SmugMug

I have had Smugmug for about 5 years now, and I have wanted to complain so many times. The main reasons for this is the unfulfilled promises the company makes, especially with SEO. There is absolutely NO SEO used at Smugmug, and they make little or no effort to promote photography websites subscribed to their service. Number 2 is the e-commerce side of their service is also absolutely useless. That is if you are willing to make literally pennies for your published work. In general, Smugmug has been cleverly running on greed and lack of quality they state they have. Again, in general, even though I am a successful workshop leader; the Smugmug platform has added absolutely nothing to my product.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Plus the overall look of their platform and templates are outdated.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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

It's the classic case of a company that over-promises and under delivers. Their site makes the service looks pretty awesome. However--
1. The product is surprising hard to navigate for all but the most basic functions
2. The support for use of the site is pathetic (how hard it is really to do good quality videos to clearly explain the product you make?)
3. If you ever have to call technical support there is no #800 and I'm sure it's because they can't afford to take calls with all the issues this product has
4. When you email Tech Support they simply deny there's an issue. See attached.

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.

In a time when customer service seems to be put on the back burner and trader for automated and other robotic sorts of responses to customers, SmugMug has totally surprised me. I had an issue with an order that could have been a big bust but I emailed them and wishing an hour, I had a response. My customers' order was held while they walked me through the process to correct this issue. On SUNDAY (today), they responded to me to confirm all is good and my client's order will be sent to the lab. Impressive!