Singletrack Sites vs Showit, Squarespace, and Pixieset for Photographers

Most photographers are renting their website.

You pay every month. The day you stop, the site is gone. Or you're on a builder that changes templates and asks you to rebuild. Or you're on WordPress, where a plugin update can take the whole thing down and the person who built it has moved on.

I already wrote a long, honest Showit vs Squarespace comparison for photographers. That article is great if those are the platforms you’re considering. This one is the third option: a photographer website you actually own.

The name for my platform is Singletrack Sites. Singletrack is the narrow trail you ride on a mountain bike, it’s one clear path without clutter. That's the idea. Not 50 ways to do everything. The right sections, in the right structure, on a site that stays yours. Simple by design.

If you want your website site to still be there in ten years without a monthly platform bill, keep reading.

Who this is for (and who it isn't)

This is for you if:

• You're tired of renting Showit, Squarespace, Pixieset, or WordPress, and you want the code and the hosting in your name.
• You care about mobile and speed, and you're tired of fighting a separate mobile canvas (Calling out ALL the tools here…!)
• You want your existing pages and posts moved for you, with URLs and rankings handled, instead of rebuilding by hand. Let’s make this fast!
• You're fine editing in a structured studio (click a section, change it, drag blocks around) instead of a Photoshop-style canvas.
• You want someone to move your site’s content and look for you - OR you want to do it yourself - either way!

This is not for you if:

• You want to drag every heading 12 pixels to the left tonight, with no one in the loop, that’s where ShowIt wins.
• You need a store, courses, or print checkout baked into the same platform, then you should get Squarespace.
• Client galleries, proofing, and delivery are the product, and the marketing site is secondary. Pixieset wins there, and you should keep it for that

Side-by-side

Competitor prices below are from each platform's public pricing page (or, for Squarespace, from the July 2026 public reporting of that page). Labeled as of August 29, 2026.

That last row is important. Showit, Squarespace, and Pixieset win if you want to click "start" at 9pm and have something live by midnight. Singletrack Sites takes a little more hands on time for me to get you up and running extra smoothly with dialed-in SEO.

Showit

I know Showit. I've built on it. I wrote Is Showit good for SEO? and the Showit vs Squarespace piece because photographers kept asking me. Did you know that most of the articles out there are written by people selling Showit templates - they literally make money off ShowIt, so of course their articles all say it’s the best. I make money off Singletrack Sites, but I built this because I was frustrated with the other models and wanted something that worked better out of the box!

ShowWt is the Photoshop of photographer websites. You can put anything anywhere. Separate mobile canvas. Blog on WordPress, which is genuinely more powerful if you're going to publish venue posts, location guides, and wedding features for years - and you need ultimate customizability with thousands of plugins. The Advanced Blog plan is the one most working photographers actually need, and that's $39/month billed annually as of August 29, 2026 — $470 a year, every year. What happens if you cancel? Your site doesn’t work at your domain any more.

Where Showit is honestly better than Singletrack Sites:

• Pixel-level design. Overlaps, animations, weird layouts that aren't a section block. If that's your brand, don't come here expecting the same canvas. If you want complete control over everything and don’t mind a steep learning curve, this is for you.
• You can start tonight on a 14-day trial, no one else in the loop.
• WordPress plugins (Yoast, Rank Math, the whole catalog) if you want that workflow.

Where it costs you:

• You are renting. Stop paying, it’s gone.
• You design desktop and mobile as two jobs. Most ShowIt sites I audit have at least one mobile-canvas leftover with filler text, a hidden section, something that only exists on one view. Easy to make this mistake and everyone does.
• Heading tags are decoupled from how things look, so it's easy to ship a page with five H1s and not know it. (SEO Crusher!)
• Hidden canvases can get crawled. Trailing-slash URL changes can tank rankings on a move. I did that to my own site. I wrote about it so you don't have to.

If you want full design control and you're willing to pay monthly for it, ShowIt is a good tool and they’ve even updated it recently to make it faster. If the thing that bothers you is that none of it is yours, that's the gap Singletrack Sites is built for.

I still build custom Showit sites, and I have a pet photographer Showit template, if you want that canvas tonight instead of waiting on me.

Squarespace

Squarespace is the better "I need a real-looking site this weekend" product. Templates look professional even if you've never designed anything. The blog is in the same login. Commerce is native. For year 0–2 photographers, and anyone selling prints, presets, or courses as a real revenue line, that all-in-one simplicity is the feature.

I said in the May 2026 comparison that the realistic Squarespace starting point was about $23/month. That number moved. In July 2026 Squarespace raised prices; the Core plan that used to sit at $23/month annually is $29/month billed annually ($348/year) or $39 month-to-month, per public reporting of their pricing page. Confirm what you'll actually be charged on squarespace.com/pricing — promotions and old plans still confuse this.

On the Singletrack Sites page I already did the "but it's only $39 a month" math, because that's the line everyone uses. Squarespace. plus a gallery tool runs about $36 to $46 a month once you're actually working. Over three years that's roughly $1,400, you built the site yourself, you're still paying, and you own nothing. Three years of Singletrack Sites is about the same money — except the site is done in two weeks, the content was moved for you, and it's yours.

Where Squarespace is honestly better:

• You can launch this weekend without waiting on me.
• Built-in checkout, products, and digital goods. Singletrack Sites is a not a store platform.
• Tons of templates built in to choose from and implement immediately.

Where it costs you:

• You don't own it.
• Fluid Engine can put HTML in the order you added blocks, not the order they sit on the page. Your H1 can look like it's at the top and still read third to Google and to a screen reader. I covered this in the Showit vs Squarespace article. Bad for SEO.
• Mobile is auto-generated. Usually fine. Occasionally awkward. Limited mobile-only control without CSS. Full mobile control is better in ShowIt if you want that.

If you want simple, pretty, and you’re fine with a monthly subscription, Squarespace is still a clean answer. If you've been "meaning to redo the site" for a year, $39 a month is a very expensive website you never get around to building. That's the real cost. Singletrack Sites will get your site migrated fully without you lifting a finger…

Pixieset

Pixieset is not trying to be Showit. That's the part comparison articles get wrong.

Pixieset is a photographer operating system: client galleries, proofing, downloads, a store, studio tools. The website builder is how they keep you from also paying Squarespace. It's theme-based, mobile-optimized, and cheap compared to a design-first builder. As of August 29, 2026, the standalone website is $12/month billed annually on Plus (custom domain, no Pixieset banner) or $18/month on Pro (custom code, redirects, more design control). The Suite that bundles galleries + website + studio starts at $28/month.

Where Pixieset is honestly better:

• If clients pick favorites and download galleries from you, Pixieset is the product. That’s a great feature.
• You can start free, then pay when you need a custom domain.
• One login for galleries, site, and studio. That's real time saved.

Where it costs you:

• You still rent the marketing site. Cancel, it goes away.
• Design ceiling is a theme, not a custom canvas (and not Singletrack's section system either).
• SEO control is thinner than ShowIt's WordPress blog or than what I bake into Singletrack Sites (schema, H1s you can't accidentally multiply, per-page titles in the editor).

Plenty of photographers should keep Pixieset for delivery and use something else for the public site. If that "something else" is a site you own, that's the conversation. If you want one vendor for everything and you're fine renting, stay.

I moved a Minneapolis wedding photographer off Pixieset onto Showit a while back because she felt boxed in by the builder. The feeling she described — "I couldn't move things the way I wanted" — is real. The answer is not automatically Singletrack Sites. Sometimes it's Showit. Sometimes it's owning the site. Those are different jobs.

Carla Jacobson / Coola Creative

Carla Jacobson / Coola Creative was the first client to grab one of my sites. Since then I’ve added a TON of features and made things work smoother, more customizable, while still keeping it easy.

Carla ran a successful senior-portrait business in Novi, Michigan, on ProPhoto. She pivoted into product photography under a new brand, Coola Creative, and she wanted a site that was actually hers, not another template meant for weddings or another monthly stack of builder + hosting + SEO plugin + gallery plugin (with fees $$$).

She launched in under two weeks. She figured out the editor on her own, mostly by clicking around. Five blog posts went up almost immediately.

On speed, in her words: "It's a way faster loading time than my other one. That's the biggest difference."

On lock-in: "Even if the back-end (Sanity) goes down, I still have a website." And that’s true, your site on Singletrack Sites is static HTML, that means you could literally place it on any host and it will keep showing!

The live site is coolacreative.com — a Metro Detroit product studio aimed at wellness and lifestyle brands. Homepage, process (intake → plan → ship & capture → delivery), blog, and a first-person about page.

If you want the full conversation, including the plugin-bill table she was looking at on WordPress, it's in the case study.

What the site is actually like to edit

This is the tradeoff people skip.

Showit is a visual canvas. Squarespace is a template with a page builder. Pixieset is a theme. Singletrack Sites uses Sanity Studio: a clean visual editor where you click a section and change it. You can drag pre-built blocks around, add new ones, change colors, fonts, and layouts, and watch the site update in front of you. It updates in real time on the presentation page while you're typing.

What you cannot do is break it. The structure is locked on purpose. You will not get Showit's "put this heading at x:347 y:82" freedom.

Every section is mobile-optimized out of the box. You build it once. Done.

There's a quote from a photographer on a demo call that I keep because it's the actual job: "I can't tell you how huge that is. How many times I have worked things around in Pixieset. I'm like, okay, it looks great, and then I click and I'm like, how did that get below the picture?"

Page Speed

Most photography sites are slow. ForegroundWeb's review of 100+ of the world's top photographer websites found that on mobile, only 6% scored "fast" in Google's PageSpeed Insights. More than half scored "slow." Alex Vita's wording: "When testing all of these popular photography websites in Google PageSpeed Insights, the results are… well… quite 'average,' with more than half of them falling into that category." (That report published March 1, 2021. The 6% figure is still the one I cite; I'm not going to call a 2021 study "last month.")

Sites built on Singletrack Sites typically score 98 out of 100. That puts them in the top 2% of sites for that test. Images auto-optimize on upload. The site is served as static HTML.

How a move actually works

This is the part that keeps people stuck: switching to a new platform is a lot of work in most cases. Not so with Singletrack sites. Let me handle that for you!

1. Get in touch. Tell me your current setup. I reply within one business day. If you already know, you can skip the call and start from the product page and even request a trial run to feel it out.
2. We talk. Usually 20 minutes. I show you the platform. If it's not a fit in your case, I'll say so.
3. You sign up. Founding: $600 one-time, or 3 payments of $215. Regular price is $997 after the first 20 slots fill. Content import and year one of the care plan are included.
4. I set up the technical foundation. Cloudflare, Sanity, and your demo site, usually ready within a day. Setup on your side is about 10 minutes: create the Cloudflare and Sanity accounts, give me admin access. I send a video recording of your specific setup so you know how it all works.
5. We build. I import your content first including up to 10 pages and 20 blog posts, with formatting, images, and SEO intact (and improved wherever I find anything that’s missing!) so you're editing a real site, not an empty template. Most photographers spend 4 to 8 hours polishing over a week or two.
6. We launch. I handle the domain migration, URL structure, redirects, and schema so existing Google rankings carry over and improve.

Got a bigger archive, or want the old design matched page for page? Those are quoted before we start. There’s no surprise invoice here!

What it costs

Founding photographer pricing (first 20): $600 one-time, or 3 payments of $215.

After those slots fill: $997 one-time.

Included, no second invoice:

• Site on Singletrack Sites, live on your own Cloudflare account
• Content import — up to 10 pages and 20 blog posts
• Custom domain setup and DNS migration, rankings preserved
• Mobile-optimized, SEO-ready structure
• A video walkthrough of your setup
• First year of the care plan (updates, new features, annual Site Health Report)

After year one: $180/year, not required to keep your site running. New platform features, maintenance (Astro, Sanity, Cloudflare kept current), security, priority support, and the yearly Site Health Report. Your live site keeps running whether you renew or not. It's static HTML on your Cloudflare account.

Add-ons, quoted:

• Archive migration beyond 20 posts
• Ongoing SEO strategy and keyword research

Cloudflare hosting for a site this size is only $5/month and covers EVERYTHING you need.

The 10-year column on the product page is $2,220 founding ($600 + nine years of care) versus $3,600 to $9,000+ of typical platform rent. If you skip care after year one, you pay the one-time fee and the site still serves.

Founding pricing is the first 20 photographers only. you can see how many slots are available on the Singletrack Sites page.

FAQ

Is Singletrack Sites better than Showit or Squarespace?

It's better at owning the site, staying fast, and not paying monthly rent. Showit still wins at pixel control. Squarespace still wins at all-in-one commerce and a weekend DIY launch. I compared Showit and Squarespace on their own terms here.

Can I keep Pixieset for galleries and use Singletrack Sites as the website?

Yes. That's a smart setup. Singletrack Sites is the public marketing site. Pixieset's client galleries, proofing, and delivery are a different job.

Do I need to be tech-savvy?

If you can use Pixieset, Squarespace, or Showit, you can use this. The editor is visual. No code on your end. The only technical bit is creating Cloudflare and Sanity accounts and giving me access (~10 minutes). And that’s not even technical, it’s simple account setups.

What happens if you disappear?

Your site lives on your Cloudflare account as static HTML. The code is open and standard. Handoff docs are already in the codebase. Any web developer with basic skills can pick it up. If Sanity ever shut down, the live site would keep running; you’d lose the visual editor within a couple years because of updates but a designer could fix this for you. On Showit, Squarespace, or Pixieset, the day you stop paying is the day it disappears.

Will I lose my Google rankings if I switch?

No, I’ll make sure it’s done correctly. Your URL structure is preserved. Redirects and the domain switchover are part of the included migration. I've been doing SEO for photographers since 2014; this is the part I refuse to skimp on.

Is this a drag-and-drop builder like Showit?

No. You get a CMS (Sanity) with a visual presentation editor and pre-built sections. You click, you change, you reorder blocks. You do not get a freeform canvas. That's the trade: you can't wreck the mobile layout, and you also can't invent a brand-new layout from a blank artboard.

How long until I'm live?

1–2 weeks is the typical window on the product page. Foundation often exists within a day. You spend 4–8 hours polishing as you see fit.

What's the catch on $600?

It's founding pricing for the first 20 photographers. After that it's $997. Same platform, same support. Year-one care is included either way. After that, $180/year is optional. There isn't a second invoice hiding in setup.

Can I leave later?

Yes. That's the point. The code comes with you. Stop the care plan and the site stays up. The codebase is all yours to use for your own site exclusively.

If you're still deciding

Stay on Showit if you want the canvas and you'll use it.

Stay on Squarespace if you sell products, and paying monthly doesn't bother you.

Stay on Pixieset (at least for galleries) if proofing and delivery are the business.

Come to Singletrack Sites if you want the public site to be yours, fast, mobile without a second job, imported instead of rebuilt, and still online if you stop paying for it.

I was a photographer for a decade before I was the SEO guy. I'm not interested in convincing you to rebuild for fun. Most photographers should be out actually meeting people, not picking a new platform for the 19th time. If you're going to move, move once, onto something you own.

See Singletrack Sites — pricing, demos, and the signup