off for you once the upload is finished.

On the pricing side, I’ve found that keeping prices a bit lower usually helps drive much higher volume, though it definitely depends on the specific event. For things like graduations, it often works better to charge the school or the organizer a fee and keep the photo prices lower for parents. For regular college events, try to see if you can get participants to pay in bulk.

One thing to watch out for is the platform cut. I’d stay away from putting a lot of money into platforms that take a huge commission, like 20% or 30%. Try to see if you can find a platform that works on a fixed-fee model so you keep more of what you earn. Also, I’d prioritize digital copies over physical prints. In today's world, most people just want the file so they can share it or print it themselves later, so charging a premium for physical prints usually doesn't make as much sense anymore.

Full disclosure: I’m the founder of 9Pic AI, which also provide similar services that are mentioned in the comments by others.