Choose a package on the event you have, not the one you fear
One price, paid once, for one collection. Four packages differ on exactly four things — how much arrives, whether video counts, how long it stays online, and what you can take off the site. Here is how to pick between them in a minute.
A collection is priced per event, not per guest. Nobody at your tables is charged, counted or asked for a card, so the whole decision reduces to one question: how much do you want to be able to collect, and for how long do you want to be able to see it?
That question is easier than it looks, because the answers are visible before you pay. The four packages cost nothing, $19, $39 and $69, and they differ on four axes only — the number of files, whether video is included, the retention period, and the quality of what you download. Everything else on the guest page is the same on all of them.
The four differences, stated plainly
- Files
- Twenty photographs on the free package, 200 photographs and 30 clips on the $19 one, 750 and 100 on the $39 one, 2,000 and 300 on the $69 one. Photographs and video have separate counters, so a video-heavy evening does not eat your photograph allowance.
- Contributors
- The free package counts ten separate guests. Every paid package counts files, not people, which means a room of eighty guests sending is normal and a room of eighty guests sending on the free package is a wall.
- How long it stays
- Seven days, six months, twelve months, two years. The clock starts when the collection opens, not when you pay, and the closing date is printed on your dashboard from the first day.
- What you can take off the site
- The free package is for looking. The $19 one gives you the whole collection and individual files at the size the gallery serves. The two above it give you the original bytes the guest's camera made, which is the difference between an archive and a screenshot.
Storage sits behind those numbers as a second ceiling: 500 MB, 5 GB, 20 GB and 50 GB. In practice the file count is what runs out first on a photograph-only evening, and the storage is what runs out first on a room full of people sending four-minute films. Both are shown as a used bar on your dashboard, so you can see which one you are approaching.
Pick it from the guest list, not from the nervous feeling
Most hosts over-provision, because the cost of guessing high is twenty dollars and the cost of guessing low is a collection that stops filling in the middle of the best hour. The arithmetic below is worth doing once, on paper, before the invitations go out.
Counting the wrong thing
- Planning around the guest list, which is a number of chairs, not a number of cameras
- Assuming the free package is enough because the last gathering was small
- Choosing the most expensive option because it is the one you have heard of
- Finding the ceiling on the night itself, from a guest looking at a rejection message
Counting what arrives
- Starting from how many guests tend to photograph things, then multiplying by the six to ten files each one sends
- Deciding whether video matters before deciding which package, because the free one takes none
- Reading the closing date as part of the price — six months of a birthday is not the same purchase as two years of a wedding
- Buying one extra allowance before the event rather than discovering it on the dance floor
A rough rule that has held up: of the guests at a seated event, some send nothing, a few send everything, and most send between three and eight files. Size the collection for the room's cameras rather than its headcount.
What each package is for
Nothing, for one evening you want to test
Twenty photographs from ten contributors, seven days online, no video and no downloads. Genuinely useful for a dinner where you want to see whether people will bother to send anything at all. It is a demonstration of the flow with a real event in it, and it is not a small wedding package.
$19, for the ordinary celebration
Two hundred photographs, thirty clips, six months, a written guestbook and full downloads. This is the one birthdays, graduations, baby showers, anniversaries and reunions land on. It is also the package where the room screen and the video guestbook are paid extras rather than included.
$39, for the day that gets framed
Seven hundred and fifty photographs, a hundred clips, a year online, the written and video guestbook and the slideshow included. This is the package the weddings choose, and it is usually the right call for anything where the photographs will still be looked at in a decade.
$69, for the archive
Two thousand photographs, three hundred clips, two years and the most room. Built for events that run long, or for a house that wants one collection to cover a weekend of gatherings rather than a single evening.
Extras, and what they are worth
Five one-off extras exist, each attached to one collection rather than to your account. More photographs, more clips, a longer time online, the video guestbook and the room screen. The two that most people reach for are the extra photographs and the extra time, and they are cheap for a reason: a collection that fills up or closes early is the one failure a host causes entirely by themselves.
- A hundred more photographs — $5. Two hundred and fifty more — $10.
- Fifty more clips — $9. A hundred more — $15.
- Six more months online — $9. Twelve — $15. The extra time starts when the included period ends, not on the day you buy it.
- The video guestbook on a $19 collection — $9. Included above it.
- The room screen on a $19 collection — $9. Included above it.
Changing your mind after the invitations went out
Upgrading mid-event is a normal thing to do and nothing breaks. The collection keeps its address, the printed stands keep working, the files already uploaded stay exactly where they are, and the new ceilings apply from the moment the payment is confirmed. The closing date moves with the new package, which is the one side effect worth reading before you pay.
There is no way down. A collection that has taken eight hundred photographs cannot become a two-hundred-photograph collection, because the files are already there. Choose the package that suits the event you are actually hosting; the extras exist so that an honest mistake costs five dollars and not the evening.
Payment is a bank transfer, not a card
You reserve the package, receive an invoice reference, and pay it by transfer or send proof by return. The collection opens when the payment is confirmed, so on a tight schedule the reservation should happen with a day or two in hand rather than on the morning of the event.
How paying by transfer worksThe questions that decide it
Is there a per-guest charge, or a charge for guests who send a lot?
No. One price for the collection, paid once by the host. Guests are never asked for anything, and a single enthusiastic contributor is not a line item — the ceilings are on the collection, not on the people.
What happens when the collection reaches its limit during the event?
Uploads stop accepting new files and the guest is told the collection is full, in plain words, rather than watching a spinner. The host sees the same thing on the dashboard and can buy an extra allowance, at which point the page opens again with no changes for anyone who already sent.
Can I pay for two events at once?
Each collection carries its own package and its own invoice, so two events are two payments. That is deliberate: a package is priced for one evening's worth of cameras, and a bundle would force you to guess next year's guest list today.
Which package is the one for a wedding?
The $39 one, for almost every wedding. Seven hundred and fifty photographs and a hundred clips covers a full guest list, a year online gets you through the prints and the thank-you notes, and the original-quality download is what you want if the files are going into an album.
Do I lose the files if I never upgrade from the free package?
You keep the seven days you were told about, and you can download nothing on that package, so a free collection is worth treating as a rehearsal rather than a record. If a free collection turns out to matter, upgrade it while it is still open.
The full matrix, in one screen
Every ceiling on every package side by side, with the extras underneath, read straight from the same numbers that govern your collection.
How it works
From the invitation to the morning after
Nothing here needs an app, an account or a card. Guests give a name once and send their files.
Something this page does not answer? Write to support@candidphotos.myjoyfullday.com.