7 Best Studio Ninja Alternatives For Photographers In 2023

Aleksandra Dworak
September 2, 2022
Updated: July 21, 2023
18 min read
Software Comparisons

You can’t have everything… Or can you?

Working as a photographer, even though is a dream job of many, also comes with struggles. From the inconsistent income to working 24/7, you may find yourself in need of assistance. Especially once you start growing your client base and get lost in little details and tasks.

So to solve these issues you may have looked for an ideal software to help you out and stumbled upon Studio Ninja. But something didn’t feel quite right. It may be because Studio Ninja is a CRM that’s easy to outgrow or because it lacks some essential features.

Whichever reason you have, that’s not the end of the world, because there are lots of other business management tools to help you out if Studio Ninja wasn’t your thing.

We’ve tested all of them and will do our best to help you find the best solution for you!

7 Best Studio Ninja Alternatives To Consider In 2023

Without further ado, here are the seven best (in our opinion) Studio Ninja alternatives to consider if you’re a photographer looking for a CRM!

Sprout Studio: for robust photography and client management features with a steep learning curve
Tave: for well-thought-out automatic workflows
ShootProof: for useful photography features and basic client management with a shallow learning curve
17Hats: for client management with a rich variety of templates
Zendo: for improving customer satisfaction, creating and selling services, a customizable Service Catalog, subscriptions, collecting payments, and efficient client & team communication
Dubsado: for project and document management combined with reporting and a steep learning curve
HoneyBook: for great project management from lead to client with a shallow learning curve

If You Need Robust Photography-Specific Features Choose: Sprout Studio

Sprout Studio is one of the Studio Ninja alternatives we find essential to name. Advertised as a tool created by photographers for photographers, Sprout Studio comes with a handful of extremely useful features for all photographers aiming to manage their entire business with one CRM on deck!

Best For: Those Longing For A Professional Look

This tool is perfect for all photographers out there who are missing that professional look when reaching out to their clients. Whenever you create anything that will be visible to your clients, it will be enhanced by the Sprout Studio’s designs and many professional templates.

If you also want to combine robust reporting, lead generation, invoices, price lists, selling prints, as well as some useful marketing tools with neat-looking, customizable galleries and design proofs, Sprout Studio will be your best bet!

Plans And Costs: Complicated

Sprout Studio has four-tier pricing with differences spread on many levels, including the number of users on the platform, the amount of storage you get, the features available in each plan, and more.

However, the most popular option, as marked by Sprout Studio themselves, is the Pro plan, which costs us $49 per month.

Free Trial: 21 Days

Sprout Studio offers a 21-day free trial to all potential customers, without the need to provide credit card details.

Best Features: Galleries And Design Proofs

Galleries

Sprout Studio’s Galleries feature comes to rescue all the brave souls using email to send photos to their clients.

With this feature, you basically upload your edited photos into Sprout Studio and create a customized gallery to share with your clients. There are different designs available, all looking extremely professional!

Your clients can even purchase the photos they like right within your gallery if you take your time to create a Pricing List within the CRM.

Design Proofs

If you’re a photographer, you definitely know the pain of spending hours selecting the best photos from your last shoot and editing them to be their absolute best.

Once you have your photos prepared, you send them to the client in an email, hoping it won’t get lost in their inbox. They then look through the photos and send back their comments. Next, you have to look for which picture they were referring to and adjust it.

Sprout Studio’s Design Proofs, besides just looking professional, also get rid of a lot of the unnecessary back and forth with your clients. You can simply share a gallery of selected photos and your clients will be able to view them and leave their comments and notes right there! They can even pin their comments to appear in specific places on the photos, to make the adjustment process even easier.

Cons: Steep Learning Curve

The main downfall of Sprout Studio is its steep learning curve. Because the tool offers many different features, which are all robust, the ease of use is not quite there. You have to spend some time learning this CRM to be able to use it to its full potential.

The steep learning curve is even often mentioned by Sprout Studio’s creator – Bryan Capirocci himself.

To learn more about Sprout Studio and the way its robust features actually operate, check our recent Sprout Studio comparison article!

G2 Rating: 4.6

⭐RATING	#️⃣ NUMBER OF REVIEWS PLACED
4.6/5	6

If You Want Well-Designed Automatic Workflows Choose: Tave

Tave is yet another robust Studio Ninja alternative with numerous features and a steep learning curve. But, thanks to the many features in-house, you’re sure to find the ones you may be in desperate need of.

Best For: Those Who Need Good Automation

Tave is perfect for photographers who above all value good automation and workflow features. Since the tool has been designed to serve those working in a photography business, the automatic workflows come with pre-designed scenarios geared towards people mastering this specific craft.

Tave is also for those who are willing to take their time to learn how to operate the new software and who don’t mind an outdated looking UI.

Plans And Costs: Simple And Affordable

Tave’s Solo plan with 2 users, one brand, and all the features available costs $21.99 per month. Further two plans offer the same features, but differ in terms of the number of brands and users.

Free Trial: 30 Days

There’s a 30-day easily accessible free trial for anyone wanting to test out Tave’s features. Again, no credit card details are required.

Best Feature: Workflows And Automation

Tave is a tool packed with different features. Having tested how this online business management software works, one of its features particularly stood out – and that was Tave’s workflows and automation.

Workflows And Automation

So if you expect top-notch automation features geared towards different kinds of photographers with well-thought-out scenarios and appropriate tasks perfect for each one, Tave is the way to go.

This feature is extremely helpful for newbie photographers who don’t have their business processes established yet or for those who simply want to speed things up and automate their workflow.

You’ll find different scenarios for various kinds of photographers, whether that’s wedding, portrait, or event focused. You can also customize the premade task lists. This feature is quite useful for those who really wish to save more time and simplify their work processes!

Cons: Outdated UI And Steep Learning Curve

Two main downfalls of Tave that stuck out when analyzing this project management software were its steep learning curve and its outdated-looking designs.

And while most of us can get past the outdated-looking designs, a steep learning curve is something to keep in mind if you want Tave to be your business management software.

If you want to learn more about Tave, the complications we’ve come across when testing this business management software, and see how it compares with Honeybook, click here.

G2 Rating: 4.9

⭐RATING	#️⃣ NUMBER OF REVIEWS PLACED
4.9/5	19

If You Want A Professional Look And Unique Photography Features Choose: ShootProof

ShootProof is a tool that will pleasantly surprise you with its many useful and intuitive features perfect for those working within the photography industry! This CRM combines galleries, portfolios, invoices, contracts, sales reports, selling prints and photos, and more.

Best For: Photographers Wanting To Easily Create Their Portfolio And Share Galleries With Clients

ShootProof is pretty similar to Sprout Studio in terms of the available photography-specific features, but is much more intuitive in use. Other features of ShootProof (not photography ones) aren’t as robust and modern-looking as those of Sprout Studio, but the ease of use and additional photography-centric features definitely make it stand out.

So if you’re looking for some easy-to-create galleries and portfolios that you can combine with invoices, simple reporting, and selling your prints and photos, ShootProof is the tool for you!

Plans And Costs: Storage Based

ShootProof offers five plans for its users, with one entirely free option! The plans differ in terms of the storage you get.

The free plan allows you to upload 100 photos and the most popular option, the fourth-tier plan, offers a 25,000 photo storage and costs $30 when billed monthly.

Free Trial: 14 Days

ShootProof offers a free 14-day trial that doesn’t require providing credit card details.

Best Features: Portfolios And Mobile Galleries

There are quite a few features that amazed us when trying out ShootProof. The Galleries, collaboration with print labs, and purchasing possibilities for clients were pretty similar to those of Sprout Studio’s. With the only difference that Sprout Studio offers more tweaks and better designs throughout all its features.

However, we’ve come across a few features in ShootProof that weren’t available in Sprout Studio. Namely, the possibility to create your own portfolio and a mobile app gallery to share with your clients.

Portfolios

With ShootProof, you can easily create your own portfolio showcasing your recent work, an About Me page, a Contact page, and adjust its colors and look to your specific needs and wants.

The whole experience is intuitive and pretty seamless. The new portfolio created sits at a domain named with your photography studio name and ends with .shootproof.com. BUT if you have your own website, you can add the new portfolio there to avoid having the shootproof branding visible in the URL.

Mobile App Galleries For Clients

Another great feature that we didn’t find in any other CRM yet is the Mobile App Gallery feature. You basically create a gallery that can be downloaded by your clients onto their mobile phones or tablets and viewed in the form of an app.

Again, setting this up took minutes and was extremely intuitive! Your clients can then easily view and access their photos.

Cons: Templates And Old UI

Issues With Templates

There were a few issues when browsing ShootProof’s templates that we’ve unfortunately come across. The first one was that to browse the available email templates or use any to send to clients, we have to first manually go through each one and add it to our account, one by one.

Another issue came up when we decided to look through ShootProof’s contract templates and it turned out that you have to purchase them additionally from ShootProof’s marketplace. There was only one free contract template, others cost $99, $239, and bundles cost even up to $439! Pretty expensive since some CRMs offer such templates for free.

Outdated-Looking UI

To some it may seem like a minor issue, but we have to note that ShootProof’s design and UI is pretty outdated-looking, as is common in tools like this.

Fortunately, the backward-looking designs don’t affect the intuitiveness of this tool!

G2 Rating: 4.9

⭐RATING	#️⃣ NUMBER OF REVIEWS PLACED
4.9/5	91

If You Want A Rich Template Choice Choose: 17Hats

17Hats is a Client Management Software that isn’t tailored solely to photographers, but aims to target more brands. So don’t expect photography-specific features, like in Sprout Studio or ShootProof, but you may find little nods to photographers in the templates or document packages.

Best For: Those Opting For Task And Project Management

17Hats is best for photographers who’d rather have task management, project management, and client management features instead of photography specific ones.

Plans And Costs: Three Level

Choosing 17Hats we’re offered three level plans, with the most popular option costing $30 per month or $25 per month when paid annually.

17Hats plans include many differences, hence we suggest giving our dedicated 17Hats pricing article a read to help clear the clouds.

Free Trial: 7 Days

17Hats now offers a 7-day free trial for all their plans, with no credit card required upon signing up.

Best Features: Templates, Task & Project Management

Templates

17Hats’s best feature is definitely its wide variety of templates. Whether that’s email, contract, questionnaires, or whole bundles of documents – 17Hats offers quite a few options to choose from.

Most of the templates in 17Hats are free to use, but there’s also a marketplace for those wanting to purchase additional templates.

Task & Project Management

Two more worth noting features in 17Hats are task management and project management. Both are simple enough, but prove to be quite efficient.

You can easily manage your tasks by creating task lists – basically making to-do lists that then show up as due and upcoming. So you have your lists on the left and specific tasks to do on the right.

Projects on the other hand are neatly organized in a block or list view, whichever you find most suitable. You can also filter all projects by archived, lead, client, active, or simply by an alphabetical or date order.

Clicking on any project reveals any necessary details about it, including any important documents, bookings, tasks, emails, and the client portal options!

Cons: Outdated UI And Steep Learning Curve

17Hats has its cons, especially for those photographers wishing to have features enabling them to share their photo galleries with clients, let them purchase prints and photos directly from the CRM, and get feedback on their latest shoot – you won’t find such features in this particular software.

But, if you’re just after the business management features 17Hats offers, then the only downfalls you may notice is an outdated looking UI and a few complications when working out how each feature works.

G2 Rating: 4.4

⭐RATING	#️⃣ NUMBER OF REVIEWS PLACED
4.4/5	68

If You Want To Improve Customer Satisfaction And Make Selling Services A Breeze, Choose: Zendo

Keeping customer satisfaction at the top level is one of the things photographers have to deal with on top of all other responsibilities. And what better way to keep customer satisfaction at the top other than responding to your client’s messages as quickly as possible?

Research shows that quick responses are the way to go when dealing with clients. But it may be difficult to do that when having your hands full of admin tasks, paperwork, photos to edit, shoots to attend, and all other stuff you have to do.

If that’s an issue you’re having, Zendo may be the CRM you need, because unlike other solutions, this one comes with an actual chat to communicate with your clients and your team.

But besides just the communication part, you’ll also get an innovative process for creating your services that makes it easy to set up a professional offer for your clients. You can work with productized, custom, free, and even subscription services, present them on a customizable Service Catalog, and then deliver your services through the chat, where you can do it all, collect payments, issue quotes, invoices, send out payment requests, you name it!

Best For: Photographers Wishing To Improve Customer Satisfaction, Save Time, And Sell Their Services Online

Zendo is best suited for photographers whose primary focus is to keep their customer satisfaction at the top with quick responses. It is a chat-based CRM that gathers all the requests your clients make into an organized space with a list, kanban, and table view, alongside many other filtering options. No need for a third eye with this many options on deck!

And if you’ve been longing for a professional look to sell your services online, Zendo is the way to go. Creating services in this software is not just based on invoices, you get to actually set up your offer and boast it on a customizable Service Catalog your clients can visit to make orders.

Once your clients do make an order, delivering the service will be a breeze since you get to do everything from one place. Issue a quote or an invoice, send out a payment reminder, collect a payment, share the finished photos, update the status of your client’s order? It all happens through the Zendo chat.

And to make your work even smoother, Zendo offers you the possibility to automate some of the processes with statuses, triggers, customizable workflows, a Zenbot for automatic messages, automatically generated quotes, invoices, and payment requests.

Plans And Costs: Free Forever Plan + Paid Options

Zendo pricing could not be made more simple.

The Starter plan is completely free to use forever, comes with all the essential features you need to tend to your clients’ needs and sell your services, and allows you to register two operating agents in your workspace!

And if you crave even more automation or some sweet white-label features for the utmost professional and consistent look, long for unlimited access to premium features, like subscriptions, you can go ahead and choose the second option, Growth, that lets you add up to 100 agents for just $19 per each agent monthly, when paid on an annual basis.

There’s also a third option, the Enterprise plan, which is a custom solution for all the creative souls that need more unique features.

You can learn more on Zendo’s plans and costs here.

Free Trial: A Different Approach

Zendo decided to take a different approach to free trials and got rid of theirs. Why? Because it’s very unlikely that even with a month-long trial you’d be able to truly test out a CRM, let alone actually use it with your clients.

In Zendo, all users get access to a free forever plan that comes with all the essential features for managing your clients and selling your services online, with no time limits. Besides the essential features, the free plan includes 2 users, unlimited clients, unlimited requests, and 5 premium tokens renewing each month, to try out automatically generated payment requests and subscriptions.

You can set up your services, create a Service Catalog, chat with your clients & team, collect payments, deliver your service, manage your quotes and invoices, and more, for free!

Best Features: Services, Quotes & Invoices, Workflows

Let’s now take a closer look at some of the best features you can find in Zendo, namely Services, Quotes & Invoices, and Workflows.

Services

A newborn session for $1000 or an animal photo shoot with all the details neatly presented for your clients without them having to reach out and indulge in endless back-and-forth? Yes, it is possible.

Using Zendo, you can easily set up your services for your clients to order. You can choose between productized (clearly defined), custom, free, and subscription-based services.

You can spice up your offer with add-ons, quantifiable items, a customizable order form, preferable invoice, quote, and payment request settings, tax support, and more.

Once you set up everything the way you want it, you can go ahead and customize your Service Catalog that collects the services you add to Zendo. Your clients can visit this page to make orders. What they see is the details of your service, price (if added), an order form, and any custom images you add.

Then, your clients simply order your services, while you see each order as a separate request, aka a chat box, in your workspace.

Zendo's chat for client & team communication

From there, you can message your clients, communicate with your team through private notes, issue quotes, invoices, send out payment requests, deliver your service, update the status of your client’s order, and collect payments.

Quotes & Invoices

Zendo also supports the boring side of running a business, and lets you easily issue quotes, invoices, and payment requests.

You have the option to issue your quotes automatically for all your productized services and manually for custom or mixed services.

Invoices on the other hand, are based on the quotes you create for ultimate accuracy, and can be issued automatically for paid plans users. In the case of subscription services, your invoices will be handled automatically in a billing cycle you set.

To complete the whole process, you can also send out payment requests that help guide your clients in completing the payments, while also gently reminding them of the needed action.

Your payment request will either include the necessary details for completing a bank transfer or a direct pay now button that opens a Stripe checkout.

Again, paid plans users can also enjoy automatically generated payment requests, while users on the free forever plan get 5 premium tokens they can use each month to test out this feature.

Workflows

Last, but certainly not least, we want to mention Zendo’s workflows.

The workflows feature really tops it all off, allowing you to automate some of your processes and systemize them, to save some much needed time.

You can create custom workflows for each type of your service and include custom fields for gathering crucial details from clients, custom statuses to properly manage the service delivery progress, and set up triggers to automate status change for some of the actions, such as a quote issued or a new request created.

Zendo as a studio ninja alternative: workflows example

Cons: A Work In Progress

Zendo came a long way since its launch in 2021, recently adding some crucial features for selling services online, such as subscriptions, or a new and refreshed client dashboard.

The platform is constantly developing and things like a Zapier integration is in the works.

But Zendo’s team is known for being very open to their clients and their requests, so if you’d rather look at the brighter side of life, you may find an opportunity to convince Zendo creators to implement the features you need.

G2 Rating: 4.8

⭐RATING	#️⃣ NUMBER OF REVIEWS PLACED
4.8/5	3

If You Want Smooth Workflows And Form Creator Choose: Dubsado

Dubsado is yet another project management tool, operating on the market since 2016. It aims to help freelancers and businesses alike to manage their clients and ongoing projects in an easy way.

In fact, one of the first things we see once we log in to Dubsado is the Projects tab, right under the Dashboard.

Now, Dubsado isn’t necessarily geared towards photographers, but one of its co-founders – Becca Berg – worked as a photographer herself before creating Dubsado. So we can expect the creators to actually understand the struggles of photographers and do their best to tend to their pain points.

Best For: Photographers Who Wish To Find A CRM For Project, Task, And Document Management

Dubsado is a CRM focusing on project, task, and document management, with some additional useful tools, such as scheduling for your clients to easily book sessions with you, a Calendar integration, a Time Tracker feature to evaluate your work time when billing per hour, and more.

If Dubsado is something you’ve been thinking about, but aren’t yet sure, we have compared it with a few other CRMs on the market. You can check these articles to learn more: 17Hats vs Dubsado, Plutio vs Dubsado, and Dubsado vs HoneyBook vs Zendo.

Plans And Costs: 2 Simple Plans

Dubsado created two plans – Starter and Premier. The Premier plan comes with additional features that Starter users don’t get, including scheduling, automated workflows, public proposals, Zapier integration, and a bookkeeping integration. The Starter option will cost you $20 per month, while the Premier – $40 per month, billed monthly.

If you want to read more about the costs associated with investing in Dubsado, make sure to give our Dubsado pricing article a read!

Free Trial: Up To 3 Registered Clients

Dubsado is one of those CRMs that doesn’t limit the potential users who wish to test out its features. You can use Dubsado fully, for free, up to 3 registered clients!

Best Features: Drag&Drop Form Creator And Workflows

Drag&Drop Form Template Creator

Dubsado gives us only a few sample templates to choose from. But, in our opinion, it’s much better to choose the drag&drop form template creator to easily create your own resources for future use!

It’s pretty simple and reminds us a bit of a simplified Elementor page builder.

Workflows

Creating workflows in Dubsado was one of the best automation experiences we’ve had when testing out different CRMs.

There are two sample workflows for inspiration. But if you want to create your workflow from scratch, you can find this feature in both the Templates section and Projects.

Simply add actions and set any triggers you find necessary. Your workflows will be saved and available for use throughout Dubsado later on, simplifying your business processes and saving you some much needed time!