SmugMug vs Carbonmade: guide for 2024

Final verdict

SmugMug and Carbonmade both cater to creatives, but they serve different needs and preferences.

SmugMug (Overall Grade: 6.3/10)

is tailored for photographers and visual artists who want to showcase and sell their work online. It offers robust photo protection features, customizable templates, and ecommerce capabilities, making it a comprehensive platform for monetizing visual content. SmugMug excels in security, marketing features, and user management, providing a reliable and professional solution for photographers.
Carbonmade (Overall Grade: 4.4/10)

is designed for a broader range of creatives, including illustrators, motion designers, and graphic designers. It emphasizes ease of use with its drag-and-drop interface and customizable layouts, making it ideal for users without coding skills. While Carbonmade lacks ecommerce capabilities, it excels in design functionalities and templates, offering a user-friendly platform for creating and managing online portfolios.

	Overall grade: 6.3	Overall grade: 4.4
Design functionalities & templates	7.1	7.3
Ease of use	7.8	8.3
Ecommerce	7.3	0
Website Editors	7.3	7.6
Product testing options	7.4	7.2
Price	7.8	7.9
Hosting quality	5.0	6.1
Website speed optimization	5.5	5.0
Plugins and integrations	6.2	0
Marketing features	3.8	1.0
Customer support	7.9	5.8
Security	6.0	5.8
User Management	7.2	2.8

Best for ecommerce

7.3

Verdict

: SmugMug is the clear choice for ecommerce, especially for photographers and creatives, while Carbonmade lacks any ecommerce capabilities.

SmugMug

: Designed specifically for photographers and creatives, SmugMug offers a robust set of ecommerce features, including digital downloads, product pricing, and tax handling. It allows users to sell prints and digital downloads directly from their website, making it an excellent choice for those looking to monetize their visual content. When comparing SmugMug vs Carbonmade, SmugMug stands out for its ecommerce functionalities.
Carbonmade

: While Carbonmade excels in providing customizable layouts for showcasing creative portfolios, it does not offer any ecommerce features. This makes it unsuitable for users who want to sell products directly from their website. For those focused solely on portfolio presentation, Carbonmade is a user-friendly option, but it falls short in the ecommerce department.

Best for informational & business websites

7.5

5.9

Verdict

: SmugMug is better suited for photographers and creatives who need robust photo protection and e-commerce capabilities, while Carbonmade excels in providing an easy-to-use platform for a broader range of creatives looking to showcase their work.

SmugMug

: SmugMug is a premium website builder designed specifically for photographers and creatives. It offers customizable templates optimized for high-quality images and robust photo protection features. While it includes e-commerce capabilities, its focus on photography makes it less versatile for other types of informational websites. SmugMug scores 7.5 in this category.
Carbonmade

: Carbonmade is tailored for creatives who want to showcase their work online without coding skills. It offers fully customizable layouts and pre-designed templates, making it easy to create and manage online portfolios. Carbonmade’s simplicity and user-friendly interface make it ideal for a wide range of professionals, though it lacks the specialized features for photographers that SmugMug offers. Carbonmade scores 5.9 in this category.

Detailed comparison

7.1

7.3

🏆

Winner: Carbonmade.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Carbonmade is the preferred choice.

SmugMug offers a variety of templates and designs, currently around 20+, catering to the diverse needs of photographers and visual artists. Users can choose from an extensive collection of customizable templates, ensuring their website or portfolio reflects their unique style and brand. The platform continuously updates its design offerings, incorporating the latest trends and user feedback, to provide a rich selection of modern, sleek, and professional layouts.

SmugMug Themes

Compared to SmugMug, Carbonmade does not have templates; the platform creates a personalized portfolio website based on the inputs of the users. Carbonmade offers a specialized platform for creatives to build personalized, professional portfolios with a wide range of features tailored to showcase their work effectively. The website builder supports responsive designs optimized for all devices, allows unlimited uploads of images and videos, including 4K content, and provides various premade blocks and layouts for customization without the need for external templates or platforms.

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7.8

8.3

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. Scoring an 8.3, Carbonmade excels in user-friendliness with its straightforward drag-and-drop interface and customizable layouts, making it ideal for creatives without coding skills. SmugMug, with a score of 7.8, also offers a user-friendly experience but is more specialized for photographers and visual artists, which might limit its versatility for other types of websites.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. Both platforms provide comprehensive learning materials, but Carbonmade’s extensive video tutorials and help center articles make it particularly accessible for users looking to create and customize their portfolios without technical expertise.

Learn more about SmugMug’s learning resources

Learn more about Carbonmade’s learning resources

7.3

SmugMug is tailored for photographers and creatives who want to sell their work online. It offers a range of ecommerce features, including digital downloads, product pricing, and tax handling, making it a robust platform for monetizing visual content. Carbonmade, while excellent for showcasing creative portfolios, lacks any ecommerce capabilities, making it unsuitable for users looking to sell products directly from their website.


Ecommerce themes and templates	8.0	0.0
Product page customization	6.5	0.0
Payment processing and commissions	6.0	0.0
POS capabilities	0.0	0.0
Payment gateways	5.0	0.0
Product numbers	9.0	0.0
Additional ecommerce features	6.5	0.0

SmugMug ecommerce features:

Digital Downloads
Product Pricing
Tax handling
Discounts and Coupons
Multiple Currencies support

Carbonmade ecommerce features:

There are no ecommerce features provided by Carbonmade

Ecommerce themes & templates

SmugMug’s templates are designed with ecommerce in mind, providing built-in shopping cart functionality. This makes it easy for photographers to set up an online store and start selling their work. In contrast, Carbonmade does not offer any templates with ecommerce capabilities, focusing solely on portfolio presentation.

Product page customization

SmugMug prioritizes photography, offering a platform tailored for photographers to showcase and sell their work. While it has more limited product page customization compared to dedicated ecommerce platforms, it provides enough functionality to detail digital and printed photography products effectively. Carbonmade does not support product pages as it lacks ecommerce capabilities.

Payment processing

SmugMug has a unique approach to payment processing. Users must complete a Tax & Payment form to set up their payment preferences. Earnings are calculated as 85% of the markup on print prices or download sales, with SmugMug retaining 15%. Payments are made via ACH direct deposit for U.S. users or PayPal for international users. Carbonmade does not have payment processing capabilities, as it does not support ecommerce.

In summary, SmugMug is a strong choice for photographers and creatives looking to sell their work online, offering a range of ecommerce features and payment processing options. Carbonmade, while excellent for showcasing creative portfolios, does not provide any ecommerce functionalities, making it less suitable for users looking to monetize their work directly from their website.

7.3

7.6

🏆

Winner: Carbonmade

. Carbonmade, with a score of 7.6, offers a range of features designed for creatives to build personalized, professional online portfolios without requiring coding knowledge. Its editor provides responsive design across devices, 4K video support, unlimited image and video uploads, and premade blocks for customization. The platform also includes unique features such as private portfolios, a before/after block, gallery slideshows, and a talent pool to connect with other creatives and potential clients.

SmugMug’s editor, scoring 7.3, offers a user-friendly interface that allows for the creation of visually appealing, professional-grade photography websites without the need for coding knowledge. Users can customize their site by choosing from a variety of templates, adjusting layouts, and incorporating their own branding elements like logos and colors. The editor also supports easy uploading, organizing, and showcasing of high-quality images, with robust privacy and security settings to protect content. Additionally, SmugMug provides tools for selling prints and digital downloads directly from the website, making it a comprehensive platform for photographers looking to display and monetize their work online.

Smugmug website editor

Mobile editor/app

7.5

🏆

Winner: SmugMug

. When it comes to mobile editing capabilities, SmugMug offers a mobile app that allows users to add new photos and edit descriptions, although it does not support layout changes. This provides some level of on-the-go management for photographers who need to update their galleries quickly.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, does not offer a dedicated mobile editor app, which limits its usability for users who need to make updates or changes to their portfolios while away from their desktop.

In summary, SmugMug takes the lead in this category due to its mobile app, which, despite its limitations, offers more functionality for mobile editing compared to Carbonmade’s lack of a mobile editor.

7.4

7.2

Overall Result

:

SmugMug wins

. SmugMug scores 7.4, slightly higher than Carbonmade’s 7.2, due to its straightforward 14-day free trial that allows users to test premium features. Carbonmade also offers a trial period with access to all features, but it does not specify the duration, which might be a consideration for some users.


Free Plan	No	No
Trial Duration	14 days	Yes
Testing Premium Features	During the free trial	All the features within the trial period

7.8

7.9

Carbonmade offers more budget-friendly plans, while SmugMug provides more advanced features and support, especially for professional photographers and businesses.

	Offerings	Offerings
$0-$10	No offering at this amount.	BEGINNER ($9/month): 8 Projects, Unlimited images/videos, Basic Blocks, Limited Support, 3 Navigations, SD Video, Audio Uploads. Value for Price: 5.0
$10-$20	Power ($15.00/month): Best for the photographer who wants their entire photo catalog safe and shareable on their own terms. Unlimited storage, Seamless Lightroom integration. Value for Price: 6.5	PRO ($12/month): 50 Projects, More Portfolio Grids, Premium Blocks, Unbranded, Portfolio statistics, Custom Pages, Private Portfolio, Unlimited images/videos, 5 Navigations, HD Video & Audio, Priority Support. Value for Price: 7.0
$20-$40	Portfolio ($31.00/month): Best for the photographer who wants to start selling photos and keep their archive organized perfectly. All Power plan’s features, plus 21 premade templates, prints and digital downloads sales, Custom Watermarks, Payment integration for credit cards and PayPal, Integrated cart and checkout experience, Sales statistics. Value for Price: 8.0	UNLIMITED ($22/month): UNLIMITED projects/pages, Everything else, All features in PRO, Extra Karma. Value for Price: 8.5
$40-$50	Pro ($45.00/month): Adds to Portfolio with custom price lists and coupons, Platform access for assistant or second shooter, Full control over client downloads, Branded packaging and thank you notes for print sales, coupon creator. Value for Price: 8.5	No offering at this amount.
$500+	Venture (Starts with $500/month): All Pro features, plus dedicated support contacts and account representative for all Smugmug needs, Design, workflow, and organization consultation and support.	No offering at this amount.

In some cases companies have different prices based on various components like a
location. As a result in rare cases the prices displayed here can differ from the ones you see on their
websites.

5.0

6.1

🏆

Winner: Carbonmade

Carbonmade edges out SmugMug with its managed hosting and unlimited storage, despite lacking detailed uptime and data center information. SmugMug, while offering a 99.9% uptime guarantee, provides limited details on its hosting infrastructure, making it less transparent.


Do they offer hosting?	Yes	Yes, with unlimited storage
Type of hosting:	Not specified	Managed Hosting
Uptime Guarantee:	Yes, 99.9%	No

5.5

5.0

🏆 Winner: SmugMug

While both SmugMug and Carbonmade offer platforms tailored for creatives, SmugMug has a slight edge in website speed optimization due to its focus on mobile responsive design.


Focus	Mobile Responsive design	Not specified
Performance Tools	Not specified	Not specified
Key Strategies	Mobile Responsive design	Not specified
Load Times	Varies widely, depending on optimization	Varies depending on optimization
Page Speed Scores Range	Varies widely, depending on optimization	Varies depending on optimization
Core Web Vitals Improvement	Not specified	Not specified

SmugMug is a premium website builder designed for photographers and creatives, offering customizable templates optimized for high-quality images. It focuses on mobile responsive design to ensure that websites load efficiently on various devices. However, SmugMug does not provide detailed information on specific performance tools or Core Web Vitals improvements. Load times and PageSpeed scores for SmugMug websites can vary widely based on the level of optimization and website complexity.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, is a website builder for creatives looking to showcase their work without coding skills. It offers customizable layouts and pre-designed templates but does not specify any particular strategies or tools for speed optimization. Similar to SmugMug, Carbonmade’s load times and PageSpeed scores vary depending on the level of optimization. The platform does not provide information on Core Web Vitals improvements.

In conclusion, while both platforms have their strengths, SmugMug’s focus on mobile responsive design gives it a slight advantage in terms of website speed optimization.

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6.2

🏆 Winner: SmugMug.

SmugMug scores 6.2, offering several valuable integrations that enhance its functionality for photographers. These include integrations with Adobe Lightroom, Dropbox, Google Photos, Flickr, and Amazon Drive, which streamline the process of managing and showcasing photography portfolios. Carbonmade, on the other hand, does not support any plugins or integrations, resulting in a score of 0. This makes SmugMug the clear winner in this category, especially for users who rely on third-party services to manage their work.

3.8

1.0

🏆

Overall Winner: SmugMug

. SmugMug offers more comprehensive marketing features, particularly in SEO and social media integration, making it a better choice for photographers and creatives looking to enhance their online presence. Carbonmade, while user-friendly, lacks essential marketing tools.


SEO Tools	Yes, but very basic	No
Email Marketing	No	No
Blogging	No	No
Social Media Integration	Yes	Yes, possibility to add social network links
Analytics and Reporting	Yes, possibility to integrate Google Analytics	Yes, integration of Google Analytics
Ads and Promotions	No	No

7.9

5.8

🏆 Winner: SmugMug

. In the SmugMug vs Carbonmade comparison, SmugMug takes the lead with a customer support score of 7.9. SmugMug offers email and chat support available 364 days a year, ensuring users can get help when they need it. Additionally, SmugMug provides phone support for higher-tier business subscriptions and specialized support for enterprise-level customers, including dedicated account representatives and consultation services.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, has a customer support score of 5.8 and primarily offers support through a ticket-based system. While response times are generally quick, the lack of live support options means users may have to wait for assistance. Carbonmade does not offer specialized support for enterprise customers, which can be a limitation for larger businesses seeking more tailored services.

6.0

5.8

🏆

Winner: SmugMug

. SmugMug offers a more comprehensive approach to security, with a focus on protecting photographers’ work through features like watermarking and right-click protection. Additionally, SmugMug provides robust privacy settings and controls, allowing users to manage access to their content effectively. These measures contribute to a higher security score of 6.0.

Carbonmade, while prioritizing the security of personal information through various safeguards, does not emphasize specific website security measures. The platform’s primary focus is on simplifying the creation of portfolio websites, which may result in a lower security score of 5.8. Users looking for more detailed security features might find SmugMug to be a better option.


AI Builder	SmugMug does not have an AI website builder	Carbonmade does not have an AI website builder
AI Ecommerce Features	SmugMug does not have AI ecommerce features	Carbonmade does not have AI ecommerce features
AI Content Generation	SmugMug does not have AI content generation features	Carbonmade does not have AI content generation features
Additional AI Features	SmugMug does not have any AI capabilities	Carbonmade does not have any AI features

🏆 Winner: None

. Both SmugMug and Carbonmade do not offer any AI capabilities. They focus on providing robust tools and features for creatives to showcase their work without the integration of AI technologies.

7.2

2.8

🏆 Winner: SmugMug

. When it comes to managing users, SmugMug offers more flexibility and control compared to Carbonmade.

SmugMug allows the primary account holder to add additional users through “Shared Account Management” for Portfolio and Pro level accounts. These users can be assigned various roles with different permissions, enabling them to manage or edit the website without full access to billing or account settings.
Carbonmade, on the other hand, allows only one user to manage and edit a website, which can be limiting for teams or collaborative projects.

SmugMug User Roles and Access Levels:

Role	Description	Access Highlights
Owner	The primary account holder who has full control over the site.	Complete access to all features, settings, content management, and billing.
Admin	Users granted almost the same level of access as the owner, minus some critical billing or account settings.	Manage content, order prints, access to stats, and settings except for account and billing changes.
Contributor	Users who can upload and manage content in specific galleries.	Upload content to assigned galleries, edit captions, and keywords. Limited access to settings.

Additional Features


SSL Certificate
Custom Domain
Free Custom Domain Included
International Domains
Mobile Responsive
Page Speed
Website Builder Mobile App
Convert a Website To An App
Website Analytics
Multilingual Sites
Multiple Users

User Feedback

SmugMug

33 reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars

Carbonmade

27 reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars

Users appreciate SmugMug for its reliability, ease of use, and the platform’s ability to securely host and share high-resolution photographs and videos. Highlights include seamless mobile device syncing, excellent gallery features for showcasing assets, and robust customization options minus JavaScript support. However, some users desire improvements in facial recognition technology for automatic album creation, expanded asset management capabilities beyond primarily photos, and more advanced search functionalities. Concerns about rising costs and the platform’s intuitiveness were also mentioned. Overall, SmugMug is valued for its central storage solution, privacy features for client photos, and its ability to simplify file sharing and photo sales.

Users appreciate Carbonmade for its ease of use, modern design templates, and no-code platform, which simplifies creating professional portfolios. However, some express a desire for a freemium plan and note limitations in customization and mobile site loading times. The platform is highly recommended for creatives, particularly illustrators and graphic designers, for its variety of design options and efficient customer service. Despite concerns over pricing, the overall sentiment is positive, with users finding value in Carbonmade’s ability to showcase their work effectively and streamline portfolio management.

The making of this blog

We followed a clear, step-by-step process to write and research this article.

Our Ranking Criteria

FAQ

What are the main differences between SmugMug and Carbonmade?

SmugMug is specifically designed for photographers and visual artists, offering robust tools for displaying and selling high-quality images, including e-commerce capabilities and photo protection features. Carbonmade, while also catering to creatives, focuses more on simplicity and ease of use, providing customizable layouts without e-commerce features.

Can I sell my work on both SmugMug and Carbonmade?

You can sell your work directly from your website with SmugMug, which includes features for pricing, tax handling, and multiple currencies. Carbonmade does not offer e-commerce functionalities, so it is not suitable for selling work directly from the platform.

Which platform is better for non-photographic creatives?

Carbonmade is likely a better choice for non-photographic creatives such as illustrators, motion designers, and graphic designers due to its emphasis on customizable layouts and simplicity, making it easier to showcase a variety of creative work.

How do SmugMug and Carbonmade handle user support and learning resources?

SmugMug offers comprehensive support with email and chat, and it has a variety of learning resources available online. Carbonmade also provides a range of learning materials and primarily uses a ticket-based system for support, which is responsive but lacks live interaction options.

What are the pricing options for SmugMug and Carbonmade?

SmugMug offers several tiers ranging from basic to advanced features, suitable for different levels of professional use. Carbonmade offers more budget-friendly plans, making it accessible for creatives at the beginning of their career or those with simpler needs.