Four ceilings, and which one you are likely to hit
A collection can run out in four different ways, and each one stops the guest page with a different sentence. Knowing which ceiling a real event approaches is the whole skill of choosing a package.
There is no per-guest charge anywhere in this product, so a package is not a limit on people. It is four separate limits on the collection itself, and they run out at different times depending on what kind of room you have.
The four ceilings
- File count
- Photographs and clips are counted separately, with a combined backstop behind them: twenty uploads, two hundred and thirty, eight hundred and fifty, or twenty-three hundred. The separate counters are why a video-heavy evening does not eat your photograph allowance.
- Contributors
- The free package takes photographs from ten different guests. Every paid package takes them from as many people as turn up, which is the single most important difference for a seated event.
- Storage
- 500 MB, 5 GB, 20 GB or 50 GB across the whole collection. Video is what spends it: six hundred photographs from modern phones fit comfortably in 5 GB, while a room that sends four-minute films does not.
- Size of one file
- Up to 15 MB for a photograph and 100 MB for a clip, the same across every package. This is the ceiling a guest with a two-minute 4K film will meet first, and it is set by the product rather than by the host's choice or anything on the guest's phone.
What a guest sees when one runs out
The page says so in one line, where the button would otherwise have been: this collection has filled up, so new uploads are closed. It is not a spinner and not a silent failure, and the same address starts taking files again the moment the host raises the allowance.
The host hears about it before the guest does. A mail with your collection's name in the subject line tells you how much room is left, and the one after it says the allowance has gone — "your collection has used all its 5 GB of storage" — with a link that adds more in one step. A collection that runs out mid-evening is a fixable problem only because the host is told while the room is still there.
How many files does a real event produce
Fewer than you would guess from the guest list, and more than the guest list tells you. Not everybody photographs; some guests delete as they go; a handful of people account for a disproportionate share of what arrives. The useful shape of the estimate is contributors rather than headcount, and six to ten files per contributor.
A hundred guests, ordinary evening
- Thirty to forty people send anything at all
- Roughly two hundred and fifty photographs
- A dozen clips, mostly one long one from the speeches
- Comfortably inside the 200-photo package with an extra allowance bought, and easy in the 750 one
A hundred guests, phones out
- Sixty contributors, and half of them found the code early
- Six hundred to seven hundred photographs, because the room watched the wall fill
- Ninety clips, with a fourth of them over the per-file size
- The larger package, and a conversation about storage rather than about counts
The variable is not the guest list. It is whether the room knows the collection exists, which is what a card on every table and a screen on the wall are for — and why running out is usually a consequence of the evening going well.
Reading your own used bar
The dashboard shows all four ceilings as they are used, in the same place, so you can see which one is approaching rather than guessing. On a photograph-only event the file count is normally the binding one; on anything with clips, storage. The per-file line never moves at all — 15 MB for a photograph and 100 MB for a clip on every package, so it is nothing you can run out of or buy more of — and the contributor count only matters on the free package.
- A hundred more photographs — $5. Two hundred and fifty more — $10.
- Fifty more clips — $9. A hundred more — $15.
- More storage is not sold separately: the larger allowance comes from the room the clips need, which is why buying extra clips moves the storage with it.
- Every extra is attached to one collection, not to your account, and applies from the moment the payment is confirmed.
A full collection is not a closed one
Raising an allowance reopens the same address. Nothing printed needs replacing, nobody re-registers, and the files already inside are untouched. What you cannot do is shrink a package once the files are in it.
Which package to pickCeiling questions
Do the counters include the host's own uploads?
Yes. Files you add yourself are in the same collection and against the same allowance, which is worth remembering if you plan to put the photographs you took in there too.
Does a photograph I delete free up room?
Yes. Deleting a submission gives the allowance back, which is the difference between deleting and hiding — a hidden file stays counted.
Is there a limit on how many files one guest can send?
No per-guest limit on a paid package. The ceilings are on the collection, so one enthusiastic contributor and twenty modest ones cost the same thing.
What happens to a file that is too big?
It is refused at the moment of choosing, with the reason stated in the queue, rather than uploading for a minute and then failing. Re-sending a smaller export is usually faster than explaining the ceiling to a guest.
Can I see how close I am during the event?
That is what the used bars are for, and they are on the phone as much as on a laptop. A host who checks once between courses can buy an extra allowance before the room notices anything.
Every ceiling, in one table
The four packages with their counts, storage, retention and downloads side by side, read from the same numbers that govern your collection.
Packages
One price for the collection, chosen before the invitations go out
Every package carries the guest link, the printable stands and the private gallery. Guests never pay and never register.
Something this page does not answer? Write to support@candidphotos.myjoyfullday.com.