PhotoBiz

I recently switched to PhotoBiz for website services, and I am blown away by the customer service. I've had many interactions with many, many of their support team - the most with Nathan and Sarah - and everyone has been just so responsive and helpful... overall absolutely amazing. Even though I signed up to the DIY plan, they and their designers have been so awesome in terms of helping with html coding on things I wanted to do that I was either having trouble with or didn't know how to code on my own. In addition to "just" website design and hosting, the service includes a variety of other cool features. I am looking forward to seeing what new things they add and improve as time goes on. Thank you Sarah, Nathan, and the entire PhotoBiz family! (You can check out our new PhotoBiz website at http://www.ireneabdou.com. I'm sure you'll agree that it looks amazing :) )

Photobiz has really poor business practices. After being a customer and paying over $900 dollars in the past 5 years to use their template site I tried to cancel. I spent over a week searching their website for a way to cancel policies, changing browsers and downloading browser updates. I thought for certain I was missing something. No. They choose to not make it easy. After a week of this, I called their phone number. Apparently, you have to call during their hours of operation to cancel. Oh, and they won't refund the measly $17 dollars for this coming months payment. The $900 I paid to them wasn't enough, they wanted to get an extra month out of me too.

I want to share what an incredibly positive experience I have had with photobiz. I tried 2 other websites that were too difficult to figure out. When I found photobiz, I felt like I had hit the jackpot! The customer service at photobiz is beyond anything I have ever experienced with any other company. They are knowledgable, helpful and most of all patient as I have learned how to set up my website. I encourage anyone who is on the fence about what website service to use, look no further, and choose photobiz!

I'm really surprised that there aren't more reviews here. I really liked a photographer friend's website, and she pointed me to photobiz.com. I'm not tech savvy, and was completely overwhelmed when I signed up. But their customer service people are AMAZING. They walked me through each and every issue I could think of, and where they could, they made changes to my site for me. Ultimately, I ended up with a site I'm proud of. The templates are great, but to me, what will make me refer everyone I know here (and what prompted me to write this review) is the excellent customer service.

I used photobiz to create my latest website for my Wedding Photography company. The template was easy enough to use, and if you are a novice website creator with NOT VERY MUCH CONTENT to publish on your site, then Photobiz will be acceptable for your use, and an easy way to create a website.

However, if you are planning on putting more than a paragraph's worth of written content on your pages, and being able to customize your information pages with photos, videos, links, etc., then I would look elsewhere, as that is when photobiz becomes extremely frustrating. All of your information pages are contained inside a small box that is probably 500 pixels in height, with unlimited width that expands with the browser screen, making a nice-looking page layout impossible... They will tell you that you can contain your text to a desired width using a table, but this will end up cutting off the words on the right edge of the published site.

The scroll bar within the containing box is hard for users to find, and none of the photobiz templates have the ability to accommodate a full page website layout (one where the written content extends for the entire height of the page, like a normal website, not contained in a little box that you have to scroll within).

Photobiz is great for photo slideshows, but not much else. Also, it gets pretty glitchy, especially if you add any videos or too many photos (I only have 150 small file photos and 2 embedded videos on my whole site - keep in mind this is a PHOTOGRAPHY website, and Photobiz is supposedly for photography professionals.) My web pages are jumpy and don't always scroll properly. And sometimes the scrollbar doesn't appear at all. I have contacted customer service several times about this, but they can't seem to fix it, as it only happens sometimes.

On the plus side, you CAN use HTML coding to modify your information pages to a fair extent, and the customer service people are usually VERY helpful, very available, they respond quickly, and they will happily spend a lot of time on the phone with you answering every question you can throw at them, which is impressive for such a small company.