Best “Photography Website” Hosting & Photo Hosting Sites in 2022

Are you a proficient photographer and planning to launch your first website to show your work? Perhaps you are a photographer who already owns photography sites, but they are slow to load and serve your images. Now, this is where the role of a photography hosting website comes into play to elevate your last updated business plan and work.

The best photography host helps to showcase your work with vibrant and engaging images to the masses and helps promote your portfolio to the target audience.

Whether you’re a landscape, wildlife, wedding, family, fashion and travel, or event photographer, or if you just want to showcase your stock of photos, the photography website hosting will remain the same for a photographer and be an integral part of their work. This can work well with niche-specific photography.

For instance, you shoot high-quality pictures of stars that are in high demand. So, if you shoot pictures of stars and nights, you can put these stars’ pictures out there as part of a niche theme, and web builders can craft a platform to show these distinct stars’ images to visitors.

With a niche theme such as stars, you might get a chance to grow your reach and photography business using appealing photos of stars and galaxies. This interface can also act as your portfolio for future purposes.

Typically, a photographer also requires sufficient storage space to host their images and an adequate bandwidth to load and serve pictures quickly and efficiently to web viewers. Therefore, you must pick the right website host to help launch your site in a highly responsive manner.

How to Choose the Right Photography Web Hosting

Selecting the right photography website host can make a massive difference for your photos, photography career, and business work, but it is not an easy pick. Choosing the right web host for your work can be stressful. It is the website host that eventually determines your website’s speed and storage space. The sheer number of accessible web hosting options makes the selection process a bit complicated.

An excellent way to start is to analyze your work needs and requirements, conduct proper and refined research, and only then pick the best available option for your work. This article categorically compared the best hosting providers, focusing mainly on primary factors like pricing, storage, speed, and backups. All of these factors can ultimately help in determining the success of your photography sites and your photos.

If your purpose is to showcase your portfolio, or if you want to sell digital photographs, or set up your stock photography website to showcase your stock photos and work, you need to choose the best website host for serving your imagery to online visitors. There are specific proven alternative paths that you can opt for while hosting your website.

• You can choose to create your site using WordPress (a content management system) and get full control of that website.
• You can choose to go with all-in-one setup solutions like Wix.
• If you are willing to keep your site hosting hands-free, then you can consider opting for dedicated website hosting platforms like SmugMug.

There are numerous factors and features to consider while looking out for the best photography service for your photos. This guide will cover all the essential elements you can consider to select the best available service for your photography website. Take a look at different types of hosting services available for hosting your stock photos.

Different Types of Website Hosting 

So, what exactly is website hosting? Why do you need website hosting services like photographers, and why is it so crucial for your business? In simple terms, site hosting refers to the space you charter in a computer server to showcase your site on the internet. In fact, site hosting is the core requirement for creating and publishing your site in WordPress.

You can easily promote your business as a photographer and a portfolio website to the world and help it reach its target audience with the help of the right website hosting services.

In case you didn’t know, the best website host service not only specializes in presenting and promoting your vivacious and engaging images to the masses but also allows you to learn new methods, showcase your photography portfolio including your best photos, and get some opportunities to sell prints via your engaging images. Some hosts also offer a money-back guarantee so you can explore features well enough and avail of a money-back guarantee if not satiated.

Marketing and e-commerce have become essential to expand your business, and features of e-commerce such as easy access and swift payments will elevate your pro plan for business as photographers. For example, Hostinger offers photographers who want to sell prints; they also serve you with e-commerce services, or a drag and drop builder interface for website formation.

You can choose from different types of site hosting services like shared website hosting, dedicated web hosting, VPS, and managed WordPress hosting. Read on further to learn more about different types of web hosting services and their major advantages.

Shared Web Hosting 

In this type of service, your site is stored on the same web hosting server along with other websites. A shared website host is relatively cheaper and best-suited for startup websites.

Overall, shared web hosting is a great option for individuals who want to get their site up and running fast. With the right web hosting server, you can easily get all essential customizable options along with an average loading speed. However, it is important to know that a shared host is not a long-term solution as it cannot withstand high levels of web traffic.

Dedicated Web Hosting 

It is another popular form of service that primarily offers a dedicated web server for your site along with all essential features and full control. Considered the best and most reliable option out there, dedicated web hosting is quite pricey, but if you want to scale your site traffic to higher levels, it is undoubtedly the best option for you.

VPS Hosting 

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. This type of service is definitely a better alternative to shared web hosting. In VPS hosting, personal virtual space is used for hosting websites. It eventually speeds up the loading speed of your site alongside allowing you to obtain more web traffic inflow on your site. So, if you’re planning to scale up your web traffic levels, then you can choose to go with VPS web hosting.

Managed WordPress Hosting

A lot of web users don’t know that WordPress powers more than 35% of the total websites on the internet. This is why managed WordPress hosting service is immensely popular among photographers and online business owners.

It is important for photographers to know that a managed WordPress hosting service can easily host and run your site 100% hassle-free, thereby making it appealing to WordPress users worldwide. In addition to this, your managed WordPress host will take proper care of your entire web hosting needs alongside monitoring your site’s performance, security, backups, and more.

Now that you know the different photography website hosting providers available let’s find out how to pick the best host as per what photographers need. All you need to do is to evaluate your hosting needs and requirements and choose the one that best fits your budget and business plan.

Features to look out for in a Photography Website Hosting 

There’s no doubt in the fact that a good and reliable website host can serve as the perfect foundation for photographers, their digital gallery, and work. Suppose you’re a professional photographer and you primarily rely on your clients for appointing your photography services. In that case, photographers must pick the best available web hosting services for availing rock-solid reliability, absolute best performance, and first-class support.

In technical terms, a good and reliable web hosting setup is quite similar to a standard web server. However, choosing the right service greatly depends on your host requirements and the type of site that photographers want to build. So, here are a few crucial features that photographers must consider while looking out for the best web host for their website.

Ease of Use 

Since you are photographers and not web developers, all you need is for your site to perform well and reach out to its target audience. Therefore, photographers must always lookout for a professional and reliable hosting website that can easily take care of their entire web hosting needs.

Ideally, the service chosen by photographers will take the reins completely – starting from the initial setup and host migration to making the site run as efficiently and smoothly as possible. However, make sure you don’t end up hiring a web developer to operate your site hosting. A good website host like Wix can easily fulfill your requirements as a photographer and handle your site for free with its ease of use.

Disk Space

It is another crucial aspect that photographers must consider while looking out for the best suitable web hosting server for their site.

As we all know, any image file consumes relatively more disk space than a text document. For example, a very small image of about 300×400 pixels consumes as much as 60KB of disk space, whereas a web page with over 2000 characters uses only about 2 to 4kb of disk space. Therefore, you need to choose the right service that can host your site alongside providing you with adequate disk space for storing your imagery and other web files.

Website Building Features

Photographers must choose the right web hosting server and website builder to offer them data backup and restore functionality. After spending days and weeks using the website builder to build a photography website, the only thing photographers hate to do is to recreate everything from scratch.

Photographers need to know that some servers require the user to go into the configuration and run a data backup manually. On the other hand, certain web hosts automatically run data backup once every 24 hours to keep the site data backed up. So, just make sure you’ve selected the best web hosting server that can easily backup your site data and restore the optimal functionality of your website, thus serving as a good website builder to meet your expectations from a web builder.

Website building features and the right marketing tools can help your site have a versatile interface.

Unlimited Bandwidth 

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is transferred in a given time period. It will eventually add up to the overall efficiency and quick response time of your website. So, before deciding on the right web host for your photography site, make sure you choose the service with a higher bandwidth capacity.

Content Delivery Network

CDN stands for content delivery network or content distribution network. CDN primarily refers to the group of data centers and servers that are distributed across the globe to deliver websites’ content more quickly.

A CDN simply takes your site files and distributes them across multiple hosting servers, thereby making your site content load a lot faster for your online visitors. A custom domain can also help make your distribution unique and help your brand stand out.

Support Team 

It is immensely important for your web host to have a proper technical support team. Even though most servers offer dedicated technical support to their customers, you must look for the best web hosting service that provides 24×7 technical support and professional assistance by the team.

Top 7 Best Photography Website Hosting Options

With a wide range of web hosting options to choose from, it is essential that you pick the best photography website host to cater to your website’s needs. So, here is a list of some of the top-rated and best web hosting sites that can be a perfect fit for your site.

Siteground

Related: When & When Not To Use SiteGround

Siteground is a great web hosting for a photography site. It is easy to use and provides more storage as compared to GoDaddy. One of the best web hosting for photographers offers a control panel, better monitoring and firewall options, and notifies for WordPress updates. The overall rating is 3.9/5. It is one kind of preferred hosting service that we surely recommend.

Key Features

• 99.98% uptime.
• The domain name and free backups
• 30-days moneyback guarantee.
• WordPress install feature enabled
• 10-30 GB available disk space
• Starting price of $3.95 per month

Pricing

For the shared web hosting of SiteGround, the price starts from $3.99 to $10.69 per month. With the basic plan, you can avail of only 10,000 visits with 10 GB of storage. This plan also comes with email accounts, SSL certificates, and increased traffic optimization.

Support

Siteground provides you with a live chat option with 24/7 team support. The drawback is that it doesn’t provide a VPS plan, so we recommend referring to other hosting services if that is a priority for you. The advantage of using Siteground is that it offers a money-back guarantee to try and test relevant features. The overall rating is 3.9. Siteground is recommended for high reliability.

Hostinger

If you’re searching for fast, functionally robust, and easy-to-use web hosting for photographers, then Hostinger could be your ideal pick. With its shared plans starting from $1.99, you can easily help your site to reach its target audience in a cost-efficient manner. Hostinger offers its plans at meager introductory prices, and you can easily access all essential features you might require for hosting and promoting your website.

Key Features

• 99.90% uptime
• Free weekly backups
• A 30-days money-back guarantee
• Inbuilt one-click WordPress install
• 10 to 160 GB of available free disk space
• The unusual starting price of $1.99 per month

Plans and Pricing

Hostinger offers shared hosting plans, as well as VPS hosting plans, to its users. The shared plans of Hostinger start at $1.99. In this shared web hosting basic plan, you can gain quick and easy access to a free SSL certificate, one email, and limited bandwidth of 100GB.

In addition to this, Hostinger offers a second shared hosting plan at $3.49 per month along with certain essential features like weekly backups, unlimited email accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate. Unlimited bandwidth and a money-back guarantee are two of the striking features.

Now talking about the VPS hosting plan, Hostinger offers six different VPS plans, and their prices may vary from $3.95 to $77.99 per month; the pro plan is the highest-rated. These VPS plans come with certain standard features like 1 to 8GB of memory, 20 to 160 GB of free disk storage, and 1000 to 8000 GB bandwidth.

Support

The live chat option is enabled in Hostinger along with email support. This one is highly recommended for photographers with a reasonable cost, a privacy policy, proper storage, and several relevant features. It has one prominent drawback, Hostinger does not provide unlimited storage.

Bluehost

Related: In-Depth Look & Speed Test of Bluehost

Bluehost is considered to be one of the best photography hosting providers. This hosting provider delivers its services on all important fronts – customer support, Bluehost uptime, etc. In addition to this, it is the number one provider for WordPress interfaces, as recommended by WordPress. So, if your site is built on WordPress, then Bluehost could be the perfect fit for your professional website of images.

Key Features

• 99.98% uptime
• 30-days money-back guarantee
• Free backups and free domain
• WordPress install feature
• Up to 50GB of free disk space
• Pricing starts from $2.95/month

Pricing

The shared plans of Bluehost begin at an introductory price of $2.95 per month. Even though this price is not the cheapest, you can avail of various web hosting features such as unmetered bandwidth, free SSL certificate, and 25 subdomains. You can also opt for specific shared plans of Bluehost, which start at $2.95 per month. This upgraded shared plan can help you gain easy access to the WordPress staging environment, automatic WordPress installation, and automatic WordPress updates.

Besides offering a shared web hosting plan, Bluehost also offers some of the cheapest VPS plans for $18.99 monthly. Choosing Bluehost’s VPS plans will provide you with quick and easy access to 2GB RAM, 30GB SSD storage, and 1TB bandwidth. Other VPS plans are available for as much as $59.99 monthly. So, make sure to consider all your requirements to select the right plan and the best type of service for your brand.

Support

Bluehost provides you with readily installed WordPress provisions. It requires zero knowledge to build a website. With the easy-to-use, click WordPress, you can start getting creative. The advantage of Bluehost is that you can get unlimited storage for your photography websites.

A2 Hosting 

Related: 18 Crucial Things To Consider about A2 Hosting

Suppose you’re planning to host your photography website using A2 Hosting web hosting services. In that case, you can rest assured that your high-quality imagery will be in good hands, and even though A2 Hosting web hosting services are well-priced, they accommodate all essential features. Security is a pressing concern for A2 Hosting. If you are planning to have your personalized store online, A2 Hosting is recommended.

Key Features

• 99.95% uptime
• Limitless disk storage provided
• Free backups
• No plan consists of free domain
• The low monthly starting price of $2.99/mo
• 100% money-back guarantee policy

Pricing

The cheapest plan of A2 Hosting starts at $2.99 monthly. Several robust features are included in successive plans, with the basic plan giving a good range of features for website hosting and management.

The VPS plans of A2 have extended features in addition to the shared plans. The price of these VPS plans ranges from $25.00-$50.00 per month. This is the most cost-effective hosting service for photographers to sell their images online and gain instant payment.

Support

A2 Hosting is one handy photography website hosting provider. The best part is that A2 Hosting has received more ratings than other hosting services, which is 4.3 stars. The live chat function adds to the support and customer care services of A2 Hosting, thus, making it one of the most used website builders.

Other than the tools mentioned above, there are some you can consider for specific tasks. Weebly is another drag-and-drop website builder with website creation and web-hosting services. Members of the Weebly website can access several mobile-friendly themes and choose to monetize web pages by using Google AdSense.

Similarly, with Squarespace, you can create a website with an award-winning template and get a unique domain. Squarespace helps photographers get a beautiful website, and small businesses can excel with Squarespace features too. Future US Inc. is specialized in targeted magazines and websites. A combination of these essential facets can help host a photography site well.

GoDaddy

If you’re planning to host your site using GoDaddy, some pretty robust features are in store. GoDaddy web hosting services are pricey as compared to other websites, but it is better equipped with a range of essential features for your images.

Key Features

• 99.97% uptime
• Free backups
• Free domain name
• 100GB disk space
• Easy WordPress install feature
• A low monthly starting price of $5.99/month

Plans and Pricing

The web hosting plans provided by GoDaddy contain two types of hosting, one is the shared one, and the other is VPS. For hosting for photographers, the basic price in GoDaddy begins at $5.99 monthly. This plan offers a free domain name. The beginner plan has features like a Microsoft office 365 email account free for a year, domain, bandwidth, and storage of 100 GB.

When it comes to GoDaddy’s VPS hosting, the VPS plans of GoDaddy are more feature-rich than the shared plans. The price of these VPS plans ranges from $4.99-$69.99 monthly. With this, you can upgrade your plan, with more storage, around 1GB RAM and 20GB SSD, and to the best reach plan, which offers around 16GB RAM and 400GB SSD storage for your site hosting.

Support

GoDaddy’s knowledge center, 24×7 phone support, and live chat functions are exclusive features that eventually make GoDaddy a great website host. Occasionally, if live chats are unavailable, you can contact customer care. The only drawback is Godaddy does not provide a free trial. The overall rating is 3.4. Godaddy is best recommended for extra features.

Wix

Immensely comprehensive and easy to use, Wix web builder and hosting offer all types of free, automatic WordPress updates and automated daily backups to photography site owners. It is another great alternative for photography websites. Wix offers a variety of website building and management features in addition to hosting functions.

Key Features

• 99.98% uptime.
• Free domain
• Free backups
• 30-days money-back guarantee.
• WordPress install Enabled
• 30 GB available disk space
• Pricing begins at $14

Pricing

The shared hosting plan of Wix is priced, ranging from $14 to $39monthly. You can also avail of free email accounts, free SSL certificates, unmetered traffic, and various other features with Wix.

Support

Wix is an extremely collaborative and secure web hosting provider, and hence, it could be the right option for your site. The advantages of using Wix are owing to better configuration and security management options. With a range of robust features and provisions, the customer support at Wix is also great to help with any troubleshooting and issues that arise with the user.

Dreamhost

DreamHost is a versatile website hosting provider. This is because it delivers its services on all important fronts – customer support, DreamHost uptime, etc. DreamHost is a great hosting provider for WordPress. If your website has a priority of WordPress features, then DreamHost could be the perfect fit for your professional photography site.

Key Features

• 99.98% uptime
• Free backups and domain
• 30-days moneyback guarantee
• Up to 50GB of free disk space
• WordPress install feature Enabled.
• Pricing begins at $2.49

Pricing

The shared plans for DreamHost start at $2.49 per month. There is a range of web hosting plans under this with different target features. You can avail of DreamHost’s shared plans at an introductory price of $2.49 monthly, after which additional features, memory, and bandwidth have extra charges for dedicated Hosting at $168/month and cloud hosting at $0.0075/hour. Other than its shared plans, DreamHost also offers some of the cheapest VPS plans.

Support

DreamHost is an extremely reliable and robust hosting provider, and it is considered best for backups and recovery; and hence, it can be great for your photography website. Alongside offering a well-organized knowledge base and dedicated tutorials for WordPress, DreamHost also offers 24×7 phone and chat support to assist its customers.

The advantage of using DreamHost is it has a click WordPress feature enabled for easy integrations. The overall rating given to this service is 3.7 stars. It is best recommended for backup and recovery.

Final Words

As a professional photographer, finding the best photography hosting website isn’t particularly an enjoyable task. You don’t need to have experience in building a website or hire a web designer. All you need is the best web hosting, an easy built-in interface, and a control panel to build a full-fledged website. Then, upload your imagery and allow it to reach the masses.

Therefore, investing in a reliable, stable, fastest, and best-supported service for your photography websites is of utmost importance. Always remember, you’re going to have a long-term relationship with your hosting web service. So, make sure you carefully look into every option and choose the one that best suits your requirements.