Xposure or Format.
Format is a polished portfolio builder for creatives with client proofing and manual workflows. Xposure is built specifically for photographers, combining clean galleries, a fast portfolio, and an automated online scheduling manager with deposits in one flat-rate pricing plan.
Xposure
Better if you deliver client work every week and take bookings online.
- Booking, contract and deposit in one flow
- Unlimited galleries on every paid plan
- Camera and lens shown on every photo
Format
Better if you want hundreds of layouts and one site for more than photography.
- Hundreds of site layouts
- One site for design, art and photography
- A free domain for the first year on Pro
What does each plan cost per month?
Yearly billing, US dollars for both, by how much you store. Shorter is cheaper.
Studio includes team logins. Monthly billing: Xposure $21 and $52, Format $24 and $36. Source: format.com/pricing.
How do Xposure and Format compare, feature by feature?
| Xposure | Format | |
|---|---|---|
| Galleries | ||
| Native client galleriesBoth bundle proofing in the standard plan. | ||
| PIN / password protection on galleries | ||
| Watermarked previews, clean downloads | ||
| EXIF-aware photo presentationCamera/lens/settings rendered automatically. | No | |
| Selling | ||
| Sell digital downloads | Unlimited products | 15 products on Pro, 1,000 on Pro Plus |
| Platform fee on digital sales | 0% on Pro & Studio, 10% on Starter | 0%, but product-capped |
| Bookings | ||
| Online booking with deposits & contractsXposure includes a live calendar booking tool with automatic deposit payment and contracts. Format Workflow allows manual contracts and invoices but has no client-facing online booking scheduler. | Manual contracts only (via Workflow) | |
| Two-way Google Calendar sync | Via Format Workflow | |
| Website | ||
| Portfolio website with custom domainFormat includes the domain free for the first year only. | Every paid plan (from $9/mo) | Pro and Pro Plus (from $24/mo, or $17/mo billed annually) |
| Template variety | Eleven, drawn for photographs | Hundreds of layouts |
| Targeted at | Photographers only | Creatives broadly |
| Plans | ||
| Number of client galleries | Unlimited on every paid plan | 50 on Pro, 250 on Pro Plus |
| Storage for client deliveryFormat's own comparison table lists image storage as unavailable on Basic. | 25 GB to 2 TB by plan | None on Basic, 100 GB on Pro, 1 TB on Pro Plus |
Format pricing and plan details from their own pricing page. Competitor pricing changes, so treat this as a snapshot rather than a quote. For every plan and what each one includes, see the full Format pricing breakdown.
A website builder that also does galleries
Format sells portfolio websites first and client delivery second, which is why its limits are counted in images rather than gigabytes. Basic allows 70 high-resolution images and includes no image storage at all; Pro allows 1,500 with 100 GB.
Both ceilings bind independently, so comparing Format on storage alone misses the image cap and comparing on image count alone misses that the entry plan cannot hold a gallery. If the portfolio is the point and delivery is occasional, that structure works. If you deliver every week, it does not.
Check which tier has what you need
Gallery password protection, client contracts and the CRM tools are all listed as unavailable on Basic. If protecting a client delivery is part of your workflow, Basic is not a candidate regardless of its price.
Client galleries are also capped: 10 on Basic and 50 on Pro, with file transfers metered separately at 2 GB and 5 GB. Those are three different limits doing three different jobs, and the transfer allowance is usually the first to bite.
Template range against a curated set
Format's template library is far larger than ours and always will be, because breadth is the product. If you want to design your site rather than pick one, that is a real advantage and worth paying for.
We take the opposite position: eleven site templates drawn for photographs, and a gallery builder whose blocks all exist to show photos. Which is better is genuinely a matter of what you enjoy spending your evenings on.
Moving galleries from another platform? Read how switching works, one gallery at a time.
Try it on your next client.
Fourteen days of Pro, no card. Move the rest once you have seen a gallery delivered.