Pixieset vs Google Photos: a client gallery or a shared album

Pixieset is a client-gallery platform for working photographers. A collection gets a cover, your logo and your domain, and the client opens it from a branded email. Inside, they can favourite images to build a selection, download at the sizes you allow behind a four-digit PIN, and buy prints or digital files from a store you set up. Pricing on 5 Oct 2026 runs from a Free plan with 3 GB (and a 15% commission on store sales) through Basic at $10 per month for 10 GB, Plus at $20 for 100 GB, Pro at $30 for 1 TB and Ultimate at $50 for unlimited storage, each a little cheaper billed yearly. If you shoot weddings, families or events for a living, this is the shape of tool you are comparing against.

Google Photos is a personal photo library. Your phone backs up into it, it finds faces and places, and it makes memories out of old trips. Sharing is a feature of that library rather than a product of its own: you make an album, turn on link sharing, and anyone with the link can look without signing in. If they want to save a photo into their own library, comment, or add their own pictures with collaboration on, they need a Google account. There is no password, no expiry, no download switch and no branding; what you can do is turn the link off, which also resets it. Storage is the free 15 GB shared with Gmail and Drive, then Google One tiers. It is excellent for a family or a group of friends and awkward for a client who should not keep the files until an invoice is paid.

This is where the two part ways. Pixieset lets you decide per gallery whether downloads are on, which sizes are offered, and whether a PIN is required, and a gallery can carry a password and an expiry date. Google Photos treats a shared album as open or closed: if the link is on, viewers can look, and signed-in viewers can save copies. For a photographer protecting unpaid work, Pixieset's model is the right one. For a parent sending the school play to other parents, Google's model is fine and less fiddly.

Pixieset charges by gallery storage, from 3 GB free to unlimited at $50 a month, and the Free plan keeps 15% of store sales. Google gives every account 15 GB free across Photos, Gmail and Drive, then sells more through Google One tiers, so a photographer's full-resolution archive quickly needs a paid plan while a family rarely does. Link in Seconds sits in between: the free plan has 100 MB in total, 3 albums, and links that never expire; Pro is $9/month or $49/year with 15 GB of storage and unlimited albums of up to 500 MB each. It is cheaper than a paid Pixieset tier because it does less: no store, no proofing, no gallery app.

A lot of photo delivery is neither a storefront nor a family album: a second shooter handing finals to the lead, an estate agent sending listing shots to a seller, a small studio delivering headshots. Link in Seconds turns the set into one album link that opens in any browser with no account for the client. Every photo opens full size, the album has one view counter, a downloadable QR code and a single ZIP download, and you can switch downloads off so it is view-only until the invoice is paid. On Pro, add a password, an expiry date, a view limit or a notification when the client opens it. The same album can hold the invoice PDF and a highlight video next to the photos. What it does not do: favourites, proofing, a print store, image watermarks or a branded gallery app. Those are Pixieset's territory.

Pick Pixieset if clients pay you for photos and you want proofing, a store and your brand on every gallery. Pick Google Photos if the photos are personal and the people you share with are happy to use a Google account to save or add their own. Pick a plain album link if you want to hand a set to one person with no account on their side, see that they opened it, and keep downloads off until you say so. Many photographers use two of the three: Pixieset for paying clients, a quick link for everything else.