Costs
No Setup Fees
You heard that right... there are no (notta, zero, zilch) setup fees involved with creating an Instaproofs account. We don't want a money barrier to be the thing that stands in the way of you creating an account with us, so instead of charging you to get started we would like to get you setup as quickly as possible and get you uploading your events right away. Since there are no setup costs, and since you have nothing to lose by giving us a try, create your account today to experience what thousands of other photographers have been experiencing for years.
No Monthly, Image Count, or Event Fees
Like our free setup policy, the reason that we do not charge a monthly fee or limit the number of your events and images, is to encourage you to sell more prints. By allowing you to post all of your events without worrying about hitting an upper-limit of some sort, we believe that you will be more successful. Since we do not charge you anything unless you make a sale, we do all that we can to help make that happen.
Fair Commissions
Instaproofs does what it can to maximize your time, and minimize your costs. Your 15% (maximum) commission goes to pay for the credit card processing fees, merchant account fees, image storage costs, site improvements, unlimited uploading and downloading bandwidth, stellar tech support, multiple order management tools, automated email marketing, etc.
Extending Events
Your events can stay up for an astounding 9 months before they need to be deactivated. In the rare case that you need to keep an event up longer than this, we charge a very reasonable $5 fee to extend the length of your event to a full 12 months.
Security
Dynamic Image Watermarking
We allow you to add custom, dynamically applied watermarks to your images. You can select the watermark's placement on your images, and you can choose whichever image you would like to be used for your watermark. Additionally, the watermarks can be enabled or disabled on any of your events individually, and you can decide whether or not to display watermarks on your slideshow images.
Right Click* & Image Menus Disabled
We realize that having your images online presents an opportunity for thieves to steal your work, and in order to help you out a little bit we have disabled right click image saving, as well as the image menu and image dragging. We have also disabled the "Print" options from our flash slideshows and our image zooming applications. * Exception: The Opera browser does not allow right-click disabling.
Password Protecting Events
Want your events password protected? We can handle it. Want your events open to the public? We can handle that, too. Using passwords to protect your events is a personal choice by both you and your clients, and regardless of how you want to handle it, we've got you covered.
Password Protecting Categories
Sometimes you may not want to password protect an entire event, but you might have a few images that are too sensitive for the masses (bridal getting ready shots, etc.). When a situation like this arises, you have the option of adding a password to individual categories within your events.
Client Modifiable Image List
It's inevitable that on each of your events there will be some images that your clients just won't want others to see. Maybe the images make them look funny, or maybe they no longer wish for a certain person to be associated with the event, etc. Instead of spending a lot of time going through the images with your clients before you post each event, you can give your clients the ability to hide the images that they don't want others to see, with just a click of their mouse.
Photo Zoom for Detail
Many of our competitors offer image zooming by simply taking their small images and stretching the pixels to make them appear "zoomed"... this method of zooming results in a very pixilated image, that provides no benefit at all to those who view it. Here at Instaproofs we are in the business of helping you sell more prints, and in order to do that we have created a specialized zooming application that allows your clients to actually see the full details of your images (no pixel stretching involved), while at the same time keeping your large images secure against piracy.
Direct Linking Disabled
Instaproofs protects your larger images from being linked from other sites (like customer blogs, etc.) by disabling the ability to link directly to your larger images.
No Full-sized Image Storage
Because we don't print photos, we also don't host print resolution images. This makes it impossible for a customer to download print quality images from Instaproofs.
Marketing Tools
Social Bookmarks
Social bookmarking is a quickly expanding trend that has proven to be a very effective marketing tool for every type of photography event. Each day more and more people are clicking on our social bookmark links, and by doing so they are providing free advertising for photographers, and expanding the visibility to events in a way that has previously not been possible. Our social bookmark toolbar enables your visitors to quickly link to your event from Facebook, MySpace, Reddit, Digg, and multiple other social gathering websites.
Collect Email Addresses from Viewers
On each of your events you have the option of requiring the event's visitors to submit their email addresses before they can view the event's images. Collecting the email addresses from your viewers allows you to track who is visiting each event, and how often they are returning. Collecting email addresses also allows you to enable automated email marketing, it gives you the option of exporting your visitor lists, and it provides you with an easy way to quickly determine how many people have visited your events.
Custom Bulk Emails
Going out of town for a while? Putting on a big sale next week? Through our bulk email page, we give you the ability to quickly send email notification of this type to every person that has ever visited your storefront, or you can limit it to just to the email addresses collected from specific events. Our bulk email creation pages allow you to use both a WYSIWYG editor, and the full HTML markup language to help make your bulk emails look as professional as possible.
Referral Commission Program
By using our referral commission program, you can set your clients up with a discount code that they can pass along to their friends. In addition to the discount that their friends are given when they use the code, the person that referred their friends can automatically be given a commission on the sales as well. Word of mouth can provide you with an added boost to your event sales numbers, and there's no better way to encourage it than to offer your clients an incentive for doing it.
Automated Email Marketing
We provide you with three types of automated emails: 1) repeat reminder emails, 2) discount expiring reminders, and 3) event expiring reminders. The body text for each of the automated emails is fully customizable, and you can choose to enable or disable the emails on any of the events of your choice.
Photographer Showcase
On your storefront homepage, we have provided a special highlighted area in which you can showcase a few of your events. Some photographers choose to showcase their most recent events, while others choose to showcase their portfolio work and/or personal projects. Showcased events bring in about double the traffic of non-showcased events, so be sure to make the most out of this option.
Email a Photo
Your viewers can email thumbnail sized versions of the photos that they like to their friends. The email that is sent prompts the friend to click on the thumbnail image to view a larger version, and when the thumbnail is clicked they are taken to that image's purchase page on your storefront.
Exportable Visitor List
After you've collected a list of email addresses from your event viewers, you can then export this information for use with more sophisticated third-party email systems.
Branding Tools
Selectable Color Themes
We have a selection of color themes to choose from for your storefront, to help keep your brand and style in tact. You can switch between color themes at any time, and if you think there might be a color palette that reflects your company a little bit better, you can create upload your own CSS files (see next bullet point).
Customizable CSS
Once you have selected one of our base color themes, you can then further customize your storefront by uploading your own CSS and image files to modify the theme. Using your own CSS you can change your background colors (or use a background image), modify your fonts, and create your own custom look and feel.
Custom Email Reminders
I know what you're thinking... you saw this same thing in the marketing section above! Well that may be true, but since this is also something that can be customized and used to promote your business, we felt it belonged in this section as well. Your email reminders (both the automated emails and the manually sent bulk emails) can be fully tailored to anything you would like them to be. We do not put our names in your emails, and you are free to brand them however you like.
Your own Logo/Watermark
We try to be as invisible to your clients as possible, and one surefire way to let your clients know that what they are viewing is *your* site is to upload your own logo and watermark images. Once your custom logo has been uploaded, it is displayed at the top of every page on your storefront, and once your watermark is uploaded it can be displayed on every non-thumbnail sized image throughout your storefront.
Modifiable Meta Descriptions
Our storefront web pages allow your custom written Meta description information to be communicated directly to search engines like Google, Yahoo, and many others. By allowing you to write your own Meta descriptions you can control the internal branding of your storefront right along with the external branding.
Definable Terms and Conditions
All photographers have a different view as to what should be done when someone requests to cancel or change a previously submitted order. We allow you to specify your own terms and conditions, and we provide your clients with an easily accessible link on your storefront to view them.
Personalized URL
Your Instaproofs URL is custom to you, and your company. When you create your Instaproofs account, you can choose a URL for your storefront that is easy for your clients to remember, and that reflects who you are.
Storefront Homepage Images
Your Instaproofs storefront features a custom rotating slideshow using images of your choice. This has been a photographer favorite, and many storefront visitors love to sit and watch the whole slideshow before logging into their event.
Link to your Homepage
Your Instaproofs storefront is a very valuable marketing and sales tool, but at times it can be nice to have an additional website that is a little more personal to you. If you have your own website and would like to link to it from your storefront, we allow you to do that. You don't have to link your storefront to another website, but if you would like to, the option is available.
Customizable Stat Tracking
Like most everything else on Instaproofs, we like you to be in full control of your stat tracking abilities. We do not impose our own stat tracking graphs or preferences onto your storefront, but instead we allow you to add your own stat tracking code. Many photographers choose to use Google Analytics for its in-depth statistical reporting features, but you are free to use whichever 3rd party stat tracking company that you would like.
Personalized Note on Customer Receipts
We allow you to add a personalized note for your customers on their receipts from Instaproofs. It's a small thing, but it's a great way to add that personal touch.
Customer Service
Never Send us a Payment
We don't send bills, we send money. Because we handle the credit card processing, our fees are taken directly from your customers' orders at the time the orders are placed. There are no checks for you to write, or payments for you to send... only money to collect.
Multiple Payment Options
We pay our photographers through automatic bank transfers, PayPal payments, or paper checks (a $3 fee applies to this method). By providing three different payment options, we hope to make your interactions with Instaproofs as painless and efficient as possible.
Bimonthly Payments
Twice each month payment is sent to everyone with a balance owed to them that is over $50. In addition to the bi-monthly payments that are sent out, we send payment to everyone that is owed anything (as little as $0.01) twice each year to help keep everyone up to date.
Monthly Newsletters
Because professional photographers are busy people, sometimes it's hard to stay in the loop of things. To help combat your busy schedule, we try to make things easy for you by sending out a monthly newsletter full of announcements, changes, updates, and news on improvements made to Instaproofs.
Lightning Fast Email Response
One of the things we're most known for is our lightning fast email and support request turnaround times. If you have a question about Instaproofs, give us a try.
Support Forum
The support forum is great place for sharing the knowledge we have learned together over our 4+ years of operation. Have a question or a comment that others may want to read or reply to? Post it to the forum!
Live Support
Each weekday we provide live support from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the Instaproofs administrative area. The live support interface is very much like a standard instant messaging application, and the person at the other end of the conversation is always a live, knowledgeable support technician.
Always Open to Suggestions
Many (possibly even the majority) of our best features have come directly from suggestions passed along to us by photographers using our services. We've even been known to occasionally receive a suggestion, develop it, and launch it all within a day's time. So do you have a suggestion? Let us know!
Constantly Improving
One benefit to having great photographers as our customers is that we always have a constant stream of great ideas to work with when we're improving Instaproofs. While we can't put every suggestion given to us into place, those that do get implemented into our system are instantly available to everyone at one time.
Ease of Use
Drag & Drop uploads
To help you get your events up and running as quickly as possible, we've eliminated the need for you to download any special applications to upload your images. Just drag and drop your images onto the appropriate location on our website, and you're ready to go.
FTP Uploading
For those of you who speak geek and prefer to do things your own way, we also have an FTP upload option for your images. Using your Instaproofs username and password, you can use the FTP application of your choice to upload your images. When you use FTP to upload your images, your events and categories are created for you automatically, just as if you had uploaded them through the website. Now that's technology!
One Time Setup for Events, Pricing, Etc.
After you have created your Instaproofs account, you can then add pricing and sizing templates that can be reused with all of your future events. Because most of the items on our site require only a onetime setup, after your initial template creations are complete, adding events and other products to your account can be done in a snap.
Instructional videos available online
We have created, and continue to create, online videos that explain how you can take advantage of our most popular features. When you make money, we make money, so we do what we can to help.
