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Pixpa Review 2024 – 11 Pros & 2 Cons You Should Know

Pixpa
Pixpa

Do you want to know whether Pixpa fits your needs? This review will help you to make the right decision.

Pixpa is not a general website builder. It is specifically designed for photographers & artists. So, if you want to build a photography website, then you should consider Pixpa on your list of choices.

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Use “GoodWish50” to get 50% discounts on all Pixpa plans & 63% off on 2-year all plans!

(While you are purchasing, there will be a coupon code field. Enter GoodWish50.)

Let’s see whether Pixpa gets 5 stars or 1 star.

Highly Recommended related post – Pixpa Vs Squarespace – Which One Photographers & Artists Prefer?

#1. Who Visits Pixpa?

Which type of photographer uses the Pixpa Website Builder?
Is the Pixpa Website Builder Easy For Your Level of Skill or Knowledge? 

Let’s see its demographic.

Pixpa audience demographic
Pixpa audience demographic

Pixpa shows a strong presence for college and graduates school participants. In the workplace, Pixpa is used in workplaces as well as in-home than school. This indicates that Pixpa is getting its customers from high authority places, not from school kids and it shows people are making real business on Pixpa.

Pixpa Popularity

Pixpa visitors by country
Pixpa traffic by country

Pixpa is popular in the USA, India, the UK, Canada & Philippines. One of the important observations is, that Pixpa’s popularity is increasing in all the top countries except the Philippines.

#2. Is Pixpa Really a Good Company?

Pixpa is a new startup that was launched in 2013. Within a few years, it gained 10,000+ customers. Now, Pixpa is one of the top 10 Online Portfolio Platforms for Photographers and Artists. Let’s see how many people visited Pixpa. Pixpa monthly traffic

Pixpa traffic per month100k visits per month – that’s huge. Only a few websites get such massive traffic. This shows that Pixpa is a popular company.

93%

Pixpa Goodness Score – 93%

#3. Pixpa Themes – Are Those Templates Photographer Friendly?

There are 38 templates you could use for your portfolios. When you sign up, you will see all the themes and you need to select the one that’s right for you.

Pixpa templates
Pixpa templates

Editor

After the selection of the theme, the Pixpa site builder will load. You can edit the theme. You can change the theme without losing your work. You can view it on a tab or mobile layout while you edit.

Pixpa site builder
Pixpa site builder

You can get a lot of site settings to customize & operate your site yourself. If you start to struggle, the Pixpa support team will help you. Unlike general site builders, Pixpa is specifically focused on Photographers. So, you will get great support directly from expert photography web designers.

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Are all themes mobile friendly?

I tested an example of a Pixpa-built website.  There were no loading issues on mobile & the website was perfectly fit for any sized screen.

Pixpa template mobile friendly test
Pixpa template mobile friendly test

Pixpa Website Performance

I tested the Pixpa’s Polaris theme. Here is the result.

Pixpa website & template performance
Pixpa website & template performance

Everything got a Green Grade except the cache. However, if this is an issue for you, then you can use external free CDN like Cloudflare to get all types of caches. Just add your IP & domain on Cloudflare. Very easy. You can find a lot of tutorials for this on the internet.

92%

Pixpa Templates Score – 92%

#4. Pixpa Features – Can You Build Your Dream Website?

Pixpa includes all Portfolio-related features. Photographers get all the essential tools that they will need to make a premium website.

Galleries

You can add unlimited photos and galleries, up to the limit of your website’s data storage plan.

Gallery
Gallery

Client Proofing

You can create a gallery for your clients. You can set up a password and your clients can favorite or buy photos at any time.

Client album
Client album

You can set up a photography store, too, and there are many payment gateways available. So, this means that you won’t need to worry about sorting out online payment processing. The Pixpa app store (Integrations) also includes all of the essential apps for photographers. 46 apps are available for free.

Pixpa apps
Pixpa apps

Using these apps, you can install so many features for your website. These include customer support chat, a social commenting system, and connecting printing services for your site. Pixpa also included an inbuilt store for you, which means that you can sell anything from your site.

Pixpa store
Pixpa store dashboard

You can manage your clients easily.

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You can see all messages, comments & everything from a single dashboard which means that you won’t have to worry about forgetting or missing anything.

Pixpa messages & comments
Pixpa messages & comments

You can set your calendar events, email marketing, manage building client relationships and more from this page.

95%

Pixpa Features Overall Score – 95%

#5. Pixpa Site Settings

Pixpa site settings include SEO, connecting a premium domain name, Social media, redirects, newsletters, email marketing, calender events, etc.

Pixpa Google analytic setting
Pixpa Google analytic setting

You can use Google Analytics to measure how much traffic you are getting, which pages are the most popular, how visitors are interacting with your website, from which page to which page visitors are going and more. This will help you to improve your website.

You can set image compression levels such as 80% or 75%. So, whenever you upload a photo, the image compresses automatically. However, I don’t recommend this because the Pixpa image compression system is not good enough. I already tested this but the quality was not high enough. Pixpa image compression is not a lossless compression which means the image quality will decrease. I also asked the Pixpa support team about this. Here is the screenshot of their reply.

how Image compression and client galleries setting works in Pixpa
how Image compression and client galleries setting works in Pixpa

Pixpa image compression makes your image lose its original quality. By default, the image compression is set to 75%. I recommend that you to set it 100% & optimize images before you upload to your site by using this method -> How To Optimize Images For Web? (92%, But lossless & 4 FREE Ways)  (Why image optimization? Because it decreases Image file size without much degrading the image visible quality & hence increases page loading speed, So bounce rate decreases and SEO & traffic increases. It applies not just Pixpa, but everywhere on the internet!) There are many optimization tools for images on the internet, but I suggest that you don’t use those tools – I already tested 100’s of online tools, and finally, I found the best method (that link is given above).

Image compression setting
Image compression setting

How To Optimize Images For Web? (92%, But lossless & 4 FREE Ways) 

(I don’t recommend optimizing client gallery images, as even the above-linked tutorial method is lossless.)

You can connect to the Fotomoto store. Add the Disqus commenting system to increase user engagement.

You can include any external scripts on your site’s header globally. You can also add scripts to the body section, footer and many more functionalities you get on the site setting.

90%

Pixpa Settings overall score – 90%

#6. Pixpa Hosting – Does It Run Your Website In a Healthy Way?

Let’s check the Pixpa Server availability & speed in different locations. I picked a random website that is hosted on Pixpa. Then, I checked its server availability & response time.

Pixpa hosting server capacity test
Pixpa hosting server capacity test

From the above test, we can see that Pixpa hosting made the site’s server available for all regions & it performed well in the USA states that were tested for.

Is Pixpa site’s hosted server secure enough to protect your website from Malware & hackers?

Pixpa security
Pixpa security

Pixpa hosted websites are secured.

Domain – You can get a free domain name using Pixpa Hover app.  Also you can buy a domain name from any other third party / external services & connect this to your pixpa. Don’t worry – if you don’t know, then the Pixpa support team is very friendly & they will do everything for free.

Backup & Restore – You can recover any items for up to 30 days.

SEO – Automatically, your site will index on Google & there is a separate site setting for SEO. You can add your targeted keywords here to help your website perform well.

Security – They provide you with a free SSL certificate. Your site connection will be secure. Also, I checked the heartbleed vulnerability test to check the security level. Here are the details.

Pixpa security test
Pixpa security test

Everything is fine with the Pixpa security. After this test, we got to know Pixpa uses Amazon web services. It is the world #1 in cloud hosting, beating both Google & Microsoft in the cloud hosting race. So, this is definitely a plus point for Pixpa.

84%

Pixpa hosting score – 84%

#7. Pixpa Support – Can You Get True Help?

Pixpa customer care are available 24X7. So, there’s no need to worry about your time zone.

You can email, call or chat with them. Here is an example. In the below screenshot I blurred the phone number, because the number may vary from person to person.)

Pixpa support
Pixpa support

I asked several questions and I got all the answers I needed within 2-3 minutes! Pixpa support is great. They even give you personalized support to build a great website.

Unlike general site builders, Pixpa is specifically focused on Photographers. So, you will get great support directly from photography web experts. They also provide highly informative guides.

Pixpa support - Quick & highly informative
Pixpa support – Quick & highly informative

Pixpa provides you with plenty of tutorials to help you get started so you won’t get confused. Once you’ve signed up, they also provide you with a phone number for help.

You can call personally to solve your problem. They provide unlimited free help. I didn’t mention the phone number here because the number may vary from person to person.

You can chat or email to support@pixpa.com or you can request a call or ask for the number. The support team is user-friendly and flexible.

99%

Pixpa Support score – 99%

#8. Pixpa Reviews By Web Designers, Masters & Me..!

We invited a large number of web designers in our network to vote in my websitebuilderly.com for helping people to find the best website builders. They reviewed & voted on every website builder on our list. Here is the final sum for Pixpa:
Web Designers & Masters Final Review

Features - 91%

Features – 91%

Hosting - 82%

Hosting – 82%

Technical - 92%

Technical – 92%

User Interface - 86%

User Interface – 90%

Web Designers Rank For Pixpa

Overall

86%

UI & features

Hosting

4.1/5

Technical

Quality

Pixpa Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Great Support. 24X7 live chat, Email support, call support, and helpful tutorials
  • Client proofing
  • Sell your photos
  • Stripe, Paypal and similar payment gateways.
  • You can add more storage at any time.
  • Print photos & deliver using WHCC or Fotomoto apps. Your clients can order their photos to print on their mobile phone cases, canvases, and many more. WHCC provides Prints Proofing Cards, Wall Displays Books & Albums Boxes, Cases & Packaging Display Products Other Products Backdrops Sample Sets. You can utilize all the benefits of Pixpa.
  • You can connect Shopify to Pixpa.
  • No commission will be taken by Pixpa for the payment transaction.
  • 46 apps/integrations for different purposes like payment, promotion, email marketing, support, booking, scheduling, calendar events, stats and more.
  • You get a 15-day free trial with no credit card required.
  • You can get a free domain name using the Pixpa Hover app or you can purchase a domain from any domain registrant like GoDaddy & connect the domain name to your Pixpa site. If you don’t know, then the Pixpa support team will do everything for free.
  • The Pixpa platform is built specifically to create Online Portfolio websites for creatives like Artists and Photographers. So, Pixpa is able to develop superior tools for creatives than Squarespace and other popular general site builders. You get great & quick support from Portfolio experts in Pixpa. But in the general site builder like Squarespace & Weebly, you may not get such personalized support. See Pixpa vs Squarespace

Cons:-

  • No drag and drop website-builder editors like Wix.
  • You can’t publish anything in the trial period.
  • You can’t use the same photos on different galleries unless you reload the photo.

My final words

“Pixpa is a great platform to create an online portfolio website for photographers and artists. Pixpa included many integrations that give you more power to create, run, promote, sell, and manage your site easily. I liked Pixpa’s WHCC & Fotomoto apps. Using those apps, anyone can easily sell their photos or art and any print products automatically without taking any risk. Pixpa doesn’t take any commission for your earnings. Client proofing & galleries are perfect. I highly recommend Pixpa.”

– Jack Cox / Co-founder of WebsiteBuilderLy.com

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9 thoughts on “Pixpa Review 2024 – 11 Pros & 2 Cons You Should Know”

  1. I’m looking very closely at a lot of different builders as I look to move away from Smugmug. Have been testing several including Pixpa. Right now I’m leaning towards them, but I’m also concerned about some random bugginess I’m seeing during my trial. For example, settings that I choose that simply don’t execute. I’ve read the 2 negative reviews on this post. What are you hearing about Pixpa being buggy and causing issues?

    Reply
  2. Pixpa is a specialized website builder for photographers and artists, gaining popularity in various countries, with strong support and features for creatives. It offers a wide range of templates, extensive portfolio-related features, robust site settings, secure hosting, and excellent customer support. However, it lacks drag-and-drop editing and restricts publishing during the trial period. Despite these cons, Pixpa is recommended for its tailored support and integration options, making it an ideal choice for photographers and artists looking to showcase their work online.

    Reply
  3. Although it is a cheaper option for a website builder, it has a lot of flaws.
    Many of the articles about the tools in the website are outdated. It mentions functions that does not exist on the real website. For example, you cannot edit the html of your page, so everything has to go through them.
    The customer services is good, and I know that because I talk to them weekly. There are so many mistakes in the code that I always have to ask for some fixing. Per example, yesterday (21/04/2023) the website stopped showing the content of my blog page, and I just realized it because I needed to check an particular post. I had to highlight the mistake to them and they never told me when it was really fixed.
    Some functions such as lists/faqs hid the words from Google, it means if I have any keyword there, it gets lost and my website is never ranked by it.
    The website does not allow WebP format photos to be uploaded. It affects the speed of the website, and consequently affects the ranking too. I could go on and on, but you can have a glimpse of how limited its functions are.

    Reply
  4. Pixpa has been the absolute worst experience! As of now I’m on day 4 with no usable website. I went in to remove a photo and it just looped – then my entire pricing page was deleted. I wish I could say this was an isolated experience. I’ve only been with them since August. They do not deliver what they promise. They were supposed to build the initial website – I had to contact them several times to even get a response to begin the process. Then constant chats/emails to keep them going on the process. Constant response in chat “give us some time to work on that” – and it is NEVER followed up on. I have to contact them again after a day or two. Also the platform itself – NEVER works on both laptop and phone. If it works on laptop – missing pieces are found on phone version. If they correct this – the laptop then has missing pieces. I’ve used WIX and Format prior – both much more responsive and cleaner product. Pixpa has a one person basement operator feel to me.

    Reply
    • Can you please add any screenshots (For example, a screenshot of your bad experience in the support chat)? So that it will give your claims trustworthy.
      Note: Pixpa doesn’t build websites for you (as you mentioned). It is one of the most popular & best portfolio builders. However, I agree Format & Wix Photography builders are better than Pixpa in many areas, But recently Pixpa app store growing rapidly with 100+ apps/integrations with lots of features making it a better option.

      Reply
  5. We have hosted our professional Wedding Photography website with Pixpa hosting provider http://www.redcarpet.studio

    From the initial free trial through finished product of our site, we had working sessions with PIXPA experts. They provided us with excellent help ensuring all our requirements was fully implemented.

    We are able to contact pixpa help during and after business hours of USA EST.

    Pricing is competitive.

    After comparing Squarespace, Wix, I found Pixpa was the best provider.

    Reply
      • Jack:
        Your review of Pixpa is terrific and a great help. I’ve been looking at lots of sites that will let me build a website for my photographic art, and your review tipped the scale in Pixpa’s favor.

        But, my comments aren’t as much about Pixpa as about your review. The fact that you actually tried all of the features and pictured your results makes your review clear and trustworthy.

        Thanks much, and keep up the good work!

        Ed

        Reply

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