Capturely vs Pixpa: delivery vs all-in-one website

If you've been comparing Capturely and Pixpa, you've probably noticed they don't actually compete head-to-head. One is a focused way to deliver a shoot to a client. The other is a whole digital storefront for your business. Picking between them is less about which is better and more about which job you're trying to get done today.

Here's the short version: if you want clients to receive, view, favorite, and download a gallery in minutes, Capturely is built for exactly that. If you want a website, a portfolio, a blog, an online store, and client galleries all under one roof, that's the all-in-one territory Pixpa is known for. Below is an honest look at where each one fits.

What Capturely is

Capturely is a client-gallery delivery platform for photographers. You upload a shoot, share a gallery link, and your client views, favorites, and downloads photos with no account required. That single-purpose focus shows up in every detail of the delivery experience.

• ·Cinematic full-screen covers that open on the client's name, a justified-grid viewer, and a lightbox, photos keep their shot orientation.
• ·Full-resolution downloads of a single photo or the whole gallery as a zip, with per-photo download counts, or galleries can be view-only with an optional watermark.
• ·Favorites and picks: clients heart photos to build a selection, with an optional pick limit and per-photo comments, the first action asks for their name.
• ·Self-deleting galleries that auto-delete from 7 days up to a year, on a custom date, or never, with permanent removal and an email reminder to the client a few days before it closes.
• ·Privacy by default: galleries aren't indexed by search engines, password-protected ones are private, and expired or password galleries are never indexable.
• ·Built-in privacy-friendly analytics with no cookies: unique visitors, views, favorites, countries, devices, sources, average visit time, and how many visitors are online now.

Every plan also has RAW support, reviews and photo comments. There are also webhooks (Zapier, Make, n8n, signed with HMAC), notifications with a daily digest, twelve built-in gallery languages with AI translation into others on paid plans, a referral program that pays account credit, and Stripe billing. For branding, paid plans let you remove Capturely branding, the free tier gives you a yourstudio.capturely.me subdomain, and a public studio page lists your active galleries.

What Pixpa is known for

Pixpa is widely positioned as an all-in-one, no-code website builder aimed at creatives. The pitch is breadth: a portfolio website, client galleries, an online store, and blogging tools bundled together so you can run much of your online presence from a single subscription. That makes it appealing if you want one bill and one dashboard for your whole web presence rather than stitching tools together.

Because Pixpa's plans, storage, and exact feature set change over time and vary by tier, treat any specific number you see quoted anywhere as approximate. Check the current details on Pixpa's own site before you decide. As a general shape: it leans toward photographers and designers who want a public-facing website and store first, with client galleries as one feature among many.

Who each one suits

The decision usually comes down to how wide a job you're hiring the tool for.

1. Choose Capturely if delivery is the real job. You shoot, you need clients to receive a beautiful gallery, favorite their picks, and download originals fast, and you'd rather not pay for a website builder you won't fully use. Every new account starts with 14 days of Pro and no card, so you can send a real gallery first.
2. Choose an all-in-one like Pixpa if your main need is a public website with a store and portfolio, and client galleries are a secondary feature you'd like included. If you don't already have a site and want everything in one subscription, breadth has obvious appeal.
3. Consider running both if you want the best of each: a marketing site and store from an all-in-one, and Capturely for the actual handoff, since Capturely can carry your branding.

A website sells the booking. A gallery closes the relationship. They're different moments, and it's fine to use the right tool for each.

The honest tradeoffs

All-in-one platforms ask you to consolidate. That's the upside (one login, one bill) and the cost (you're paying for portfolio, blog, and store modules even if you only really lean on galleries, and gallery features tend to be one slice of a much larger product). A focused tool goes the other way: Capturely doesn't try to be your website or your store, it tries to make the delivery itself excellent, which is why things like self-deleting galleries, per-photo download counts, cookie-free analytics, and a name-first favorites flow exist.

Neither approach is wrong. If you value having fewer tools and a single dashboard, breadth wins. If you value a delivery experience that feels considered for the exact moment a client opens your work, depth wins. Be honest about which one actually describes your week.

A simple way to decide

Try the delivery side first, because that's the part clients actually touch. Upload a real shoot to Capturely, send the link to yourself or a willing client, and watch how it feels to open, favorite, and download. Then look at whether you separately need a public website and store, if you do, an all-in-one can cover that, and Capturely can still handle the handoff under your branding.

Capturely's free plan gives you one gallery and 15 GB with a 14-day expiry and no card. Pro is €10/mo or €70/yr for unlimited galleries, 120 GB (plus a 30 GB bonus) and branding, and every new account starts with 14 days of it, no card needed. Studio is €25/mo or €180/yr for 500 GB. Signed webhooks and RAW support come with every plan, and you can add 100 GB storage blocks for €5/mo each.