13 Apps and Services to Streamline Your Photo Business

Few photographers relish the idea of spending hours behind a laptop churning out invoices and logging expenses. Fortunately, there’s enough smart and insightful business software on the market to help you organize the unavoidable labor of running your own business, freeing you up to focus on your photography.

17hats
17hats derives its name from the 17 business function it tackles, including forms, calendars, contacts, bookkeeping and invoicing. Recent integration with ShootProof enables users to create ShootProof galleries, track client orders and manage bookkeeping from within the browser-based 17hats app. You can import business form templates, tag and search leads, sync calendars and link your bank or credit card to the service to import transaction data on a daily basis. It’s cloud-based, so everything you need is accessible through a web browser.
Prices: $29/month, $17/month with annual commitment, $13/month with 2-year commitment

fotoClient
fotoClient is another new cloud-based service that offers lead tracking, email integration with a variety of mail clients, customized workflows, and a centralized calendar. You can manage your contacts, create new ones and import contact databases as a CSV file. A “smart tasks” feature helps you track key events and more. The service allows you to store documents and photos along with client and business data in the Cloud so that everything you need is centralized and backed up. You can embed a fotoClient code on your website so new lead information is automatically uploaded directly into your fotoClient account.
Prices: $10-$50/month 

kumu STUDIO
Created by Kubota Image Tools, kumu STUDIO’s goal is as much educational as it is organizational (the word “kumu” means teacher in Hawaiian). The software walks you through setting up detailed client databases and workflows, with pricing worksheets for services and products to ensure you’re charging what you’re worth. It supports target marketing so you can mine your client database for insights into promotions. The client database is searchable as is a jobs database, which centralizes job details in one location. There’s a pricing calculator to determine your cost of goods, retail pricing and profitability, and a post-production workflow checklist to ensure you stay on point.
Prices: $10/month, $579 (lifetime subscription)

Studio Ninja 
One of the newest cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) services for photographers, Studio Ninja lets you karate-chop your workflow with tools for invoicing, calendar syncing, generating business reports and more. You can attach your own brand to invoices, questionnaires and the service’s client-facing portal. It offers features to automate thankless tasks like overdue invoice notices and sports a responsive design so you can view your dashboard on a mobile device, wherever you are. A free tier supports a single user and permits $3,000-worth of invoices. Paid tiers support unlimited invoicing and unlimited users.
Prices: free (single user), $30/month or $295/year for unlimited 

ShootZilla
ShootZilla is a web-based studio management app that lets you create custom workflows based on the kind of shoot you’ve booked (one for weddings, one for portraits, etc.). Once created, these workflows provide task lists, email scheduling, client profiles and a comprehensive overview of the progress of your shoot so you can stay on top of multiple jobs. It includes a calendar that can be synced with Google or Apple calendars. All ShootZilla data is backed up on redundant servers. ShootZilla users can opt into a referral network so they can pick up work from other photographers using the service.
Prices: $17/month (starter kit), $37/month (pro) 

Táve
Among Táve’s useful features is the ability to send questionnaires to customers, create automated payment reminders and contact forms to generate leads based on online inquiries. When it’s time for clients to sign on the dotted line, Táve supports e-signatures so you don’t need to mail paper contracts. A recent update to the service enables you to schedule emails so you can send them at optimal times. Táve tracks whether your emails have been opened by the recipients and even gives you the day’s weather on its home screen. Táve is subscription-based, with plans that can support anywhere from two to ten or more users, multiple brands and online file storage for documents and business data (not images).
Prices: $25/month (solo), $35/month (boutique), $50/month (studio) 

MyBusinessGenie
Formerly StudioGenie, this app has been refashioned to broaden its appeal to all business owners, not just photographers. Photographers will still find the core StudioGenie functionality in tact, however, plus a lot more.  What sets it apart is its ability to serve as a personalized portfolio where customers can rate, tag and comment on images. You can create orders, send invoices and accept payments directly on your iPad thanks to the app’s integration with PayAnywhere (you’ll need an optional credit card adapter to use this feature). You can now manage multiple businesses from a single account, create client portals, track email conversations with customers and manage employee assignments and schedules. A free Lite tier supports a single business and one user with 1GB of data storage. The Professional tier supports unlimited users and offers 10GB of data storage. Customized plans are available upon request. 
Prices: free (lite), $30/(professional)

Pixifi
Pixifi’s web-based app has extensive financial tracking capabilities. It keeps tabs on your payments and expenses, but also your mileage. It also gives you the ability to create client-facing online portals with unique logins where your clients can make payments, view information about their upcoming event as well as view their contracts and invoices. One function that sets Pixifi apart from its competitors is the ability to organize photo workshops. You can set up online workshop registrations, accept payments, generate and verify QR code-based tickets and more through the app (but this requires a Studio Pro subscription). 
Prices: $25/month (essential), $35/month (boutique), $50/month (studio pro) 

Wave
While not specifically photo-centric, Wave gives small businesses a suite of powerful tools to manage their business on a mobile platform. These tools including “accountant-approved” bookkeeping that integrates PayPal, Excel spreadsheets, credit card processing, banking and invoicing. You can connect your bank account so transactions are automatically populated into your accounting. You can generate balance sheets, sales tax reports, A/R and A/P for yourself, your accountant or investors. You’ll have unlimited free use of Wave’s accounting tools but you will see ads and offers from firms like HP, Microsoft and others when you use the service. Other Wave services, like payroll, will incur a fee.
Price: free (accounting only) 

Light Blue Software 
While many studio management apps run in the Cloud and are accessed via a web browser, Light Blue is a download for either Macs or PCs. While you pay a one-time cost for the software license, you can also subscribe to ensure you get free major updates plus data-syncing between computers, free support, access to an iOS app and more. Light Blue can import emails from programs like Mac mail and Outlook and link those email exchanges to photo shoots. You can also tag contact names for easy retrieval. The recently introduced version 6 features a revamped interface to make navigating the program easier. Also new is text messaging, which you can send to clients (individually or in groups) from within the software. Replies go right to your mobile.
Price: $470, subscriptions starting at $12.50/month for two devices 

StudioPlus 
StudioPlus is available in two formats: myStratus is a cloud-based subscription service designed for users who need to work from multiple locations with access to mobile apps; Spectra is desktop-based software that comes in five editions with a perpetual license (i.e. no subscription, but prices are broken out in a 12-month payment plan). Both iterations can tackle a wide range of photo business needs including scheduling, calendar syncing, creating estimates, processing payments, generating marketing emails and text messages, project management and more. The newest versions are linked with a new email marketing service, dubbed StudioPlus Mail, which lets you manage your email marketing with tools to track unsubscribers, measure campaign analytic and block lists, among other things. Also new is the ability to electronically deliver images and other documents for client download.
Prices: starts at $30/month (mystratus), starts at $33/month (spectra) 

ShootQ
ShootQ organizes your business around a straightforward, tab-based interface. At a glance you can view a “what’s next” task list, a “what’s new” hub of new inquiries and leads, and a “what’s happening” calendar that can be synced to external calendars from Apple, Google and others. You can organize and rank sales leads, plus filter through them to find the most promising. The service provides data analytics so you can quickly graph bookings, referrals, sales and other key business metrics to sniff out trends. You can generate online contracts with e-signature support and save your work history for future reference. Unique among studio apps, there’s a marketplace function inside the app that lets you buy email templates, workflows, contracts and questionnaires from other photographers. Now that ShootQ is owned by Simply Color Lab, subscribers will enjoy a Simply Prime membership that gives them 40 percent off their orders.
Prices: $40/month (startup), $60 (studio), $80 (hub), $299 (annual)

StudioCloud
Photographers can leverage StudioCloud’s range of business tools to manage leads and vendors, schedule events, create custom invoices, create and automate targeted marketing campaigns and more. The service supports credit card payments and international currency symbols, as well as date and tax formats if you’re dealing with customers abroad for a destination wedding. The base price includes access on an unlimited number of computers, access to the mobile app and free upgrades as well as unlimited client management, scheduling and invoicing. Photographers will want to grab a few à la carte items at $10/month extra, including proofing, booking and forms. The EmployeeBoost tier delivers tools for managing employees with features like security roles to determine which user can access a given set of features or information.
Prices: $35 (partnerboost), $65 (employeeboost)