Photographers need a public face that loads on a parent’s phone in a parking lot, plus — separately — a way to deliver proofs to clients. Those are different jobs. Mixing them on one “website platform” is how people buy the wrong tool twice: a pretty marketing host that cannot watermark selections, or a proofing vault that makes a terrible homepage. This article treats SiteHost as a home for the public marketing site and gallery highlights, and it stays honest when client proofing belongs elsewhere.

Public gallery vs client proofing

Public site. Selected images, about story, pricing philosophy, contact, maybe a short blog of finished work. Static HTML — or an export from a design tool — shines here. Curate ruthlessly. Your public site is a museum wing, not a shipping container of every shutter click since 2014.

Client proofing. Authentication, favorites, watermarks, expiry dates, download limits. Use a proofing product built for that workflow. Link it from your public site’s “Client login” or “View your gallery” button. Do not expect SiteHost to grow a full proofing suite — it hosts website files: zip or GitHub publish, HTTPS preview immediately, custom domain certificates after DNS verifies, and file rollback when a homepage crop goes wrong.

Skip this guide if you only need private delivery and have no public marketing pages. Buy proofing software and stop. If you need both, keep reading and keep the jobs split.

Overlap on storage math: where to host a photography website. Portfolio craft that designers share: where to host a portfolio website.

Storage and plans with photo reality

Photographers hit storage limits before copywriters do. Plans on SiteHost:

  • Starter — $9/mo, 1 site, 2 GB. Works if you export web images properly. Fails if you upload near-RAW JPEGs at 8–10 MB each “just in case.”
  • Pro — $30, 3 sites, 10 GB, staging. Room for a main marketing site, a seasonal mini-session microsite, and safer redesign tests.
  • Scale — $65, 10 sites, 30 GB and Business — $130, 30 sites, 100 GB, teams for multi-brand studios or staffed teams.

Trial lasts about a day, then you pay. There is no forever-free plan. SiteHost has no built-in CDN (Cloudflare in front is optional), no email hosting, no cPanel, and no website builder — bring an export or hand-coded files.

A useful mental model: 2 GB is generous for a curated marketing site and stingy for an archive. Archives belong on backup drives and photo cloud storage, not on the public web root.

Performance is part of your brand

A slow gallery feels like slow professionalism. Clients who wait eight seconds for a hero image subconsciously wonder about turnaround times. Habits that matter more than plan tier:

  • Export a web preset from Lightroom or your tool of choice (long edge often 1600–2400px for heroes; thumbs much smaller)
  • Prefer efficient formats your audience’s browsers handle
  • Limit how many full-size images load at once; lazy-load where your templates allow
  • Measure on cellular, not only studio Wi‑Fi

Fast-loading website hosting refuses fake “400% faster” claims. Your vendor conversations should too. Optional Cloudflare can help edge caching later; it will not shrink a 12 MB PNG.

Booking and contact without a custom app

Solo photographers often overbuild. You usually need:

  • A third-party form for inquiries (Formspree-like tools work on static pages)
  • A scheduling link for discovery calls
  • Sometimes a Stripe payment link for retainers or mini-sessions on a simple “Book” page

That stack lives happily on file hosting. You are not obligated to invent a custom booking database in month one. See host a landing page online for campaign pages and website hosting for consultants for payment-link patterns that translate cleanly.

Skip building a members area on your marketing host for delivering finals. Use a delivery tool with expiry and download logs.

A week-in-the-life publish ritual

Monday: export six new homepage images; replace locally; zip with index.html at the root; publish to SiteHost; click through on your phone.

Wednesday: client asks for proofing — send them your proofing vendor link, not an FTP folder on the marketing host.

Friday: mini-session promo page as a second site on Pro; ads wait until the custom domain has HTTPS after DNS verification.

Sunday: botched headline fix — roll back via deploy history, correct locally, publish once.

Domain pointing stays a deliberate step, not a panic: connect a domain to your website.

What not to upload

  • RAW, DNG, or TIFF masters
  • Full wedding dumps as “galleries”
  • Uncompressed 6000px PNGs for grid thumbnails
  • Private client folders you would not want indexed

If a folder would embarrass you in a Google result, it does not belong on a public host — even on an obscure URL. Obscurity is not access control.

Example: portrait studio on Pro

A two-person portrait studio keeps the main marketing site plus a seasonal mini-session landing page on Pro. Proofing runs through a dedicated gallery vendor. When mini-session season ends, they publish a “closed — join the list” state on the landing page without touching the main site. One night a homepage crop publishes wrong; rollback restores the prior file set in minutes. Email stays in Google Workspace because SiteHost does not include mail. They almost bought Scale for “more professional storage,” then compressed galleries and stayed on Pro.

When photographers should choose something else

  • You want WordPress photography themes and plugin galleries managed by an assistant every week → WordPress-oriented hosting; that is a different kind of hosting
  • You need only proofing and never a public site → proofing vendor alone
  • You insist on SSH and custom image-processing daemons → a server you manage, with time budgeted to match

Otherwise, public marketing files on SiteHost plus specialized tools around it is the calm split.

Seasonal mini-session operations

Create a campaign page, host it on a Pro site slot or subdomain, run ads only after custom domain HTTPS works, then publish a closed state. Do not leave old prices lingering on the main marketing site. Proofing remains in your proofing tool throughout.

Questions people actually ask

Can clients download full-res from SiteHost?

You can upload files and link them, but uncontrolled full-resolution distribution is usually better through proofing or delivery tools with permissions and expiry.

Is WordPress required for photography sites?

No. Many photographers use it; it is a different kind of hosting. Exported or hand-built HTML galleries are valid.

Will 2 GB hold my blog?

Yes if images are optimized. No if each post embeds a dozen unresized heroes.

Should I publish pricing?

If you are comfortable with public pricing, HTML plus an optional PDF works. If every job is custom, say so and use a form.

Do I need Scale as a solo shooter?

Usually not. Optimize first; upgrade when site count or storage truly demands it.