<aside> 🗒️ Here is a list of softwares I use to run my entire photography and creator business.
</aside>
Please do your own thorough research and make sure the platform is right for you before choosing.
The initial process of choosing platforms can be confusing. I hope by sharing what I use and why I use it, will fast track your development.
I’ve also tried to gather as much pricing information as possible.
<aside> 🤝 Client Management
</aside>
Notion is a must have software if you run an online business.
You can use it for:
I personally use Notion for:
Canva is the most user friendly free graphic design service available.
I use Canva for creating:
The documents I use for outreach and social media reporting are created on Canva.
Pixieset is my website and client delivery platform for my creative agency, Someday Studios.
It’s used by leading photographers and allows you to send galleries to your clients. They can create favourites albums or download their images directly from these galleries.
It allows both photo and video uploads, and you get the ultimate control over what the client sees.
You can get started with a free account and then you need to upgrade to a subscription from there.
You can join with my Pixieset link here.
Milanote is an easy-to-use tool to organise your ideas and projects into visual boards.
I build my creative briefs here that I share with photography clients before a shoot.
This includes:
Milanote is free up until 100 notes and 10 file uploads. I am on the paid version which is $9.99/month.
<aside> 📷 Photo editing
</aside>
Adobe Lightroom is the industry standard when it comes to photo editing.
Lightroom Classic has been by my side for the last 8 years as I learnt about the world of photography.
It does require an Adobe subscription, but as a photographer, Lightroom is your best investment from the start.
<aside> 📹 Video Editing
</aside>
CapCut was the editing platform that helped me gain my first 10k followers.
I took all the videos on my phone, clipped them up on CapCut, used auto generated captions, and then posted on Instagram 40 times.
Now, I mostly use it for auto generated captions on my videos, or clipping together video stories on my phone.
I use the paid version because of the auto generated captions feature, but the free version is perfectly fine.
I’ve since moved most of my editing process to Davinci, but still frequently use CapCut. More on this shortly.
Davinci Resolve is my preferred video editing software for personal and client work.
It’s completely free, but very overwhelming to start if you’re brand new to video editing.
If you’ve never edited before or you just want to make your own content, use CapCut. As you improve and start doing client work, you may consider a move to Davinci.
Davinci combines editing, colour correction, visual effects, motion graphics and audio post production all in one software.
There’s plenty of creator tutorials out there on Instagram and YouTube.
Tip - make sure your laptop has enough ram to run a software like this.
<aside> 💰 Personal Brand
</aside>
Beacons is like LinkTree on steroids.
You can do email marketing, build media kits, landing pages, and even build a website, all for free.
It was my platform of choice for my first digital product sale and my first email subscriber.
It has a great feature where your product can be shown in your bio with a ‘buy now’ button. I did my first digital product sales from listing my templates like this in my bio.
If you are getting good profile visits from your reels, it’s one less click for someone to purchase your product.
Beacons has a 9% fee for users on the free plan.
For $10/month you can go to the Creator Pro version, or $30/month for the Store Pro version, which gives you 0% fees and a custom domain.
I have since moved off of Beacons for digital products and email marketing. More of this in a second.
All of my digital products are on Gumroad.
Gumroad is a great option for photographers/content creators that want to put their first products into the world.
Whether it’s a course, digital product, e-book, membership, Gumroad can do it.
All of my templates can be found on Gumroad here as an example.
The platform is free to use, but it does have a flat 10% fee.
I previously ran my clothing business for 5 years on **Shopify.**
It’s hands down the best platform when it comes to e-commerce.
I currently don’t host anything on Shopify, but I plan to move my entire digital product range there eventually.
One thing to note is that you can’t actually sell digital products on the platform without an app - Sky Pilot.
Shopify charges around $30/month and Sky Pilot will cost an extra $20 per month, which is costly to start.
I recommend moving here once you build up enough monthly recurring revenue (MRR) with your products.
Kit ****(previously ConvertKit) is the best place to start for email newsletters.
I use it to host my email list, build landing pages, and send my weekly newsletter.
The platform is free until 10,000 subscribers.
You can sell products on Kit, however there are design limitations when compared to a platform like Gumroad that is specifically for sales.