Best CRM for photographers in 2024

Do you find yourself frequently juggling different aspects of your photography business? Or fed up of having to deal with the administrative side of the business as a creative?

Dealing with administrative duties like managing clients, sourcing new ones, and maintaining all your contacts organized is no small feat. While traditional methods like pen and paper may have sufficed until now, a robust CRM can significantly ease your workload and help you scale your business. This means you can finally let go of those manual, monotonous tasks that are less than enjoyable.

In this blog, we'll explore how photographers can effectively use a CRM, highlight the key features to consider, and identify the top CRM platforms available.

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Why do photographers need a CRM?

Photographers, like many professionals who manage numerous clients and projects, can significantly benefit from using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Especially if you’re constantly switching contexts between client admin and photography. 

A good CRM can help you do the heavy lifting so that you can streamline your workflow by automating repetitive tasks.

Top 7 features photographers need to look for in a CRM

Below are some important features you’ll often find in a good quality CRM that you should look out for.

Client management: Struggling to monitor client interactions, contract signings, or those in your waitlist? An effective CRM should offer a pipeline management feature, enabling you to oversee your clients effortlessly and view all necessary details at a single glance.

Client sourcing: The process of acquiring new clients can be arduous, especially when their contact information is scattered across various platforms or, even more cumbersome, recorded manually. A CRM can simplify this by allowing you to import contact lists quickly, seamlessly integrating into your current workflow.

Contact sync: A CRM is essential for photographers to manage client data, including contact information, preferences, and past interactions. This is key to building and maintaining solid client relationships. Opt for CRMs that offer integration with email services like Gmail or Outlook and provide features like contact deduplication to maintain an orderly client database.

Contact enrichment: If you're missing crucial contact information, a quality CRM's contact enrichment function can assist in filling these gaps with a single click.

Email marketing: Streamline your communication through a CRM that facilitates sending out emails, newsletters, or reminders. This includes everything from follow-up messages and appointment reminders to promotional content.

User experience:  The user experience with a CRM should be intuitive, allowing you to harness its full potential from day one without facing a cumbersome interface, steep learning curve or clunky experience.

Team collaboration or solo use: A good CRM should allow you to use it as a solo entrepreneur and scale with you when you’re ready to grow your team. So that you won’t have to deal with multiple client lists spread across various spreadsheets. 

A comparison of the best CRMs for photographers

Let’s unpack some of the best CRMs for photographers out there and look into what each of them has to offer. 

folk 

folk is an easy-to-use, all-in-one CRM loved for its Notion-like design that makes it easy to use. You can use folk as a solopreneur, or collaboratively with your team. 

Client management

folk offers a structured approach to client management. You have the option of a Kanban-board layout for easy drag-and-drop organization of clients through different stages of your process, or a list view for a quick summary of all client contact information.

Client sourcing

Tired of waiting for website lead forms to capture client details? folk's Chrome extension, folkX, simplifies this by allowing you to import individual profiles from across the web or directly from LinkedIn searches into your CRM, streamlining the process of connecting with potential clients.

Contact sync and enrichment

If your client details are scattered across various platforms, folk's contact sync function, using third-party apps, consolidates all your contacts in one place. This feature provides a complete view of contact details and past interactions. Plus, its contact enrichment tool can instantly update missing information, and an auto-deduplication function helps keep your database streamlined.

Email marketing

With folk, you can send personalized bulk emails directly from the platform. Their AI-powered 'Magic Field' assists in saving time, and you can choose from a wide range of email templates. Detailed reports on email performance metrics like delivery, click-throughs, opens, and bounce rates are also available.

User experience

folk is loved for its Notion-like user experience, making it an accessible CRM platform from the day one. It offers AI support with 'Magic Field' for personalized email campaigns, various view options for client lists, and centralized client notes, all with a user-friendly interface and without a steep learning curve.

Team collaboration or solo use

You can use folk as a solo-user or invite a team-member. Adding new team members is straightforward, enabling shared contact list creation and management, consolidated client notes, and collaborative follow-up reminders.

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14 day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month
• Premium: $40 per user, per month
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month

Studio Ninja

Studio Ninja is a photography-business management app for solopreneurs. It was designed by a photographer, for photographers it aims to help those in the field streamline their admin work. 

Client management

Studio Ninja’s contact management system is a bit lacking in a CRM sense as it is a traditional online address book. However, there are also other features, such as an online booking system, job tracking and a space to manage and send quotes and contracts. 

Client sourcing

Studio Ninja relies heavily on sourcing through a contact form submission. Once you capture a potential lead’s contact details that can help you trigger an email sequence you set up. 

Contact sync and enrichment

Studio Ninja’s isn’t a traditional CRM, so its integrations are designed to streamline your workflow process as opposed to syncing all your contacts in one place. At the time of writing, it does not have a contact enrichment feature.

Email marketing

Studio Ninja has a workflow automation process that helps you set up and automate an email sequence but you don’t get help personalizing messages or analytics. 

User experience

If you’re looking for a platform that will help you streamline your workflow process, Studio Ninja is a good shout. However, it does not have a user experience you might expect from a traditional CRM. Instead, its focus is heavy on tasks that a photographer contends with on a daily basis so its address book is the main CRM experience. 

Team collaboration or solo use

Studio Ninja is designed for one-man photography bands. There isn’t a collaborative element on their platform where you can share contact lists.

Price and plans

There are two tiers of plans for you to choose from. Starting with a Pro tier, that costs $20.75 and a Master tier that is $30.40 annually. For a monthly contract you’re looking at $24.90 and $36.50 respectively. Unlike a traditional CRM, Studio Ninja doesn’t charge per user. Instead, the main difference between the two tiers is the number of contact forms, booking forms and brands you can use on the account. 

Picsello 

Picsello is a photography business management software designed for solopreneurs. While it is not a traditional CRM, it does have some CRM elements. 

Client management

Picsello diverges from the typical CRM approach to client management, focusing instead on a booking and scheduling feature. This involves creating a public profile with an accessible calendar, allowing potential clients to check your availability. Bookings must be completed within a ten-minute window.

Client sourcing

Unlike other platforms, Picsello doesn't facilitate the importation of search lists. It primarily depends on potential clients discovering your website and filling out contact forms.

Contact sync and enrichment

As Picsello isn't a conventional CRM, it lacks a contact synchronization feature. This means you won't be able to consolidate all client information on a single platform or access a tool to enrich contact details.

Email marketing

Picsello offers email automation and customizable templates for your email campaigns. You can link your social media accounts to your Picsello profile. However, it does not provide personalization assistance or analytics to gauge the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

User experience

Picsello's user interface isn't akin to a traditional CRM. It's specifically tailored for photographers, focusing on streamlining administrative tasks related to client bookings and print sales.

Team collaboration or solo use

The platform is designed primarily for individual photographers, lacking features conducive to team collaboration. This is reflected in Picsello's pricing structure, which is not based on a per-user model typical of many CRM systems.

Price and plans

Picsello offers straightforward pricing plans, with the main distinction being between annual and quarterly billing. The annual plan costs $350, while the quarterly option is priced at $105 for three months. At present, there are promotional offers available for both plans.

17hats

17hats is an all-in-one business management and CRM software platform built specifically for one-man bands. 

Client management

17hats has a contact card system reminiscent of an online address book, featuring an alphabetical index and a search function. However, as a CRM, it may not fully meet all expectations.

Client sourcing

The platform heavily depends on a lead capture form that needs integration with your website and social media. This can be a bit complex. It includes features like lead management in a list format and workflow triggers, but the overall experience might feel somewhat cumbersome.

Contact sync and enrichment

Rather than offering a contact sync feature, 17hats requires manual import of contacts via CSV files. It currently lacks a feature for contact enrichment.

Email marketing

17hats provides customizable email templates and a basic personalization tool, such as auto-inserting a recipient's first name. However, it lacks analytics, so assessing the effectiveness of email campaigns is not straightforward.

User experience

17hats is designed to help busy professionals who have to balance multiple hats, but the user experience feels outdated and clunky. Although it offers advanced workflow systems, this requires a lot of manual setup. Expect a steep learning curve to be able to use all their features.

Team collaboration or solo use

Designed with solopreneurs in mind, 17hats is not for collaboration. 

Price and plans

17hats offers three subscription tiers: Essentials, Standard, and Premier, priced at $13, $25, and $50 per month, respectively, on an annual basis. Monthly payment options are also available. All packages include a lifetime free CRM. The main differences among the plans are the number of lead capture forms provided and additional features like online scheduling, brand customization, and advanced automation capabilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do photographers need a CRM?

Photographers need a CRM to manage client relationships, organize client communications, and keep track of project progress. A CRM helps photographers automate their workflow, ensuring timely follow-ups, efficient client management, and improved customer satisfaction.

What features should photographers look for in a CRM?

Photographers should look for the following features in a CRM:

• Client and contact management: Organize and track client interactions and contact details.
• Email integration: Sync with email platforms for seamless communication.
• Automation: Automate reminders, follow-ups, and other repetitive tasks.
• Customizable workflows: Tailor the CRM to fit specific photography business needs.

Why is folk the preferred CRM for photographers?

folk is the preferred CRM for photographers because it offers comprehensive client and project management, seamless email integration, and powerful automation features. Its user-friendly interface and customizable workflows make it easy for photographers to manage their business operations efficiently. 

Conclusion

Managing numerous clients and projects can be exhausting. So you should opt for a CRM that provides a smooth user experience and features that can do the heavy-lifting for you with automation and AI support, like folk. 

folk is designed to evolve alongside your business. It's suitable for individual entrepreneurs and can seamlessly adapt as your business expands, offering team access features when you're set to assemble a team.