Plans

There are three plans. The prices on this page come straight from the shop, so they always match what you are charged.

Free — galleries, for good

Client galleries with favourites, notes and downloads, up to 2 galleries at a time and 2 GB of storage. Your galleries live at an address like your-name.meridianphotographers.com.

No card, no trial and no time limit. Sign up with your email address, press the link we send you, choose your address and make your first gallery.

What it does not include: a website, your own domain, bookings, invoices, contracts, the print shop or the rest of Studio. Anyone who visits your address sees a plain page saying galleries are sent by link.

Best for a photographer who wants to deliver beautiful galleries and nothing more, yet. See the free plan.

Sites — $16.50 AUD a month

Your website: pages built from blocks, every style kit, the portfolio, the journal, enquiry forms, help with being found on Google, and your own domain with the secure padlock (https) kept up to date for you.

Daily backups, and updates applied for you.

Best for a photographer who wants a serious website without any of the technical side.

Studio — $39 AUD a month

Everything in Sites (the website is included, not an extra) plus the business running on it: the diary and booking page, quotes, contracts signed online, invoices with payment plans, client galleries with proofing, print and digital sales, gift vouchers, automations, text reminders, expenses and reports, templates (shoot plans, client guides, emails and questionnaires, with a ready-made set to start from), and Posing: poses, prompts, shot lists and client mood boards.

200 GB of storage and no limit on galleries.

Best for a photographer who is tired of running their diary in a spreadsheet. See Studio for a tour.

Paying yearly

Sites is $165 AUD a year and Studio is $390 AUD a year, which is two months free compared with paying monthly. You choose monthly or yearly when you sign up or upgrade.

What we never charge for

• No commission. Not on prints, digital files, vouchers or bookings. Your clients pay into your own Stripe account; Stripe's card fee is the only cut anybody takes.
• No charge per photograph, per client, per gallery or per invoice.
• No charge to take your data with you. Your records download as spreadsheet files whenever you like. See getting your data out.

Moving between plans

Plan changes happen on the Your sites page of your Meridian account. To get there from your studio, press your name at the top right, choose Billing and press Change plan, update card or cancel. On Sites, sign in to your account on the Meridian site and open Your sites. Either way, sign in with the email address you signed up with.

From Free to Sites or Studio

1. On Your sites, find Upgrade this account. (It is also on the

Galleries screen of your free account.)

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

Your account is upgraded in place: your address, galleries, photographs, clients, sign-in and every link you have already sent stay exactly as they are. Nothing is copied or set up again.

If you choose Sites, your galleries are kept and your clients can still open them, but you cannot change them while you are on Sites, because Sites is a website plan. Studio opens them up again.

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

From Sites to Studio

On Your sites, press Switch to Studio under your site and pay on Stripe's secure page. Studio costs $39 AUD a month in total: it replaces your Sites plan rather than being added on top. There is no free trial when you switch: the full Studio price is charged straight away, and Studio is on as soon as the payment goes through. Your Sites plan is not renewed: it ends at the close of the period you have already paid for, and from then on Studio is the only thing you pay for.

Between paid plans

1. On Your sites, open Change plan.
2. Press the plan you want.

The change happens straight away, and Stripe adjusts your next bill for the part of the month already used, so you are not charged twice.

Moving from Studio down to Sites keeps everything: your galleries, invoices and contracts stay where they are, and your clients' gallery links keep working. Studio's screens become read-only until you move back.

Your card, your invoices, cancelling

On Your sites, press Billing & invoices to update your card, download our invoices to you, or cancel.

If you stop paying

If a payment fails, your site stays online for now and Your sites shows an Update payment method button; once the card works, the bill settles by itself. If a paid plan ends, your site is taken offline and shows a holding page. Nothing is deleted for not paying, and paying again brings the site straight back.

If you would like your site removed for good, raise a ticket. A deleted site is kept for 30 days in case you change your mind, then erased. Take your own copy first: see getting your data out and backups.

Storage

Every plan has a storage limit, and it is a limit rather than a bill. An upload that would take you over it is refused before anything is stored, with a plain note about what to do. You are never charged extra for going over.

Studio includes 200 GB, and the Galleries and Billing screens show how much you have used. Free and Sites are sized for what they are for (a couple of galleries, or a website's own photographs) and do not show a running figure. If one ever fills up, the upload that would go over tells you, and moving up to Studio gives you room.

Video takes up the most space; see video in a gallery.

Already use WordPress?

There is another option that is not a plan: buy the Meridian theme once and install it on the WordPress site you already have. Same blocks, same style kits, one payment. See installing the theme.