The free plan

Free is for delivering a shoot and nothing more, yet.

It is not a trial. There is no card, no countdown, and nothing switches off on day thirty. If galleries are all you need, stay on it.

What you get

• Client galleries: the full ones, not a cut-down version. Covers, colours, lettering, grids, sections, favourites, notes, download sizes and limits, a download PIN, and asking who is downloading.
• Up to 2 galleries at a time, and 2 GB of storage.
• Your clients: a list of who each gallery is for.
• An address like your-name.meridianphotographers.com.
• No commission on anything, the same as every paid plan.

What you do not get

• A website. Anyone who visits your address sees a plain page saying galleries are sent by link.
• Your own domain. Galleries are sent as links, so this matters less than it sounds, but it is the main reason people move up.
• The rest of Studio: bookings, quotes, invoices, contracts, the print shop, digital sales, vouchers, automations, templates, reports and Posing. Posing is in your menu, but it opens a page saying what it does rather than the library.

Signing up

1. On the pricing page, enter your email address under the free plan and press

Start free.

1. Open the email we send you, press the link, then press Sign in.
2. Choose your address and make your first gallery.

The limits are walls, not bills

2 galleries. The Galleries screen shows how many you have used, out of your limit. When you are full, the New gallery button is switched off and creating another is refused, with the reason. Delete a gallery you have finished with and the room comes straight back. Nothing you already have is ever removed to enforce the limit.

Storage. An upload that would take you over 2 GB is refused before any of it is stored, and you are told what to do about it.

That is deliberate. The alternative (letting it through and charging you, or letting it through and deleting something later) is how people end up with a bill they did not expect or a gallery with missing photographs.

Video takes the most space. One long wedding film can fill it on its own. See video in a gallery.

Making room

Delete a gallery you no longer need. Its photographs and the space they take go with it, and it frees one of your 2 galleries as well.

Moving up

1. Open Upgrade this account. It is on your Galleries screen, and on the

Your sites page of your Meridian account.

1. Choose Studio (or Sites), monthly or yearly.
2. Pay on Stripe's secure page. You come straight back when it is done.

Your galleries, photographs, address, clients and **every link you have already sent** stay exactly as they are. Nothing is re-uploaded and no client has to be told anything. Once you have upgraded you can add your own domain.

You can also move up to Sites if you only want a website. Your galleries are kept and your clients can still open them, but you cannot change them while you are on Sites; Studio opens them up again. See plans for prices.

If an upgrade payment ever fails or is refunded, the account goes back to Free. Nothing is deleted.

Your records

Nothing on the free plan expires, so there is nothing to stop. If a client asks what you hold about them, open them under Clients and press **Download everything about them**.

To take a copy of everything in your account, open Your account from the menu and, under Your data, press Download all my records. You get your clients, galleries and their photo lists and the rest as spreadsheet files. See getting your data out.

Nothing on the free plan needs cancelling, because there is no payment to stop. If you want the account closed and removed, raise a ticket.