Your client portal for booking, proofing, and card payments.
What is Grain Issue?
Grain Issue is a client portal for studio and portrait photographers. It covers the client-facing arc of a shoot in one place: an inquiry form, self-serve booking with a card deposit, contracts and model releases signed online, questionnaires, a proofing gallery where clients favorite and comment on individual photos, full-resolution delivery that works on a phone, and invoices paid by card. Every client page runs on your own subdomain (yourstudio.grainissue.com) with your logo, on every plan including the $15 Starter tier. Card payments go through Stripe Connect straight to your own Stripe account, and Grain Issue takes no cut of them. Pricing is a flat monthly subscription from $15, not a percentage of what you sell. It is built by a working studio for the portal layer specifically, so it does not try to replace a marketing website or a deep sales CRM.
Three bills, then another login
Most studios pay for a website builder, a gallery platform, and often a CRM on top. Three logins, three bills, three places the brand gets diluted, and frequently a cut of product sales on top of that.
- Website builder: about $23/mo
- Gallery platform: about $40/mo
- Commission or lab markup on print sales, when you sell them
That is $60 or more a month before a single photo is taken, and a percentage forever after.
One subscription, your brand, card payments to you
Book. Proof. Deliver. Publish. Clients get a magic link by email, no password. Proofing favorites come back as an explicit selection you can act on, not a screenshot of file names.
What it does not do
Grain Issue is not a marketing website builder, not a deep sales CRM, and there is no integrated print lab today. There is no AI culling, no video hosting, and no native mobile app (the portal installs as a web app). If lab auto-fulfilment or CRM depth is the job you are hiring for, a specialist is the better pick and we say so on the comparison pages.
Can clients pay deposits by card?
Yes. Connect Stripe once and clients can pay deposits, balances, and invoices by card. Money goes to your Stripe account. We don't take a cut of those payments.
Can clients really log in without passwords?
Yes - clients get a magic link by email. No password resets, no support tickets.
What if I already have galleries on Pixieset or Pic-Time?
Your archive is yours - download it from them, upload it here. Prefer a hand? Request a free one-gallery migration (first 10 studios). Clients can download galleries; if you ever leave, we'll help you export your studio data.
Is my brand actually on everything?
Every client-facing page runs on your subdomain with your logo - on the $15 plan, not just the top tier.
Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Storage | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $15/mo | $12/mo billed annually | 25 GB | The whole job, end to end. Nothing switched off. |
| Studio | $29/mo | $24/mo billed annually | 100 GB | Adds brand theme and SEO-ready portfolio galleries. |
| Pro | $49/mo | $39/mo billed annually | 350 GB | Adds a white-label custom domain and call sheets. |
| Unlimited | $79/mo | $64/mo billed annually | Uncapped (fair use) | No storage ceiling, for years of galleries. |
Full pricing · Compare with Pixieset, Pic-Time, and ShootProof · Guides for photographers