Squarespace For Photographers

Squarespace offers outstanding templates for showcasing photography.

Though beauty is subjective, we feel no other DIY website builder offers portfolio website templates as clean, modern, and editable as Squarespace’s.

A few important notes about templates:

• Templates are responsive — Which means they fit the size of any browser, so they are desktop, mobile, and tablet friendly.
• Templates have a recognizable look and feel — Squarespace templates have a look: bold typography, white space, and plenty of room to showcase photography.
• Photos will elevate your template — Squarespace templates are designed to showcase photography. Even basic stock photos, or images from their AI-generated library, will enhance the look of a Squarespace website. This is great for most portfolio sites and perfect for a photography portfolio.
• You can’t switch templates — Templates are starting points in Squarespace. You can’t add your content and then decide to try on another template. If you decide to switch templates, you’ll have to start from scratch.

Check Out Squarespace’s Photography Templates →

Related: A curated collection of Squarespace photography website templates (free & paid).

Photographers can showcase work with pre-designed portfolio collections, gallery pages, image sections, and/or image blocks:

• Portfolio Collection: It’s a pre-designed page that links to your other pages, like projects, portfolios, and galleries. Use it as the “hub” (e.g., Weddings, Portraits, Commercial), with gallery pages for each project or shoot. It keeps navigation clean and helps clients jump straight to the work that’s relevant to them.
• Gallery Pages: It’s a page layout with multiple pre-designed gallery options that you can use to showcase photography.
• Images Section: Add an images section to any page to showcase images. For example, add an Images section to the homepage to showcase your best work.
• Image Block: Add individual images to sections on a page.

Note: Squarespace offers different gallery layouts—grid, masonry, slideshow, and carousel—to display images in an organized and visually appealing manner. You can switch between them when using pre-designed galleries.

Tip: Enable Lightbox to allow visitors to view images large without leaving the page, and use optional captions for credits, locations, or technical notes (client, lens, film stock, etc.).

Squarespace Overview & Using Its Editing System

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Intuitively drag and drop blocks anywhere in a section with Squarespace’s Fluid Engine editing system. This structured approach gives enough customization while being intuitive and easy to use.

You can also create photo-forward layouts, such as diptychs, triptychs, contact-sheet grids, or image + story pairings, without needing custom code. Tip: Design the layout you want as a section and then save it to reuse anywhere on the website.

Power your photography website with these Squarespace features:

• Built-in SEO: Edit page titles, descriptions, and image alt text so your work is easy to find in search engines. You can also get an automatic website analysis and instantly apply recommended changes.
• Analytics: See where your visitors come from, how they explore your portfolio, and which pieces they like most.
• Marketing tools: Run email campaigns and connect your social media accounts to share new projects and collect email addresses directly from your site.
• Ecommerce: Sell prints or digital downloads through your portfolio with simple product management and secure checkout.
• Scheduling: Integrated scheduling tools allow clients to book consultations, shoots, or other appointments directly from your site, with automated reminders to keep you organized.
• Domain & Security: Every annual plan includes a custom domain, SSL security, and reliable hosting—no need to manage separate services.

Photo-specific perks

• Client areas & privacy: Use password-protected pages or Member Areas for private client galleries.
• Proofing workflows: For advanced proofing, embed or link services like Pixieset, ShootProof, or Pic-Time; for simple selects, pair a gallery with a contact form or shortlist page.
• Sell prints & digitals: Ecommerce supports both print packages and digital downloads. You can also use a print-on-demand service like Printful to send prints without worrying about printing or shipping them.
• Scheduling: Scheduling is great for mini-sessions, discovery calls, or studio slots. This is an add-on of Squarespace.
• SEO for photographers: Add alt text, write location-rich page titles (e.g., “Austin Wedding Photographer”), and create separate pages for each service/genre to rank locally.

Squarespace offers four all-inclusive plans that range from $16 to $99 per month (when paid annually). There is no free plan, but they have a free trial—no credit card is required. You can also use code SBR10 to get an extra 10% off.

Each plan includes hosting, templates, ecommerce, and free domain registration for the first year (when purchased annually). The more expensive plans also include advanced ecommerce and business features.

For most portfolio websites, the base plan is sufficient (effectively $14.4/month on the annual plan after the SBR10 discount code). You can move to higher plans if you need extra business and ecommerce features.

Check Out Squarespace Plans →

Related: Squarespace Pricing Explained

Here’s our collection of well-designed Squarespace photography website examples.

Scott Snyder is a product/object photographer based in Costa Mesa, California. His website, Scott Snyder Photography, is one of our favorite photography portfolio websites.

Why did you choose Squarespace?

I went with Squarespace due to its reputation for design, simplicity, and functionality. I’ve almost always exclusively built websites through them, and just know that I can accomplish what I need and have it look great with minimal effort.

How would you rate the ease of use and user-friendliness of Squarespace?

I’d rate it about an 8 (out of 10), especially now with the 7.1 platform. More often than not, you really don’t have to think twice about trying to accomplish the look you’re going for, and when you do, even just some simple CSS can get you the rest of the way there.

Can you describe your experience with the available templates, design customization options, and your favorite features or tools?

I’m a big fan of Squarespace’s new 7.1 platform. Previously, you had to pick a template up front, and it came with its own unique set of codes that dictated what you could and could not do. This, unfortunately, meant that some templates could do one thing and others couldn’t, and you might miss out on features or styles. With the new platform, all templates are designed from the same building blocks, which means you’re never stuck with any one look. You have a lot more flexibility to create any look that Squarespace has to offer. In terms of general design customization options and such, there is really a ton of options and control, probably even more than you need unless you want to get really particular about things, which, naturally, we almost all want to do. Still, if you can manage to stick within some parameters, you might just be surprised at how nice you can get something to look with just default tools and styling.

Have you faced any challenges or issues while using the website builder?

Like any software/app/etc. there are some quirks, but I’ve found that overall, you just need to understand the basics of how Squarespace is designing the builder to work, and then you can easily work within that. On previous versions of their builder platform, I did notice browser-specific quirks or some sluggishness here and there, but on 7.1, I’ve experienced almost nothing I’d say was a real issue.

How has the website builder’s performance been for you in terms of page loading speed, uptime, and mobile responsiveness?

Everything here has been good and only getting better. I’m especially happy now that you can batch-upload image files and then lay them into your pages. Previously, to the best of my knowledge, you had to load every image, one by one, as you were building a page. Now you can just upload everything once, and then you have a bank of images always there and ready to be placed on a page. This has sped things up considerably for me when building case studies.

[Side Note: Scott’s website homepage is filled with high-quality images and is over 5 MB in size. Still, it passes the core web vitals test and loads in under 2 seconds!]

How would you rate the website builder’s customer support?

Customer support has always been excellent. I’ve used their chat support a handful of times for various things, and they’ve always been quick to respond and well-versed.

Do you think it’s a good value for money?

Definitely!

Would you recommend this website builder to others? If so, who do you think it’s best suited for, and do you have any tips or advice for someone considering using it?

I would absolutely recommend Squarespace to others. In my mind, it’s just one of these easiest platforms to make an amazing website with, especially if you don’t want or need to do a lot of custom code (although you absolutely still can). I think their platform is perfect for nearly everyone out there.

**Step 1: Get Inspired **Before building, browse other photography websites (in your niche) to see what works. Take note of gallery structures, caption usage, sequencing, navigation styles, colors, and typography. Squarespace’s template library is a great starting point.

**Step 2: Choose a Template **Pick a template that aligns with your goals or use Squarespace AI builder, Blueprint AI. All templates are customizable with Squarespace’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

**Step 3: Set Up the Page Structure **Create your core pages: Home, Work (Collections like Weddings, Portraits, Commercial), About, and Contact. Keep the navigation simple: remove filler pages, use clear titles, and limit the menu to around 5 items.

**Step 4: Build Your Portfolio Gallery **Use a 3- or 4-column grid for breadth, or a slideshow for narrative series. Upload high-resolution images (around 2000–3000px wide), keep aspect ratios consistent within a gallery, and enable lightbox. Add short captions only where they add context (client, location, credits).

**Step 5: Customize Fonts and Colors **Use clean, readable fonts and an accent color to highlight links or buttons. Avoid visual clutter—whitespace helps your work stand out.

**Step 6: Finish Strong **Write a short, friendly About page with a photo and contact info. Add a clear Pricing/Services page and a Contact/Booking link. Check that your site looks great on mobile, connect a custom domain, and hit publish.

Optional image-prep quick checklist: sRGB colour space, consistent aspect ratio per gallery, smart compression for speed, descriptive filenames.

Need more detail? See the full step-by-step guide here →

Use code SBR10 to get 10% off Squarespace