Choosing the right WordPress them can make or break your website.
Trust me, we’ve been there! We’ve tried countless themes for our own WPBeginner blog over the years. We eventually landed on a custom design, but that whole experience gave us a really good sense of what website owners need in a theme.
We’ve also worked closely with a ton of photographers and have a long history of recommending world-class plugins and themes to people who run photography portfolios.
In this Photocrati review, we’re putting all this experience to good use. We’ll be looking closely at the popular Photocrati WordPress photography theme to see if it truly delivers.
Does it have the features, layouts, and design that photographers need to showcase their work in a way that grabs attention? Let’s find out, in this Photocrati review.
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Photocrati Review: Why Use It in WordPress?
Alright, let’s get started with this Photocrati review!
First things first: Photocrati is a premium WordPress theme for photographers. One of the things I love about Photocrati is how easy it is to get your photography website up and running. They’ve got tons of built-in demo themes and a 1-click demo installer.
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Just pick a design you like, and you’re off! And no matter which design you choose, you have a ton of customization options.
Inside the WordPress Customizer, you can change the fonts, colors, layout, sidebars, spacing, and more.
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And once you’ve got your design looking just right, you can even export your settings and share them with other users or websites. Super convenient!
But here’s the real kicker: Photocrati comes bundled with the free NextGEN Gallery plugin and NextGEN Gallery Pro.
These two popular WordPress gallery plugins allow you to display your photos in beautiful layouts and lightbox popups that work seamlessly with the Photocrati theme.
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Photocrati Review: The Right Photography Theme for You?
When it comes to showcasing your photography online, your WordPress theme is everything. It’s the first impression visitors get of your work, so you’ll want to make it count. A great photography theme will present your photos in the best possible light, making people want to see more.
With that in mind, in this Photocrati review we’ll see if it’s the right photography theme for your WordPress website. Does it have what it takes to make your photos shine? Let’s dive in and see!
1. Over 520 Designs
Photocrati comes with over 65 built-in designs, which have up to 8 home page styles each. Do the math, and that’s over 520 starting designs to choose from!
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You can preview any of these designs, or import them into your photography blog or portfolio website with just a few clicks.
2. Endless Customization Options
So, you’ve picked a design in Photocrati, but maybe you want to tweak it a bit, make it your own? No problem! You can fine-tune every part of your Photocrati theme in the WordPress Customizer.
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Simply open the Customizer as normal and you’ll get access to hundreds of options. You can customize every part of your WordPress theme – fonts, colors, sizes, spacing… you name it.
You can also create custom navigation menus for your photography website.
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In this way, you can tweak every part of the design to look and act exactly as you want, including using your own color scheme and branding.
3. Share and Save Custom Designs
So, you’ve spent all this time customizing your Photocrati theme and getting it to look just right. Now what? Well, you can actually export your settings with a few clicks.
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This creates a .dat file that you can import into any other WordPress blog or business website.
Simply install Photocrati on the new destination site and select ‘Import.’
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As I already mentioned in this Photocrati review, this is perfect for sharing your designs with other websites. For example, you might run a WordPress development agency and want to use the same settings across all your client sites. Rather than manually applying these settings to each new website, you can simply export your design and use it as a site template.
This import/export tool is also a lifesaver if you have a whole portfolio of websites and want to keep a consistent look across all your blogs, sites, or online stores. And here’s a cool idea: you can even sell your exported designs to other Photocrati users and make money online.
4. Search Engine Optimized
We all know how important site speed is, right? Google loves a fast website, and it’s a major factor in their rankings. However, showing lots of large, high-resolution images can slow your site and hurt your SEO. With that in mind, you’ll want to do everything you can to boost your WordPress website’s speed and performance.
That’s why I’m happy to report that Photocrati is optimized for performance. It boasts some seriously fast page load times. This means you can show all your photographs and images, without slowing your site. In this way, Photocrati can boost your image SEO and your overall WordPress SEO.
5. Optimized for Mobile
Mobile traffic is HUGE these days. Our internet usage statistics show that it makes up almost 55% of all web traffic! That’s over half of your potential audience, so you have to make sure your photos look amazing and load quickly on smartphones and tablets.
So, no Photocrati review would be complete without confirming that it’s fully optimized for mobile devices. This means your site will look great, no matter whether the visitor is using a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.
To see this in action, you can view the mobile version of your site from desktop, at any point.
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6. Build Beautiful Galleries with NextGEN
The Photocrati theme comes bundled with the free NextGEN Gallery plugin. This is a popular WordPress gallery and portfolio plugin, perfect for photographers!
The first time you import a Photocrati theme demo, you’ll be able to install NextGEN Gallery with just a few clicks.
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After installing and activating the plugin, you can create as many galleries as you want.
This means you can display your photos in beautiful layouts and slideshows.
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With NextGEN, you can customize the built-in gallery styles using straightforward settings.
This means you’ll have no problems creating a style that perfectly fits your Photocrati WordPress theme.
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Adding galleries to your site is super easy, too. You can add them to any page, post, or widget-ready area using the NextGEN block.
And if you want to let visitors see larger versions of your images, NextGEN has a built-in lightbox popup. This is especially helpful if you’re selling digital art or graphics or showcasing highly detailed work.
Finally, if you have lots of galleries, then it might help to organize them into albums. This can help visitors find the content they’re looking for, even if you have a massive collection of photos.
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7. Sell Photos Online with NextGEN Gallery Pro
Want to turn your passion for photography into a profitable online business?
Photocrati also comes bundled with NextGEN Gallery Pro, which builds on the free plugin and offers a ton of additional features.
This includes the option to sell your images as digital downloads or physical products. And here’s the best part: it integrates with Printlabs, so your print orders are automatically fulfilled and shipped to your customers through White House Custom Colour (WHCC)
Using NextGEN Gallery Pro, you can quickly and easily create a price list based on WHCC’s print catalog. Then, simply add your own retail price and markup, and link that price list to your image gallery.
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With that done, customers can order your products and NextGEN will automatically send the resulting order to WHCC. The company will then print the order on demand and ship it to the customer in a white-labeled package.
You don’t have to deal with inventory, shipping, or any of that hassle. It’s like having your own automated print-on-demand service.
If you take photos for clients, then NextGEN Gallery Pro can also add photo proofing to your WordPress website.
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This allows customers to ‘favorite’ images as they’re looking through your galleries.
When they’re finished, they can submit their selections. It’s super convenient!
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Of course, if you’re selling digital downloads and images online, then you’ll want to protect your original work from content thieves.
NextGEN Gallery can automatically add a watermark to all your images. You can also disable right-click in your NextGEN galleries so people can’t easily download your images.
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Want to learn more about this amazing plugin? Then check out our NextGEN Gallery review.
8. Professional and Community Support
As we’ve seen in this Photocrati review, the plugin comes with dozens of professionally-designed layouts that you can add to your site with just a few clicks. You can also fine-tune these designs inside the familiar WordPress theme customizer.
But sometimes we all need a little extra help, right?
If you prefer to research yourself, then Photocrati has detailed online documentation and a comprehensive help portal. I used these resources a LOT when writing this Photocrati review, and they always seemed to have the answers I needed.
There’s also the Photocrati blog where you’ll find step-by-step guides covering everything from how to use the theme, right through to general advice on how to choose the best WordPress photography plugins. It’s another great resource.
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All the Photocrati pricing plans also come with professional support so you can get help directly from the experts. Just reach out, and they’ll be happy to assist you.
Photocrati Review: Pricing and Plans
So, let’s talk about Photocrati’s pricing plans. The good news is that no matter which plan you choose, you get access to all of Photocrati’s features, designs, and those two awesome NextGEN Gallery plugins. This is everything you need to build a beautiful photography website, create an unlimited number of galleries, and sell your images online.
The best plan for you, depends on the number of websites where you want to use Photocrati.
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Here’s a quick breakdown of their 3 plans:
- Plus. For $99.50 per year, you can use Photocrati on a single website. This is ideal for photographers who need to create an online portfolio, or freelancers who want to build a stock photography site, online store, or any other platform where you plan to sell your work online.
- Pro. Want to use Photocrati on multiple websites? Priced at $139.50, Pro allows you to install Photocrati on up to 3 websites. This makes it a great choice if you own several WordPress blogs, websites, or ecommerce platforms. For example, you might run a photography blog where you share best practices with your target audience, and a separate digital product marketplace where readers can buy your photos.
- Lifetime. This is the big one. For $349.50, the Lifetime plan lets you use Photocrati on up to 25 websites, forever. This makes Lifetime the perfect option for WordPress developers, agencies, marketers, and anyone else who manages client websites. Just grab a Lifetime license, and you can use Photocrati and its bundled NextGEN Gallery plugins on all your client projects. It’s a fantastic value.
Photocrati Review: Is it Worth It?
After taking this deep dive into Photocrati, I can confidently say it’s a fantastic theme for any WordPress photography website. It’s packed with features, it’s easy to use, and it’s built for performance.
It comes with 520 starting designs and unlimited customization options, so you can create a photography theme that perfectly suits your client or personal branding.
And with NextGEN Gallery Pro bundled in, selling your photos online is a breeze. You can even use automated print fulfillment to make things super easy.
If you want to use Photocrati on a single website, then Plus has everything you need. Meanwhile, you can use Photocrati Pro on up to 3 WordPress websites.
Finally, if you’re a WordPress developer or agency, then Lifetime allows you to use Photocrati on up to 25 websites, forever.
I hope this Photocrati review helped you decide whether it’s the right photography theme for you. Next, you may want to see our guide on how to choose the best web design software, or see our expert pick of the best drag and drop page builders compared.
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