As a photographer leading a growing studio of 20-50 team members, juggling client bookings, managing inquiries from multiple channels, and keeping track of project deadlines across your expanding team can quickly become overwhelming. A dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help your photography business stay organized by streamlining client communication, automating follow-ups, tracking leads, and managing your project workflow—all in one centralized platform.

With the right CRM, your team can focus more on creative work while ensuring every client interaction is seamless and professionally managed. In this blog post, we'll explore the best CRM options for photography businesses like yours, highlighting tools that will help you manage your operations more efficiently and scale your client base with a team of 20-50 professionals.

👉🏼 Try folk now to organize your reminders in one place for your 20-50 person studio

Why you need a CRM

As a founder of a mid-sized photography business with 20-50 team members, managing internal workflows and client relationships efficiently across multiple photographers, editors, and administrative staff is crucial. A CRM can help you streamline operations, improve client relationships, and boost overall team performance while maintaining consistency across all client touchpoints.

Challenges without a CRM

If you don't have the right CRM in place for your growing photography business – there's a big chance that you're already experiencing the following challenges without knowing it.

• Disorganization: Without a CRM, tracking client interactions, project statuses, and photographer schedules across 20-50 team members can become chaotic and lead to missed opportunities.
• Missed opportunities: Important leads and follow-ups can slip through the cracks when managing multiple team members, leading to significant lost revenue for your growing business.
• Inefficient processes: Manual handling of client data and project details across multiple photographers and editors is time-consuming, prone to errors, and doesn't scale effectively.
• Lack of insight: Without a centralized system, gaining actionable insights from data across your 20-50 person team is challenging and limits strategic growth decisions.
• Inconsistent communication: Managing communications across multiple channels and team members without a CRM can lead to inconsistencies, client confusion, and damaged professional reputation.

Benefits of a CRM

And, if you just so happen to be on the fence about investing in another tech platform to add to your existing tech stack as a growing photography business with 20-50 team members – the following benefits might just entice you. Because having the right CRM can make a huge difference to your workflow and team coordination.

• Centralized information: All client and project data is stored in one place, making it easily accessible to all 20-50 team members and ensuring consistent service delivery.
• Enhanced efficiency: Automating routine tasks across your team frees up valuable time for more strategic activities and creative work.
• Improved customer relationships: A CRM helps track client interactions across all team members, ensuring personalized and timely communication regardless of who handles the account.
• Better decision-making: Access to real-time data and analytics across your entire operation enables informed business decisions for sustainable growth.
• Increased sales: By managing leads and follow-ups effectively across multiple team members, a CRM can help close more deals and maximize revenue potential.
• Consistent communication: Streamlined communication channels ensure clear and consistent messaging with clients across all photographers and staff members.
  

How to boost your photography efficiency with a CRM

Thinking of using a CRM for your 20-50 person photography business for the first time? Below we go into a bit more detail about how having the right CRM can make a big impact on your internal workflow coordination, team management, and client relationships.

1. Mapping your process

A CRM can help bring together a typical journey your clients go through and help you map out each stage they're at across all team members handling different aspects of the project.

• Client onboarding: Use your CRM to create a streamlined onboarding process across all team members, ensuring all client information is captured accurately and consistently.
• Project milestones: Define key milestones such as initial consultation, photoshoot dates, editing phases, and final delivery, with clear team member assignments and accountability.
• Task management: Assign tasks to specific photographers, editors, and administrative staff with deadlines to keep projects on track across your 20-50 person team.
• Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks like sending reminders, follow-up emails, and invoice generation to maintain consistency across all team operations.

2. Lead qualification

You can also use a CRM to assess and qualify leads systematically across your sales team and ensure no opportunities are missed in your growing business.

• Lead scoring: Use your CRM to assign scores based on criteria such as client budget, project type, and engagement level, helping your team prioritize high-value opportunities.
• Segmentation: Categorize leads into segments like new inquiries, hot leads, and cold leads for targeted communication strategies across your team.
• Custom fields: Create custom fields to capture specific information relevant to your photography business, like preferred shooting styles, event dates, and team member preferences.

3. Outreach and follow-up

If your growing team is constantly frustrated by repetitive tasks such as manually following up with people across multiple projects and photographers, a CRM can also help with that.

• Email campaigns: Set up automated email sequences to nurture leads, send booking confirmations, and follow-up after events, ensuring consistency across all team communications.
• LinkedIn outreach: Use LinkedIn integration to connect with potential clients, share portfolio updates from multiple photographers, and engage with industry professionals systematically.
• Personalization: Customize emails and messages to address specific client needs and preferences, making your team's outreach more effective and professional.

4. Nurture existing leads and customers

You can also use a CRM to stay on top of your existing business relationships across all team members and pinpoint exactly where you can cross-sell, or upsell with your expanded service offerings.

• Upselling: Offer premium packages, additional services like photo albums or prints, and exclusive deals to existing clients through coordinated team efforts.
• Cross-selling: Suggest related services such as engagement shoots, family portraits, or corporate headshots to current clients, leveraging your team's diverse expertise.
• Client retention: Use your CRM to schedule regular check-ins across team members, send personalized holiday greetings, and offer loyalty discounts to maintain long-term relationships.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM platform

1. Define your requirements
2. Set your budget
3. Shortlist and evaluate vendors
4. Get a demo and trial with your team

If you're unsure what you should be considering as part of your decision making process for your 20-50 person photography business, we've got a few tips for you.

1. Define your requirements

As a photography business owner managing 20-50 team members, it's crucial to identify the key features you need in a CRM that can scale with your operation. Look for functionalities such as multi-user client management, team-based appointment scheduling, collaborative invoicing, and comprehensive project tracking. Additionally, consider features like automated follow-ups, contract management, team permissions, and integration with other tools your growing business uses, such as photo editing software, project management platforms, or social media scheduling tools. These features will streamline your workflow and help you manage client relationships more effectively across your entire team. Start with looking out for the following key features.

Key features of a CRM for photographers

• Automation Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows across all team members, allowing your 20-50 photographers and staff to focus more on their creative work rather than administrative duties.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds leads and customers' email addresses and contact information, enhancing efficiency across your team and ensuring no potential client falls through the cracks in your growing operation.
• Structured pipeline: Tracks leads and customers through defined stages with team member assignments, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness crucial for managing multiple projects and clients simultaneously across your workforce.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences, helping your entire photography team maintain consistent and professional client interactions.
• Social media integration: Seamlessly imports leads and customers from LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and more to bring all your contact information together within the CRM, providing a comprehensive view of all client interactions and potential opportunities across all team channels.
• Reporting and forecasting: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better planning across your 20-50 person team, enabling informed decisions about business growth, resource allocation, and client management strategies.

2. Budget considerations

When evaluating CRM options for your 20-50 person photography team, balance the cost against the return on investment at scale. While some solutions may seem expensive initially when multiplied across your team, they can save significant time and help you manage more clients efficiently, ultimately boosting your revenue substantially. Look for CRM platforms that offer scalable pricing plans with team discounts, allowing you to start with essential features and upgrade as your business grows. Free trials or freemium models can also provide a cost-effective way to test the software across multiple team members before committing financially.

3. Selection process

Begin by researching CRM vendors that specialize in serving mid-sized photography businesses and creative teams. Read reviews, ask for recommendations from industry peers managing similar-sized operations, and explore case studies to understand how each platform performs in real-world scenarios with teams of 20-50 people. Create a shortlist of vendors that meet your requirements and offer the best value for your budget and team size. Engage with their sales teams to ask specific questions about their multi-user features, team collaboration tools, customer support, and any potential volume discounts.

3. Get a demo

Once you have a shortlist, take advantage of free trials or demo versions to test each CRM platform with multiple team members. Pay attention to the user interface, ease of use across different skill levels, team collaboration features, and how well the features align with your business needs at scale. Compare the performance of each platform and gather feedback from photographers, editors, and administrative staff if you have them. Finally, make an informed decision based on your hands-on experience, ensuring the chosen CRM will support your business growth and improve your client management processes across all 20-50 team members. Start by getting a demo of folk to see how it aligns with your mid-sized team requirements

3 tips for implementing a CRM

Once your shiny new CRM system is in place for your 20-50 person photography team – you'll want to make sure you get familiar with it as you introduce it to your workflow for the first time. Make sure you fully explore it and tailor it at the implementation stage so future you and your entire team will thank you.

1. Import your data in your new CRM

Transitioning to a new CRM can be seamless for your entire team if you start by importing your existing data systematically. Export your data as a CSV file from your current CRM or spreadsheet systems. This step ensures that all your client information, project details, team assignments, and communications are transferred accurately and remain accessible to all 20-50 team members.

2. Create your first pipeline

Setting up your first pipeline is essential to streamline your workflow across all team members. For photography businesses with 20-50 staff, this could mean creating stages such as 'Lead Inquiry,' 'Initial Consultation,' 'Proposal Sent,' 'Contract Signed,' 'Team Assignment,' 'Shoot Scheduled,' 'Post-Production,' and 'Project Completed.' Tailoring the pipeline to reflect your photography business processes with clear team responsibilities will help you track each client's journey effectively across multiple photographers and editors.

3. Explore integrations

To fully customize your new CRM for your growing team, explore the integrations it supports and connect the ones that align with your existing tech stack used by your 20-50 team members.

The 5 best CRMs for photographers

1. folk

folk is a modern CRM platform designed specifically for managing contacts, workflows, and relationships in growing creative businesses. With customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and seamless integrations, folk CRM is perfectly suited for photography teams of 20-50 people looking to enhance deal management, streamline prospecting, and maintain consistent client relationships across their entire operation.

‍

Key features

• Contact management, contact sync and contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach across your 20-50 person team without manual data entry or additional costs for email services. Bring real-time information of all your contacts from multiple channels in one centralized location accessible to all team members.
• Social media integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn, track conversations within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication across all photographers and staff members.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync that supports Gmail and Outlook, with access to templates, and tracking features, enabling your entire team to manage all communications directly from the CRM with consistent messaging.
• AI-powered features: AI tools assist in managing contacts and relationships across your growing team, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity for all 20-50 team members.
• Integrations: folk integrates via Zapier and Make and also offers an open API and native integrations such as WhatsApp (two-way sync), PandaDoc, Salesforge, Kaspr, and Allo.

Pros

• Ease of use: folk CRM is praised for its intuitive interface, making it accessible even to non-technical team members across your 20-50 person photography business with quick onboarding and a minimal learning curve.
• All-in-one: folk streamlines your entire team's workflow by allowing you to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving time and money across your operation.
• LinkedIn Integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn search pages, track conversations within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication across all team members.
• Personalization: Extensive custom fields, pipelines, and workflows that can be tailored specifically for photography businesses with 20-50 team members.
• Integrations: Beyond Zapier and Make, folk provides an open API and native integrations including WhatsApp, PandaDoc, Salesforge, Kaspr, and Allo for deeper connectivity.

Cons

• Reporting: Advanced reporting and forecasting are available in folk CRM, including pipeline and stage analytics, weighted forecasting, performance breakdowns by owner/channel/region/custom fields, and revenue insights.
  

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial for your entire team. After that, monthly or annual subscription plans with team discounts are as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month.

2. HubSpot

Hubspot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently across larger creative teams.

Key features

• Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, perfect for photography businesses with 20-50 team members to promote their services and capture new leads across multiple channels.
• Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, helping photography teams manage client bookings and sales processes efficiently across multiple photographers and staff.
• Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases, ensuring photography businesses can provide top-notch customer support and manage client inquiries seamlessly across team members.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency across your team, allowing photographers to focus on the most promising clients and opportunities.
• Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, streamlining the workflow for photography teams and ensuring all tools work harmoniously across your 20-50 person operation.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes it accessible for photography team members of all skill levels, allowing them to focus more on their craft and less on managing software.
• Comprehensive free plan: Offers a robust free version that includes essential CRM features, though may be limited for teams of 20-50 people requiring advanced collaboration features.
• Seamless integration with marketing tools: Integrates smoothly with marketing, sales, and service hubs, creating a unified platform for managing client relationships and marketing efforts across larger teams.
• Automation capabilities: Provides powerful automation tools for tasks like email marketing and lead nurturing, helping photography teams save time and maintain consistent client communication.
• Customizable dashboard and reports: Allows photography businesses to create customized dashboards and reports to track metrics like client bookings, sales, and marketing performance across all team members, gaining valuable business insights.

Cons

• High cost at higher tiers: Pricing can become expensive as you move to higher tiers, which may be prohibitive for photography businesses with 20-50 team members as costs multiply significantly.
• Limited customization in free plan: The free plan and lower tiers have limited customization options, which can restrict flexibility for growing photography businesses with diverse team needs.
• Complexity in advanced features: Some advanced features, such as custom reporting and workflows, have a steep learning curve and may require additional training across your team.
• Email marketing limits: Email marketing functionality in the free plan is restricted by limits on the number of emails you can send, which can be a drawback for photography businesses with larger client lists.
• Dependence on HubSpot ecosystem: The platform works best when fully integrated with HubSpot's other tools, which can limit flexibility if you use other software across your operations.
  

Price and plans

Prices and plans on the CRM suite for an annual subscription are as follows.

• Starter: $15 per user, per month.
• Professional: $450 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month.

‍

3. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales processes for growing creative teams.

Key features

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage client data, interactions, and project pipelines across your 20-50 person team, helping photography businesses act quickly on new opportunities and maintain organized client relationships.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences across team members, allowing photographers to focus on creative work and client relationships.
• Mail merge: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling photography teams to manage all communications directly from the CRM with consistent messaging across all staff.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track client interactions, forecast bookings, and gain actionable insights for business growth across your entire operation.
• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions for different team roles, with robust security measures to protect sensitive client data across your growing business.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The CRM is known for its intuitive and visually appealing interface, making it easy for photography teams to navigate and manage their client pipelines across multiple team members.
• Customization: The CRM allows for a high degree of customization, enabling photography businesses with 20-50 team members to tailor the platform to their specific client management processes with custom fields and workflows.
• Affordability: The CRM offers competitive pricing, making it accessible to medium-sized photography businesses, though costs can add up quickly when scaling to 20-50 users.
• Automation features: The CRM includes automation tools that help streamline repetitive tasks across team members, such as sending follow-up emails and moving deals through the pipeline, saving time and boosting productivity.

Cons

• Basic reporting in lower tiers: The reporting and analytics features in the basic plans are somewhat limited, requiring upgrades to access more in-depth insights needed for larger team operations.

• Price increases with add-ons: The cost of the CRM can increase quickly when additional features or integrations are added, and with 20-50 users, total costs can become substantial for growing photography businesses.
• Learning curve for new users: Although generally user-friendly, the CRM may still present a learning curve for photography team members unfamiliar with CRM systems, especially when training multiple staff members simultaneously.
  

Price and plans

An annual subscription plan basis is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

4. Zoho

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus designed for growing businesses. It features journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation. There's also comprehensive marketing capabilities, including lead nurturing, event management and customer segmentation for teams managing multiple clients and projects.

Key features

• Sales automation: Automates tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions across your 20-50 person team, allowing photographers to focus on capturing moments rather than administrative work.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Create and customize dashboards and reports to gain insights into client interactions and project statuses across multiple team members, helping photography businesses better manage their workflow and team performance.
• Lead and contact management: Manages client information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted marketing campaigns across your entire team, ensuring photographers can nurture relationships effectively at scale.
• Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks such as appointment scheduling and follow-up emails across team members, freeing up photographers to dedicate more time to their craft.
• Email integration: Integrates with popular email services, enabling photography teams to manage communications and marketing campaigns directly from the CRM with consistent messaging across all 20-50 staff members.

Pros

• Affordability: Offers competitive pricing with various tiers, making it accessible to photography businesses with 20-50 team members, though total costs can still be significant at scale.
• Customization: Extensive customization options allow photography businesses to tailor the CRM to their specific needs, including custom fields and workflows for different team roles and specializations.
• Integration with Zoho Suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing different aspects of a photography business across multiple team members.
• Multi-channel communication: Supports email, phone, social media, and live chat, enabling photography teams to manage all client interactions from a single platform across all staff members.
• Mobile accessibility: The robust mobile app allows photography team members to manage client relationships and access data on the go, with offline capabilities for field work.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users across a 20-50 person team, requiring significant time investment and training to master the platform effectively.
• Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly for photography businesses without technical expertise or dedicated IT resources to manage implementation across multiple team members.
• User interface: Some users find the interface to be outdated or cluttered compared to other modern CRM platforms, which can affect usability across team members with varying technical skills.
• Performance issues: Occasional reports of slow performance, especially with large datasets or complex operations, can hinder productivity across larger teams managing multiple client projects.
• Limited third-party integrations: While Zoho integrates well with its own suite of products, integration with third-party applications can be limited or require additional effort, potentially limiting workflow efficiency.
  

Price and plans

Free plan limited to three users, not suitable for photography businesses with 20-50 team members. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $35 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.

5. Streak

Streak is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that integrates directly with Gmail, allowing users to manage their sales pipeline and customer interactions from within their email inbox. Designed to simplify CRM tasks for smaller teams, Streak offers features such as email tracking, mail merge, task management, and pipeline visualization, all seamlessly embedded in Gmail's interface.

Differentiation

• Advanced CRM: Manage leads and customers efficiently with CRM features, though may be limited for larger photography teams with 20-50 members requiring more robust collaboration tools.
• Email tracking and snippets: Track email opens and use snippets to save time on repetitive responses across team communications.
• Contacts: Keep all client information in one place, making it easy to manage and follow up, though coordination across 20-50 team members may require additional organization.
• Google Workspace integrations: Seamlessly integrate with Google Workspace for a smooth workflow, beneficial for teams already using Google's ecosystem.
• Mobile access: Manage your CRM on the go with mobile access, perfect for busy photography teams working across multiple locations.

Pros

• Seamless Gmail integration: Manage CRM activities directly from your Gmail inbox, streamlining workflow for teams already using Google's ecosystem.
• User-friendly and intuitive: Minimal training required, making it accessible even for those new to CRM software, though coordination across 20-50 team members may require additional structure.
• Customizable pipelines: Tailor pipelines to fit your photography business processes, like client management and project tracking across team members.
• Email tracking and automation: Improve communication with features like email tracking, mail merge, and automated follow-ups across team communications.
• Collaboration features: Share pipelines, emails, and notes in real-time, enhancing teamwork within your photography business, though may be limited for larger teams.

Cons

• Limited advanced CRM features: Lacks detailed analytics and advanced reporting, which may be essential for photography businesses with 20-50 team members requiring comprehensive business insights.
• Reliance on Gmail: Not suitable for businesses using other email platforms, and dependent on Gmail's functionality, which may limit flexibility for diverse team needs.
• Basic mobile experience: Mobile app is more limited compared to the desktop version, which might be inconvenient for on-the-go use across multiple photographers and locations.
• Integration limitations: Fewer integrations with other software tools, which might limit effectiveness for businesses relying on various third-party applications across their operation.
• Potential email clutter: Managing a large volume of CRM data within an email interface can lead to clutter and disorganization, especially problematic for larger teams managing multiple client projects.
  

Price and plans

• Pro: Starts from $49 per user, per month.
• Pro +: Starts from $69 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

👉🏼 Try folk now to never miss a follow-up across your photographers and editors

Conclusion

Choosing the right CRM is pivotal for the success of your photography business with 20-50 team members. The right solution can streamline your operations, enhance client relationships, and ultimately boost your business efficiency across your entire team. From folk CRM's modern, AI-driven tools specifically designed for growing creative teams to HubSpot's comprehensive suite, Pipedrive's user-friendly interface, Zoho's extensive customization, and Streak's seamless Gmail integration, each CRM offers unique features tailored to different needs and budgets. However, for photography businesses with 20-50 team members, folk CRM stands out as the optimal choice due to its intuitive interface, scalable pricing, seamless team collaboration features, and powerful automation capabilities that can grow with your expanding operation. Evaluate your specific requirements, consider your budget at scale, and leverage free trials to find the best fit for your team. Start your journey towards a more organized and efficient photography business today by trying folk for free here.

Need a helping hand? Use our free tool to find your perfect CRM match.

FAQ

What is the best CRM for photographers?

The best CRM depends on team size and workflow. For 20-50 person studios, folk CRM stands out for pipelines, email sequences, contact enrichment, and integrations. Other popular options include HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, and Streak.

Do photographers need a CRM?

Yes. A CRM centralizes client data, schedules, and communications; automates follow-ups; tracks deals and projects; and provides reporting. Teams of 20-50 gain consistency, faster response times, and fewer missed bookings.

How much does a CRM cost for a photography team?

Most CRMs cost $15-$150 per user per month. For 20-50 users, expect $300-$6,450 per month before add-ons. Consider onboarding, email limits, and integrations when budgeting.

Is folk CRM good for photography teams of 20-50?

Yes. folk CRM offers customizable pipelines, email sequences, LinkedIn import, contact enrichment, team permissions, and reporting suited to 20-50 person studios. Try folk with a 14-day free trial.