• SmugMug

SmugMug

Overview

SmugMug has a rating of 2.05 stars from 76 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about SmugMug most frequently mention customer service problems. SmugMug ranks 64th among Photo Sharing sites.

  • Service
    19
  • Value
    19
  • Shipping
    10
  • Returns
    6
  • Quality
    17

This company does not typically respond to reviews

Positive reviews (last 12 months): 0%
Positive
0
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Negative
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What reviewers want you to know

Positive highlights

No positive highlights yet

Critical highlights

  • Very appalling customer service and disreputable company!
  • Then they started e-mailing photos of themselves with every support e-mail.
How would you rate SmugMug?
Top Positive Review

“Smug Mug Rocks!”

Lindsay H.
12/10/21

I used Smug Mug for over a decade but am switching over to Shutterfly but thoroughly enjoyed my experience with Smug Mug. They make really good prints and even great blown up prints as well. Good Bye Smug Mug!

Top Critical Review

“Smug Mug photo order”

Natasha S.
1/15/24

I ordered a picture to support a friend who is an entertainer. The price was okay (under$10). The order was delivered fairly fast. But the photo in hand was not clear. It appeared to show my friend better online than in the actual photo! That, I will not do again. Photo was too dark in person!

Reviews (76)

Rating

Timeframe

Other

Reviews that mention popular keywords

customer service (8) photos (27) phone number (3)
Thumbnail of user anne553
1 review
0 helpful votes
November 7th, 2023

This platform may be good for the photogs but trying to access and place photos in your cart is incredibly difficult. I hate this. So much. Not user friendly at all.

Tip for consumers:
use another site. this one is terrible

Thumbnail of user jans1057
1 review
0 helpful votes
October 3rd, 2023

My photos came in a broken and bent box, and the portrait photos inside were crushed. It took forever to even find a way to correspond, and now I have to wait another two or three weeks for the photos, if they even replace them. No reason to put photos unprotected in a flimsy, flat box.

I'll probably skip them next time.

Value
Shipping
Quality
Thumbnail of user jonathanj608
1 review
0 helpful votes
February 13th, 2024

I'M A WEDDING AND SOCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER BASED IN THE UK AND HAVE HAD A PRO ACCOUNT FOR OVER 10 YEARS. I HAVE 10'000'S OF CLIENTS PHOTOS HUNDREDS OF GALLERIES AND IT'S MY LIFELINE.
I UPLOADED A NUMBER OF NUDE PHOTOS INTO A GALLERY THAT WAS NOT PUBLISHED ON MY MAIN WEBSITE AND I THOUGHT IT WAS PRIVATE. I GET HUNDREDS OF EMAILS A DAY AND I OPENED AND READ AN EMAIL SENT TO ME SAYING I NEEDED TO REMOVE THE NUDE PHOTOS FROM THE GALLERIES. I HAVE HAD LIMITED / NO INTERNET ACCESS AND ON SATURDAY THE COMPANY DELETED MY ACCOUNT. 30,000 PHOTOS GONE OVER 10 YEARS OF BUSINESS GONE. I AM ALSO GOING THROUGH A SEPERATION AND AM BEING FORCED TO SALE THE STUDIO AND HOUSE. TO AMKE MATTERS WORSE I WAS TOLD THAT MY FLICKR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN TERMINATED TO - I KNOW IDEA WHY. AVOID SMUGMUG

Products used:
USE SQUARE SPACE

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user natashas330
4 reviews
0 helpful votes
January 15th, 2024

I ordered a picture to support a friend who is an entertainer. The price was okay (under$10). The order was delivered fairly fast. But the photo in hand was not clear. It appeared to show my friend better online than in the actual photo! That, I will not do again. Photo was too dark in person!

Tip for consumers:
Not at this time

Products used:
Smug Mug via Photo Lab to order a photo of a music group.

Service
Value
Shipping
Quality
Thumbnail of user daves298
17 reviews
12 helpful votes
November 15th, 2023

This is a really awful photo sales platform, I'm about to move mine elsewhere, typical American set up all hype and no delivery.

Products used:
Another photo sales UK based platform aligned to my product

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user leonc127
1 review
0 helpful votes
November 27th, 2021

Smugmug is a great photo site but only allows payment by saved credit card numbers. They don't notify you when your card is going to be charged. They don't give you an option for other forms of billing.

Products used:
Photo site

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user ianh498
1 review
0 helpful votes
October 12th, 2022

I'm seriously thinking about choosing an alternative because I've been complaining for some five years now about the excessive P&P charges which most consumers would not pay, £3.45 for a 99p print or two. I get between 1-2k viewings per day and yet I've had less than 50 purchases in five years. But it has to be said that the print quality is superb but definitely not worth the P&P charges.

Tip for consumers:
I get between 1-2k viewings per day and in the five years that I have subscribed, I've had less than fifty orders. Not a good conversion rate!

Products used:
There web hosting site

Service
Value
Shipping
Quality
Thumbnail of user avam134
1 review
1 helpful vote
November 9th, 2022

Extremely disappointed I bought Springtail from them. They ended up having a parasitic fungus that killed off all my hissing cockroaches hundreds of dollars down the drain reached out to them through Facebook. I was blocked not once not twice but three times reached out through Instagram immediately blocked.

Thumbnail of user beverlys798
1 review
3 helpful votes
September 6th, 2022

Smugmug has some serious flaws especially when trying to share a gallery with a featured graphic to a FB posting. I got very little help from support and I am still unable to complete this project for a client.

Thumbnail of user josuer1
1 review
3 helpful votes
July 30th, 2013

First, I been with Smugmug for two years. Initially, I had trouble creating a design that I like, you just need to be a website designer to be able to do it. But they have plenty options already pre-made. However, after everything was set and go, I just do my job, upload my pictures, and they do the rest saving me money and time by not needing to contract an employee to manage, sell, accounting, for the pictures I sell. They have great professional printing with many options; I would like more options on professional art paper, but 90% of my business printing is done through them. Because their cost on printing, my personal printing is mostly done with other companies.

Thumbnail of user maddier37
1 review
0 helpful votes
October 15th, 2023

I am not joking I am $#*!ing fuming right now. SmugMug literally sucks so bad. I am a photographer, and hadn't used the app in a while, I try to log back in and my account has all the sudden been $#*!ing closed?!?!?!? Well I have been contacting the support center for months and they have been so extremely unhelpful. I will never get those pictures from that account back, they have deleted my account and pictures. They $#*!ing suck please do not waste your money on this good for nothing peice of $#*! app, they are scamming and taking advantage of new photographers. This is literally $#*!ing bull$#*! im begging you please do not use this app. There is no support and no real person I can even ask about my account just a $#*!ing robot over email that barely even responds. If you give a $#*! about your pictures and your presentation when sending out edited photos do not use this app. I really am so mad right now. $#*! YOU SMUGMUG YOU PEICE OF $#*!ING UGLY $#*!

Service
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Thumbnail of user sophiab356
2 reviews
6 helpful votes
December 28th, 2022

Stuart Skalka photographer is an unethical a business person. He enters into business transactions then attempts to defraud the other party by threatening to make false claims and leave bad reviews if they don't pay him money or give him deep discounts posthumously. He did this to us. He will buy expensive stuff on his credit card then make up false claims to dispute the charge.

Stuart Skalka photographer is an untrustworthy con artist with a nasty vindictive streak. He actually targets business with intentions of doing them harm as personal favors for friends. You should not do business with him ever or risk getting scammed like I was.

Products used:
Technical

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user royw108
4 reviews
7 helpful votes
July 12th, 2021

Smug Mug knows they have a problem in Safari but won't fix it. Works fine in Chrome which i don't use.

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user anthonyt274
1 review
0 helpful votes
November 29th, 2019

SmugMug seems to be very controlling in their ways to me and has their hands in your pockets a lot. They take a subscription fee and then take commissions on your sales and then basically pay you when they tell you they will... just feels unpleasant to me and way too controlling. I am using them for now because I don't have another option, but when I do I'm gone. Their email support is responsive, but would much prefer phone support anyway of the week to this back and forth email nonsense. It is very simple to setup and get up and running... just the heart of SmugMug doesn't seem to kind and helpful and seems more greedy and controlling which. Gives me a bad taste in my mouth.

Thumbnail of user pamelar680
1 review
3 helpful votes
March 5th, 2021

I placed a good sized order with SmugMug as part of a fundraiser for a local animal shelter. They charged my card right away, never sent a receipt, and never sent the products. There is no way from the website for someone purchasing this way to reach anyone for help. Looks like it's a scam.

Tip for consumers:
Don’t. It’s a scam. They will take your money and never send your items.

Products used:
Ordered prints, mugs, I forget why else.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user daltonc53
1 review
1 helpful vote
September 18th, 2022

I've used Smugmug for about 2 years now for storing photo galleries and even some video footage as well. It's reaelly useful, except for the account creation process. I lost a gallery [eventually my entire account with approx. 30+ galleries and 100s of gb worth of content] because I decided to 'complain' to their service team. Imagine that!

I was fortunate enough to be offered a gift account through my professor. I delivered one gallery to a client but it created a second account when I switched to my personal email due to their very confusing login process. I. E. If you login to an account on any browser you can log out but you are not able to attempt to login to a different account. Even if I knew my account was cloned, I wouldn't be able to access it unless I downloaded a new browser. So I am on this trial account that eventually gets deleted along with a gallery I created. I had all other galleries on my paid-for account so I didn't notice the gallery was missing.

I reached out for support for help and they told me I only owned a free trial account and that the files were deleted. They don't tell you (transparently) your photos will be deleted permanently and instead advertise a safe storage space. This is fine and I understand you can't store everybody's unpaid for content forever, the thing is, my current account stated that it had 2 emails on it under the settings, so I have no clue how on earth a cloned account using the same email was ever possible. And it's because a second email CAN appear on your account but it is under the 'new email' section, so it technically isn't on the account yet. Instead of hearing me out they responded to me with a very 'no' attitude instead of apologizing. Since I have a gift account they made sure to hold that $#*! over my head (See convo below) instead of just apologizing. It's literally so easy to apologize to people. I work in service. Apologize for the inconveniences of your services instead of highchairing it.

I truly wanted to be a fully subscribed customer and was shocked when their laughable customer service They delete content after "a month or so" of not paying, which is fine but they're so weird about it (I really had to pry to get that answer from them). If I could pay to get that lost gallery back I would and continue to use my subscription, but not after this.

For those thinking I am dumb for somehow cloning my account, that's fair, but it's extremely confusing to know if you did or didn't when they both look like they share the same email (but don't).

Edit: I just went to login to my account to get a proof of purchase, but they deactivated my account. Nice job guys. Real helpful! Way to be the bigger person. All I'm doing is complaining about their terrible login system and they take so much offense to it that they deactivate my account and I lose all my galleries. Not even surprised to be honest.

Tip for consumers:
Don't use it as a storage like it advertises. Any online storage should be treated like an SD card. It's temporary because technical issues happen and (in this case) employees weep in tears and delete your account because you spoke up about their highly flawed system.

Products used:
I used the highest tier account. I believe it was a called a 'pro' account.

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user lesleyy5
1 review
5 helpful votes
November 28th, 2018

I have set up a smugmug site as I read about it having the best looking photos from a viewing point of view. Found it very hard to figure out what to do. I hadn't done a website before. Just wanted a family sharing website. Everything seems round the house to do and you have to spend a lot of time trying things out and repeatedly contacting the help desk.

My suggestion is to look at the Ryan Oakley youtube tutorials. They are pretty good. But they don't go over the various security settings so there is quite a lot of trial and error there, trying to get your head round getting the right settings for your needs. You need to have another browser open as you set up your site and then you can monitor the changes you make on a second browser.

One other thing to note, I found quite a good set of tutorials on the paid learning site lynda.com. I think if I'd found that beforehand it would have helped a lot. It's a 2 hour series of videos done in 2017.

I did persist with this and it's been ok now but it's quite involved to set up your site and you would have to devote time to it and look at the youtube tutorials several times over. I do like the fact that you can link your smugmug site up with apple tv and view the photos on your tv.

It would be good if smugmug did an introductory video tutorial explaining what is involved in setting up a website with their software.

Thumbnail of user and27
1 review
1 helpful vote
September 19th, 2021

They sudden data my data s sudden and never tell me anthing, please be careful with smugmug.com

Stay away it. Scam service, best scam

Thumbnail of user stephaniel
2 reviews
5 helpful votes
January 20th, 2009

Absolutly wonderful - This site was just great it gives people a fredom of expression. Let them publish their own photos. Just wonderful.

Thumbnail of user peterb727
1 review
7 helpful votes
December 16th, 2019

Plain and simple, they are thieves. They advertise one thing, you buy it, get used to using it then they "update" removing some of the key features which were selling points that helped you make your decision. When you contact their support Heros, they just say, sorry it's changed we are aware and we don't know when or if it will be back but here's a long winded way of doing it and no you can't have a percentage of the extortionate amount of money you pay for the service back.

Tip for consumers:
Look for another alternative and check reviews

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Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user trevorm323
1 review
1 helpful vote
December 16th, 2022

As a photographers website Smugmug falls well short. No blog or linked 3rd party options, prints cannot have a border added. Limited framing, printing and size options yet their print labs offer options. Smugmug is just lazy i guess and won't add them to their websites shopping cart. Basic printing takes weeks. Plus the overall look of their platform and templates are outdated. Not worth the 400+ dollars for business accounts.

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Thumbnail of user joem2214
1 review
3 helpful votes
December 3rd, 2021

Was with them for years but they only offer good deals for new subscribers. My renewal was rubbish compared. Emailed them and they basically said "bye". Fine with me. Go elsewhere, these guys are so far behind these days.

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Thumbnail of user roberts6542
4 reviews
7 helpful votes
March 22nd, 2022

I've been using the paid "Power" plan of SmugMug for 6 months now while simultaneously using Google Photos. While neither are perfect, the clear winner for me is Gphotos. I'm an experienced web designer for over 20 years and have amassed 40k photos and videos of my life. The plan was to upload all these files to my SM account to sort and display the best of the best. I used a custom domain name and put together sharing albums, and it looked good. However, all the ticks in the system were a constant fight and irritating. When I would email CS they were responsive, but never had a solution. Even asking how much space do my photos use on the server were beyond their ability. I didn't find it as intuitive as Gphotos, the AI is first gen, the phone apps have issues, and it just isn't worth committing to the long term with their platform. I wanted to like SmugMug, but I don't.

Tip for consumers:
if you like google products don't switch

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user lorrainek42
1 review
10 helpful votes
January 16th, 2019

Most of the Smugmug hero's try their best to help you as much as they can either by email or instant message (9:00-5:00) but quite often I would get a smugmug rep named Ann who was the absolute worst. She responds in a condescending manner and can never answer your questions clearly and then takes offense when you question her.

Thumbnail of user deg61
3 reviews
10 helpful votes
January 6th, 2013

Smugmug is the best online sharing photo tool I ever used.
Beside the fact that it stores your photos in full size and that it offers really unlimited storage, it can be upgraded with tons of community tools

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Thumbnail of user nickw58
Nick W.
Typically does not respond to reviews

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