Customer access tiers
Every shoot has an access tier that decides how the customer gets their photos. You set it per shoot, not per customer — the same customer can have one shoot on each tier depending on how that job was billed.
The two tiers
Watermarked
- Customers see watermarked previews of every image.
- They pay through the gallery to unlock the full-resolution originals.
- Uploads are processed by the watermarking service before previews go live.
Use this for the standard “preview-then-buy” flow — proofing galleries, package selection, à-la-carte image sales.
Prepaid
- Watermarking is skipped entirely.
- The customer receives the full-resolution files directly, no payment step in the gallery.
Use this when the customer has already paid you — a booked package, a retainer client, or any job settled outside the gallery.
How to choose
| Question | Tier |
|---|---|
| Should the customer pay through the gallery before downloading? | Watermarked |
| Have they already paid you for this shoot? | Prepaid |
| Is this a proofing/selection gallery? | Watermarked |
| Is this final delivery of a paid package? | Prepaid |
Good to know
- The tier is chosen when you create the shoot and reflects the billing arrangement for that shoot, so one customer can have both watermarked and prepaid shoots.
- On watermarked shoots, originals are never delivered until payment clears.
- On prepaid shoots there’s no preview step — double-check the customer and contents before sharing, since the full files are immediately available.
- All downloads (either tier) use secure, time-limited links — there’s no public bucket browsing.
Related
- Watermarking — configure the mark used on watermarked shoots.
- Payment setup — connect the account that collects watermarked-shoot payments.