Are you a photographer?
If you are, you might want to consider starting a website for your business and showcasing your past works. It will help you to get more clients from search engines. That means more revenue for you.
Anyway, we always recommend self-hosted WordPress for creating blogs and websites. We do the same for photographers. With WordPress and a photography theme, we will be able to easily create the website.
All you need to take care of is, a WordPress plugin for managing your images, gallery, etc… There are so many WordPress gallery plugins are available. In our experience, Imagely’s NextGEN Gallery is one of the popular, easy to use one.
And in this post, we will be showing you the complete NextGEN Gallery pro review.
NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN Gallery is a freemium WordPress gallery plugin created by the fine folks from Imagely. And thankfully, the free version plugin (NextGEN Gallery) can be downloaded from the official WordPress plugins repository.
For creating a basic thumbnail gallery, slideshow, list album, compact album, and more, the free version plugin is good enough. When you need more features and better support from the author, you might want to consider using the premium version of it.
Well, since most website visitors are professional bloggers and business owners, we will be reviewing the premium version of NextGEN Gallery in this post.
So, let’s get into it!
Here’s a short video intro of the plugin:
Features
What makes NextGEN Gallery Pro different from others? Probably, they offer better features and integrations than their competitors. Here, in this section, we will show you the features which you need to check at the plugin.
Optimized For Speed
Worried about your website’s loading time?
A caching plugin like WP Rocket will make your blog faster enough. But, if you are still using a bloated theme and poorly coded plugins, you will see extra loading time on your blog.
However, if you are wondering what will happen in the speed of the website after adding NextGEN Gallery to your blog, there won’t be a change!
The Imagely created the NextGEN gallery with the experts. So, you won’t see a single second delay in the loading time. You could easily check the performance with a speed checking tool like GTmetrix or Pingdom.
Pro Lightbox
Lightbox is one of the popular features which is used for lead generation and on gallery plugins. Thankfully, the NextGEN Gallery Pro got the same one.
If you click any image from the gallery,
You could see the specific image in fullscreen with a lightbox pop-up.
This is a cool feature!
Digital Downloads
Do you want to sell your images to someone online through your WordPress website?
With the NextGEN Gallery plugin, this is possible. The plugin comes with a feature called digital downloads. Once you got enabled it, you can set a price, allow users to pay for it and download the resource.
Once the user got hovered over the image, they will see the add to cart button.
And after that, you can move forward with the product!
Impressive, right?
Coupon
I have already said that with WordPress and this plugin, you would be able to sell photos. Well, for saving some money, most customers will look for a coupon code.
And with the NextGEN Gallery coupon settings, you will be able to create custom coupon code for your customers. They will be able to redeem the coupon and save money on the purchases.
You can create unlimited coupons through the settings.
Filmstrip Gallery
Another cool option available in the premium plugin.
Once you got added a bunch of images and assigned the filmstrip feature, you will see something like the above screenshot in the frontend.
Images will be changed in a few seconds.
PayPal Integration
PayPal is one of the popular and widely-used payment gateway. It is used by freelancers for collecting payments, big online companies, daily spending, etc…
Anyway, if you like to sell your photos and would need to accept payment via PayPal, the team offers PayPal integration in the plugin!
The simple configuration will be easier for every beginner and you can start collecting payments right away!
Stripe Integration
Want to accept credit card payments instead of PayPal?
With the Stripe payment gateway, you will be able to accept most credit cards on your website. Simple and secure way to accept payments on WordPress by selling photos.
Hover Captions
Want to show captions when someone hovers their mouse on your images? NextGEN Gallery Pro comes with that feature!
100% customizable!
Image Protection
When we use a Windows computer, we will be able to download every image appearing on a web page with the right-click method. Also, by drag and drop method.
Here, for protecting your images from unauthorized downloads, the Imagely team created an image protection feature!
From the plugin’s settings, you can enable protection for all your images configured via the NextGEN Gallery Pro.
More features are available in the premium version. You could check them all from their official website.
Pricing
Right now, there are 3 pricing plans are available for the NextGEN Gallery premium.
- Plus.
- Pro.
- Lifetime.
You can choose a pricing plan according to your use. In the plus plan, you can use the plugin only on one website. Also, you will get the basic premium features without NextGEN Gallery themes.
Pro plan will cost you $139 a year and it got more advanced features than plus plan.
If you choose the plus or pro plan, you might want to consider renewing your license key next year for updates and support.
On the other hand, the team offers a lifetime plan where you can get the plugin support, updates for the lifetime. It got every feature they offer for a better price. You just need to pay a one time fee of $399.
Payment can be processed with your PayPal account or credit card. Once you got paid for the plugin, you can log in to your Imagely account, download the premium plugin files, retrieve the license key.
Support and Updates
If you are using the free version plugin on your blog, you can get author support from the support forum. And as you know, when an update rolls out, you will get a notification in your WordPress updates page.
From there, you can update the plugin.
The premium version plugins will get support and updates according to their plans. For example, for the plus and pro plan, you will get support, updates for the next year.
In the next year, you might want to consider renewing the license key.
Also, the lifetime plan will get lifetime updates and support from the author team. It’s a great investment if you are serious about your business.
Is Any Discount Available?
Yes!
For WPArena users, the team will give a 20% flat discount on all their premium plans. All you need to do is, use the coupon code – SAVE20.
And this is a limited time deal. If you are planning to purchase the plugin, this is the right time for it.
Get Started With NextGEN Gallery Pro
You can get the premium version of NextGEN Gallery from below.
I hope you found this post helpful and enjoyed the read. As I mentioned above, the NextGEN Gallery would be a great addition to your photography blog or website.
If you enjoyed the read, please consider sharing this post with your friends and fellow bloggers on social media. It will help someone to choose the right photography plugin for his blog.
There is NO lifetime plan
Bad company. They sell themes with errors. They do not help their clients. Just hide their self. Really not recommended!!! Photocrati is the some company. Be careful. I am with them for over 10 years and not I have to change. Bad people. Just want to earn money for nothing.
Since paying for Imagely, it has been a terrible experience. The galleries rarely work as intended. The gallery thumbnails are often blurry and pixelated. The default settings don’t make any sense, they seem to be made for flip phones in the 2000’s. Default settings need to be updated. Customer support is slow to respond and keeps saying that pixelated images are, “good enough”.
Imagely is the worst gallery tool I’ve ever used.