Your portfolio is the work.
Not the CMS.
Squarespace downscales your uploads. Format charges 30 percent on prints. Aperture gives you full-resolution galleries, client proofing, and sub-1s load time without the platform tax.
Everything a working photographer needs
Publish the portfolio, proof the shoot, ship the print. One stack, your Stripe, zero commission.
Full-resolution galleries, no hidden downscaling
Squarespace silently resizes uploads above 500 KB and strips your colour profile on export. VeloCMS stores the original file on Cloudflare R2 with no transcoding by default and serves responsive derivatives only where they make sense, so a printed sample and the web gallery start from the same master image.
Password-protected client proofing
Private galleries live behind a magic-link login. Send a client a URL and a one-time code, let them favourite or reject frames in the same browser, and see the selects sync back to your admin dashboard. No PDFs, no screen-share calls, no third-party proofing tool tax.
Aperture theme — built around the frame
Aperture is a photo-first editorial layout with pinned cover frames, generous white space, and a lightbox that opens to full-resolution with keyboard navigation. Captions sit in the margin so they never compete with the image. Presets let you swap from bright editorial to inky noir without rebuilding.
Print and download orders through Stripe
List a 16x20 archival print as a product, set shipping zones, and let Stripe handle the checkout. Digital downloads are delivered with a signed short-lived URL so a buyer cannot casually share the original. You keep every dollar because VeloCMS charges zero platform fee on sales.
EXIF GPS opt-in, not opt-out
Photographers publish one accidental geotag and wake up with a stalker. VeloCMS strips EXIF GPS coordinates from every upload by default. Turn it on per-album if you want travel metadata to live on the page — the toggle sits in the media library, not buried in a settings pane.
Contact, contracts, and invoices from one inbox
Built-in contact blocks feed Resend-powered emails, and the e-commerce layer handles booking deposits without any plugin chain. Attach the session contract as a PDF on the confirmation email, tag the client in your members database, and route everything to your existing inbox.
VeloCMS vs Squarespace vs Format
| Feature | VeloCMS | Squarespace | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-resolution original storage | Yes | No | Yes |
| Password-protected galleries | Yes | Paid plan | Yes |
| EXIF GPS strip by default | Yes | No | No |
| Print order e-commerce | 0% fee | 3% fee | Add-on |
| Digital download signed URLs | Yes | No | No |
| Custom domain included | Yes | Paid plan | Paid plan |
| Export all images + metadata | Yes | ZIP only | ZIP only |
| Sub-1s LCP on gallery pages | Yes | No | No |
The file. The frame. The fee.
Keep full resolution, keep client proofing private, keep every dollar on print orders. 14-day trial, cancel anytime, full export on day one.
Start 14-day trial